4 May: The Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower)

On this date in 1973 the world's tallest building at the time, the Sears Tower, Chicago, was completed. 10 things you might not know about it.

1. First of all, it isn't called the Sears Tower any more. In 2009 it was renamed The Willis Tower. It was called the Sears tower because it was commissioned by Sears, Roebuck & Co., the largest retailer in the world back in 1969. The company didn't do as well as expected in subsequent years and ended up selling the building but they still kept the naming rights until 2009, when an insurance broker based in London obtained the naming rights as part of their lease and gave the tower its new name. Which didn't go down too well with the locals, who started an online petition to keep the old name. 90,000 people in Chicago signed it, and colloquially, many people still refer to it as the Sears Tower. Willis's naming rights expire in 2024, so it's possible the name will change again in a couple of years.
2. It's 1,450 feet/442.1 m high and has either 108 or 110 stories depending on whether you count the main roof and a mechanical penthouse roof.
3. It was the tallest building in the world for 25 years, and the tallest in the Western Hemisphere for 41 years. It remains, however, the world's tallest steel-construction building. All taller buildings use concrete or composite construction.
4. The building was designed by architect Bruce Graham and structural engineer Fazlur Rahman Khan.
5. It's actually nine separate buildings standing side by side. Two of the "tubes" have 50 floors; two have 66; three have 90; and two reach the full 108. The design, it's said, was inspired by a packet of cigarettes. The story goes that Graham and Khan were struggling with how to make sure this supersized building was stable. They went out to lunch to discuss whether it was even feasible. During that lunch, Graham picked up a bunch of Camels and held them in his hand, at different heights and they realised that was the answer. Similar designs have since been used in many of the world's tallest buildings.
6. The locals weren't happy about having such a tall building in the city because they feared it would interfere with TV reception and reduce the value of their property. There was a lawsuit aimed at preventing the building from going over 50 floors. The judge ruled in favour of Sears, on the grounds that perfect TV reception was not a basic human right.
7. When the building was renamed, the owners announced they were considering a plan to paint the structure silver as part of the re-branding process. The estimated cost was $50 million. It never happened.
8. The Willis Tower observation deck, called Skydeck, opened on June 22, 1974. It remains the highest observation tower in the USA. Even though One World Trade Center is a higher building, its observation deck isn't as high. Skydeck is on the 103rd floor at an elevation of 1,353 feet/412.4 m. It's reached by high speed elevator in 60 seconds and on a clear day you can see four states – Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin. There are also four glass-bottomed balconies for the braver visitors to stand on and look at the street below their feet. Skydeck's other distinction is that its Toilets are the highest loos in the Western Hemisphere (at least in terms of height from the street – there are loos in ski resorts which are higher in terms of height from sea level).
9. In 2006 a bunch of seven amateur terrorists threatened to destroy the tower. They were arrested and five of them convicted, although Deputy FBI Director John Pistole described their plot as "more aspirational than operational". Even so, the building's largest tenant at this time, Ernst & Young, decided they'd rather not risk it, and moved out.
10. On May 25, 1981, Dan Goodwin, wearing a home-made Spider-Man suit and using suction cups, made the first successful outside ascent of the tower. It took him seven hours, despite several attempts by the Fire Department to stop him. He said that he did it to raise awareness of the shortcomings in high-rise rescue and firefighting techniques. In August 1999, French urban climber Alain "Spiderman" Robert repeated the feat, without the suction cups. He used his bare hands and feet. In the time it took him to climb, the weather changed and a thick fog closed in. Robert reported that this made the glass and steel of the top 20 stories slippery. My advice is, don't try this at home.

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