Built in 1929 for the Colgate-Palmolive-Peet Company is a 37 story high rise north of the river "away from the noise and soot of The Loop!"
From the Chicago Tribune August 13, 1930: "The Lindbergh Beacon, the gift of Elmer Sperry to the city of Chicago, arrived here yesterday and was raised to position 600 feet above Michigan avenue atop the Palmolive building. It is the most powerful beacon ever constructed, having a beam 500 miles in length."
Who the heck is Elmer Sperry, you ask? Great question! Elmer Ambrose Sperry was an entrepreneur and inventor who was the founder of the Sperry Gyroscope company. He was interested in aircraft and navigation. "Starting in 1914, Sperry worked with US Navy to develop higher-power lighting for use with naval turrets. Sperry and his team created a new kind of arc lamp that heated a gas to incandescence, creating a source of light five times brighter than other continuous light sources of the time. In 1918 he produced a high-intensity arc lamp which was used as a searchlight by both the Army and Navy."
Thank you, Wikipedia.
Continuing from the 1930 Chicago Tribune article: "The two-billion-candle-power beacon weighs more than a ton. By its light, pilots will be able to read a newspaper 50 miles away. The beam will be visible to pilots 300 miles away from Chicago. The beam would be visible 200 miles farther but distances greater than 300 miles, due to the earth’s curvature, it is an at an altitude too great for airplanes to reach."
In 1965, the building was bought by Playboy Corp. The beacon was turned off during the war in February 1942. It was turned back on December 1944. It was turned off again in 1973 during the energy crisis. Aaaaaand turned back on in 1974.
The beacon glowed until 1981 when complaints began flooding in from dwellers of nearby residential high-rises. In 1990 during an extensive renovation, the original Lindbergh beacon was removed and donated to the Aviation Museum in Oshkosh, WI. In its place was a stationary light that glowed, which had only 14,000 candlepower.
However, a new beacon was replaced the globe during yet another renovation of the Palmolive Building in 2001. The new beacon manufacturers, the Skyview Co., from San Antonio, TX, were suppose to restrict the rotation of the light to just 120º out over the lake. But what ended up during the August testing was a much larger arc.
Right into peoples' windows.
At 1am.
According to an article in the 30 August 2001 Chicago Tribune, Dan Cantor was innocently typing a paper for his Loyola Law classes when he decided to look out of his 58th story window in the 400 block of Erie. The light that blinded him was so much that he called 911.
Eventually, the Skyview Co. were able to adjust the beacon to prevent blinding innocent high-rise dwellers. The light only operates on Saturdays and Sundays from sundown to 11pm, and sweeps in a small arc over the lake.
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