Billy Connolly's Route 66_ The Big Yin on the Ultimate American Road Trip - Billy Connolly [11]
Whatever its name, though, the tower was a beauty and I loved it. Riding up in the lift – or, more appropriately, the elevator – a recorded message reeled off some very impressive statistics about this 1,450-foot ‘modern marvel’. In just seventy seconds we shot past the height of the Great Pyramid, the Seattle Space Needle, the Gateway Arch in St Louis, Moscow State University, the Eiffel Tower and so on until we emerged 103 floors above ground level. There were still another five storeys above me, but this was the viewing floor, which has the most spectacular views, if you like that kind of thing. All of Chicago, a large chunk of Lake Michigan and a fair bit of the State of Illinois were spread out around the tower. It was stunning.
Much of what made the view so spectacular was there because of the events of four days in 1871, when Chicago was devastated by a massive fire. At that time, the entire city centre, stretching over four square miles, was built of wood. Eighteen thousand properties were destroyed, 300 people died and 90,000 were made homeless. Only the water tower that I’d ridden past earlier in the day was left standing. It was remarkable to think that all of central Chicago was rebuilt around that tower. Nowadays, it served as a monument to the Great Fire of Chicago. (Incidentally, on the same day that the fire broke out, not far from Chicago, a forest fire killed even more people, but few people ever mentioned or remembered it.)
Once the fire had burned itself out, Chicago’s mayor, a guy called Roswell Mason, sent out an all-points bulletin. He said: ‘Tomorrow, one hundred thousand people will be without food and shelter. Can you help?’ It worked like magic. People responded unbelievably well. Millions of dollars flooded in, and the cash enabled the city authorities to rebuild Chicago from scratch, something that had never been done on such a large scale. Architects, builders and anyone else with a good idea flooded in from all over the world. There was no rule book in 1871, no health and safety officers or building regulation inspectors, so the rebuilding of Chicago was fast and furious.
But possibly the most significant factor in the whole process was that seventeen years earlier, a bedstead maker in New York – Elisha Otis – had designed a hoist for lifting heavy equipment around his factory. Otis’s device had ratchets fitted to the sides of the hoist. These ratchets, which allowed a platform to move up and down smoothly, also snapped into action at any sudden downward movement, preventing a lethal plunge. Otis immediately realised that he had something special on his hands, so he urged the bed company to market his invention. At an impressive public display at New York’s Crystal Palace in 1854, Otis ascended on his hoist to the height of a house, then ordered someone to cut the rope with an axe. The audience gasped as the ratchets sprang into action and Otis remained suspended in mid-air. Everyone was very impressed.
Three years later, Otis turned his invention into the first ‘safety elevator’, which was installed for passenger use in a New York department store. Of course, it was more than just a gimmick. By transporting people rapidly and effortlessly upwards, it made multi-storey buildings practical and safe for the first time. Thanks to Otis, no one needed to fear the vertical abyss opening up beneath their feet as they ascended a skyscraper like the Sears Tower in a high-speed lift. If the steel cables hoisting up the cart snapped, they’d feel nothing more than a slight wobble as the ratchets sprang into action. The lift would stay put, suspended in mid-air until help arrived.
So, when Chicago’s leaders started rebuilding