June 19, 2014 – What stood out about Building Permit 100489025 was the estimated cost. $900,000 to “install one sign on the south elevation reading Trump.”
The River North address was that of Trump International Hotel & Tower. The sign contractor was Shaw Electric of Round Lake, Illinois. $200 was paid for the permit issued on October 15, 2013.
When contacted on October 24 by Loop North News, a Trump spokesperson said they were not aware of any plans for a sign.
Nearly four months went by. On February 21, 2014, Crain’s Chicago Business quoted Donald Trump saying a sign, spelling out his last name, will appear “very shortly” in a windowless area just below the 16th floor.
“We just felt that people love the building, so we decided recently to put it up,” Trump told Crain’s. “It’s part of the architecture of the building, and the people in the building love it as an identifier.”
Installation of the sign, he said, had been delayed by weather.
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More of a description of the sign was offered. The letters would be 20 feet tall, 144 feet wide, made of stainless steel, and backlit with white LED lights.
On April 29, Trump Tower started blocking access to its lower walkway along the Chicago River. A sign on a barricade read, “The river walk will be closed for six weeks due to construction and falling objects.”
The $900,000 sign made its first appearance on May 6 as a pile of letters on the 98-story building’s lower walkway (above).
May 14. (Left) The first letter of the new sign offers one surprise. By day, it reflects the neighborhood, just like the building it will brand. (Click on images to view larger versions.)
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(Above) May 23 (left) and May 27 (right).
June 12. (Left) Seen from steps off Wabash Avenue that lead down to the Riverwalk, three workers on a scaffold have just one letter to go.
Donald Trump continued his quixotic attempt to win over Chicago Tribune architecture critic Blair Kamin.
“As time passes, it’ll be like the Hollywood sign,” Trump told the unimpressed Kamin, who says the sign will “spoil the view from the Chicago Riverwalk” and that such branding “has run amok.”
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June 14. Installation of the sign has gone smoother than public reaction to it. Mayor Rahm Emanuel calls the sign “architecturally tasteless.”
Crain’s business columnist Joe Cahill says the sign is good for the Trump brand and not a threat to the city’s architectural legacy. MCO is pro-sign, urging its River North readers in an editorial to “give this a chance” and “there are surely worse ways” of branding a building.
By June 17, as the controversy had turned into a national debate, architecture writer Lynn Becker, appearing on Chicago Tonight, called the sign “a vacuum for eyeballs” but good in the sense that it is “spurring discussion about how much is too much.”
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| “This is a sign that I think has sort of jumped the shark,” said Becker (right), who lives one block from Trump Tower. “It’s taken it to a new level. It looks kind of cheap. It looks sort of like one of those magnetic letter sets that you’d buy for your kid at Walmart.” |
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Becker says bright lights are welcome in the entertainment district of the Loop but not north of it.
“The riverfront should not have quite that same level of commercialism. Number one, because the buildings are much bigger and number two, because it really is – we’re expecting with the construction of the Riverwalk – it is a civic space.”
Managers at Trump Tower in Chicago have politely declined comment, letting Donald Trump be the only spokesperson.
Speaking June 13 on NBC’s Today show, the real estate magnate explained how he decides whether to brand a Trump building with a sign.
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“If I like a building, if I like what’s going on, if it’s the right and appropriate thing and if it enhances the building, I will do that. The brand is very hot. We’re probably the hottest brand there is.”
(Left) Donald Trump in Chicago on March 14, 2012.
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Becker calls Trump Tower “an outstanding Chicago building” but he says, “Owners can do bad things to their creations.”
