The singing tree

It is December 24, 1967, the day before Christmas. President Johnson has returned to the White House after a four-day trip to Australia, Thailand, and Vietnam. China sets off a nuclear test, a 15-25 kiloton fission detonation. For the first time in its eight seasons, the Dallas Cowboys are in the NFL playoffs. They beat Cleveland, 52 to 14, but will lose to Green Bay the following week.

At Marina City, a Christmas tree in the main lobby puts on a show of colored light, synchronized with music. An article in the Chicago Tribune describes the tree as about eight feet tall, sprayed with artificial snow, with red, blue and green lights.

Leon Shan, a graduate student of electrical engineering whose parents lived at Marina City, had been building the display for the past three years.

Shopping Bag Bandits While his brother, Charles, was busy running the Chicago Housing Authority, Morris Swibel (1920-1998) was in charge of the rental office at Marina City. On the morning of September 21, 1968, Morris was robbed of $500 by two men he described as well dressed and carrying a flowered shopping bag that contained a sawed-off shotgun. (Left) Morris Swibel (standing), Vice President of Marina Management Corporation, in a 1965 photograph with John Kolpack, a tailor for Marina City Valet Service.

Swibel said the men strolled into the rental office on the lower level, called him by name, and asked him to look in the bag. “They were very calm and almost polite,” he told the Chicago Tribune. “It all happened in about 60 seconds. They weren’t interested in checks, just cash.”

The men motioned him toward a desk drawer that contained cash and ordered him to hand over the money. They stuffed the bills into the shopping bag, then told Swibel to walk toward the nearby elevators of the east tower. After the men fled through the State Street entrance, Swibel called police.

Earlier in the year, two burglars made off with $5,000 in jewelry and other valuables (the equivalent of $35,000 in 2011) from the east tower apartment of a research scientist at Marina City. They ran a vacuum cleaner to cover the noise they made breaking into the apartment. A neighbor who got suspicious saw the men as they fled the building.