Marina City Online - History - 1981 PM Magazine video

THE BIOGRAPHY OF CHICAGO’S MARINA CITY
Written by Steven Dahlman

In 1981, this television feature on WFLD’s Rich Koz was produced by Mike Leiderman for PM Magazine. Originally aired on July 31, it included video shot near Marina City.

Koz is better known as “Svengoolie,” host of a weekly show on WCIU. From 1979 to 1986, he was “Son of Svengoolie,” a local cult favorite on WFLD that featured such films as the 1955 3-D thriller, “Revenge of the Creature.”

Until recently, Mike Leiderman was executive producer of WTTW’s highly regarded nightly newsmagazine, Chicago Tonight.

Duration: 7:17

In this frame from the video, Koz (center) is turning left to enter the complex south of the east tower. The vertical rods were part of a domed entry to the east tower that was being constructed in 1981. It was not designed by Bertrand Goldberg Associates.

Geoffrey Goldberg describes what we are looking at...

“The Marina Cinemas sign is on the street, more or less. From the height of the bridge, where the shot was taken, the signs look to be low. They are more over by the bank and the office building, just off State Street. They were cantilevered off a single support (on the left) thus you can see underneath them.”

At right is how this area looks today, looking north on State Street. The only things unchanged are the northwest gate arm on the State Street Bridge (except for different colors) and the brick building in the background, 400 North State Street.

(Above) Koz enters the theater building where WFLD-TV is located, along with an escalator down to the restaurants, residential towers, etc. The parking cashier is visible in the lower right corner of the frame.

In this frame, he has entered the building, turned left and now turns right in the southeast corner of the building to walk toward an elevator. In the background is the west tower.

Recalls Koz, “Originally, entering the building lobby on the ground floor, you walked to the rear left, where the WFLD elevator was. This whisked you to the upper floors. First, the studio level, which contained WFLD’s master control and two studios – one of which eventually became a bullpen style office.”

WFLD Channel 32 was located at Marina City from 1967 to 1986, starting out in the office building where Hotel Sax is located today, but soon moving to the theater building now occupied by House of Blues. The television station was on the second and upper floors, above the movie theaters that closed in 1977. In the early 1980s the theaters were converted to office space for WFLD.

(Right) An aerial view of how this area looks today.