Serving the Loop and Near North neighborhoods of downtown Chicago

June dates in
Marina City history

  • June 1961 – The 32-foot-diameter central core for the east tower rises about four stories from the foundation.
  • June 19, 1962 – Seven workers building the east tower are injured when a gear shaft holding a construction hoist breaks, causing it to fall ten stories.
    • June 1, 1964 – The Marina City marina opens. Manager Tom Dollnig expects a sales showroom to be completed in mid-July.
    • At left, a 27-foot Chris Craft owned by Marina City resident Roy Fried is lowered into a slip.

    June 1967 – Henry John Deutschendorf Jr. and his wife, Annie, move into a one-bedroom apartment on the 47th floor of the west tower. Deutschendorf is better known as musician John Denver.

    National Geographic

    • June 1967 – Marina City is on the cover of National Geographic. Seen through a fisheye lens, the view of the Chicago River from east of the Dearborn Street Bridge is part of a 53-page article on Illinois.
    • June 25, 1967 – A fire on a 59th floor patio attracts about 50 fire fighters to Marina City. Many of them had to climb 19 flights of stairs because frightened residents were using the elevators.
    • June 6, 1981 – James J. Riordan, deputy superintendent of the Chicago Police Department, becomes the highest-ranking Chicago police officer killed in action. He is shot by a former undercover police officer from Iowa at the Captain’s Table, a restaurant and piano bar on the lower level of Marina City.

  • June 1990 – Hiffman Schaffer Anderson Inc. proposes leasing the top ten stories of the office building at Marina City to Marriott Corporation as an economy hotel for its Fairfield Inn chain. They want to demolish the unused skating rink and vacant theater building, replacing them with one-story glass retail buildings. The purchase of the commercial property at Marina City does not happen. Daniel G. Anderson blames architect Bertrand Goldberg – who objected to his theater building being torn down – for the deal’s collapse.
  • June 2007 – Renovation of Hotel Sax is completed.

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