inspired by the Trump Tower and Spire threads..

which one of these black skyscrapers do you prefer? i gotta go with the Hancock. i love the trapezoid shape and the white light at top (extra cool when it's pink during breast cancer awareness month). i like it's futuristic, 'Blade Runner' look.

i don't like the wacky geometry of the Sears Tower or its cluttered, utilitarian looking spires. it looks like a lego tower. and the name sucks.

i see tourists mistaking the Hancock for the Sears Tower all the time. maybe that says something.

The Hancock building holds much more nostalgia with me. I took a crazy girl I dated there, and then ended up writing about it.


Hancock Building. All Day.

The Sears tower is still impresive to me when I see it.

Hancock is just another building.

I prefer the sears tower

From an aesthetic standpoint, I gotta agree that the Hancock is a nicer building. Single sleek line rising to a vanishing point far above the building. It's a big monolith, which is kind of appealing.

From an engineering and building design standpoint, I like the Sears. It's 9 big columns (it's a square...3 columns to a side) of different heights, tied together.

They're both quintessential Chicago type buildings. Bigger and more muscular than needed to assuage our 2nd city inferiority complex. Plus, both were the result of Chicago firms full of local folks. We don't buy our skyscrapers from outside like the Malaysians...we grow 'em ourselves...

Having visited both some years ago, I'm saying Hancock--better design, better placement, better view, better elevator traffic flow. Sure, the Sears is taller, but that's all it has going for it.

The Hancock looks better, and is home to large number of spiders living outside the windows. In June, they are seen walking up the south face and down the north face and nobody knows why.

But the Sears, that fucking thing sways like a drunk in the wind - several feet. At the top, it's like a suspension bridge in a 20MPH wind. So commonplace is the tourist pants-shitting and panic, they'll close the observation deck if it gets too windy.

So cool, the air vs. steel matchup. Plus my Dad worked on the elevators on the Sears. It's one thing to stand on top of the wobbly fucker when it's finished, quite another to have the job of welding a straight line up through its core.

Sears. (Pronounced: Searce)

-r

I spent one hell of an evening on the party floor of the Sears. One hell of an evening.

SEARS.