Autobiography of a Skyscraper

317 pages

Building a skyscraper requires more than steel and concrete—it takes a wide array of people, each with their particular skills. In Autobiography of a Skyscraper, legendary developer Francis Greenburger offers an unprecedented behind-the-scenes look at the construction of Chicago’s 1000M tower, describing the way almost a thousand people—from concrete workers to concierges, architects to investors—transformed an empty lot into a seventy-four-story landmark.

“Real estate isn’t about property; it’s about people,” Greenburger reflects in a book that, throughout, underscores his point. This is the story of an Italian immigrant who bet his family’s entire inheritance on a hole in the ground; of window installers dancing on narrow ledges eight hundred feet above Michigan Avenue; of a chief concierge managing a community of seven hundred residents across eighty thousand square feet of amenities; and of the safety manager who “babysits grown men” to keep them safe hundreds of feet in the air. These and dozens more stories turn the spotlight on the extraordinary people who brought 1000M to life and keep it running today.

The story unfolds with cinematic scope—helicopter shoots for marketing renderings, midnight crane installations, the delicate negotiation of moving a five-thousand pound marble sculpture through a lobby before the revolving doors are installed. Yet it never loses sight of the human scale: the leasing agent explaining why closet space matters more than square footage, the chief engineer worried about scuff marks on hand-applied Venetian plaster, the resident finding inner peace playing Bach on the communal grand piano.

Autobiography of a Skyscraper arrives at a moment when cities worldwide are grappling with questions of growth, community, and what it means to build for the future. Through the lens of one remarkable building, Greenburger and Paley have created both a paean to the collaborative spirit of urban creation and an intimate portrait of how, against all odds, a vision can become reality.