43 Story Plunge! 3 Killed Inside Marina City Tower Core Construction Site.

Three workmen plunged 43 floors (of the final 64-floors when completed) on September 15, 1961, in the fall of a scaffold-elevator inside the core for the east tower (completed before tower 2) at the new Marina City (aka Marina Towers) apartment project (converted to condominiums in 1977).

Marina City's East Tower core (foreground) where three men fell to their deaths.

The victims, all carpenters, were going up the core shaft with forms for concrete when the scaffold slipped off a hoisting cable hook from which it was suspended. A workman 5-feet above them was the only person who saw the scaffold fall.

FIRST TO DIE ON JOB

The dead were identified as James R. Toner, 24, of 10605 Throop street; Wallace E. Kumpula, 42, of 3231 N. Racine avenue; and Homer Fields, 33, of 8911 Normandy Avenue, Oak Lawn.

They were the first fatalities in the construction of the twin 64-story apartment towers on the north bank of the Chicago River between State and Dearborn streets. The towers are destined to become the first large circular apartment buildings and the world's tallest (at 588-feet each) reinforced concrete structures.

"We were raising forms inside the core and I was about 5-feet above them," said Mike Einsele, 26, of 7206 S. Western avenue. "They were standing on the scaffolding, and I guess a cable slipped. I heard a loud noise and I turned around to look. The bodies bounced crazily, hitting one obstruction after another until they hit bottom. I heard the thuds when they hit and I got sick. I got out of there then."

FOREMAN IN PERIL

A carpenter foreman standing on a ladder above the scaffold had a narrow escape. The ladder, which was supported by cables at the 46th floor and extended below the 43rd-floor level, was jerked from under him when hit by the falling platform.

"I grabbed a beam right there and hung on," said Ed Schreck, 32, of 3024 Jonquin lane, Downers Grove. "I thought I was a goner, for sure, but I wasn't going to let go. An ironworker on a deck at that level worked his way over and got hold of by back and dragged me up to the deck."

ONE WORKER STEPS ASIDE

Will Bridges, 42, of 6039 Vernon Avenue, said he was 10 stories below the scaffold level and had stepped out of the line of the scaffold's fall to get a drink of water. "Everyone inside the core heard them fall," Bridges said. 

Lee Bronson, superintendent for the McHugh Construction Company, general contractor, directed workmen who dug into debris at the bottom of the core to recover the bodies. All were taken to Henrotin Hospital, where they were pronounced dead.

James McHugh, an officer of the company, said the hook holding the scaffold sling had apparently moved or tilted in such a way that the sling slipped off the hook. He said the heavy wooden forms being taken up on the elevator may have jammed along the wall on the way up, causing tension on the hook and possibly bending it enough to permit the cable to slip off.

CALLED A FREAK ACCIDENT

"One of the workers heard a carpenter on the scaffold say, just before the fall, 'It jammed a bit'," McHugh said. He described it as a freak accident that did not involve any structural failure or failure of safety devices.

All workmen were called out of the core and work was halted for the day after the tragedy. One workman on the project, unable to find his brother who also worked there, rushed to the hospital and identified one of the dead men as his missing brother. A few minutes later, the brother was found safe at the building site.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

The Zenith Radio Store, Chicago, Illinois, 1936.

Console radio units are displayed in model living rooms in two illuminated, floor-to-ceiling windows of this Zenith Radio store in Chicago at the southwest corner of Michigan and Huron in September 1936. 

Personal radio purchases increased after the passage of the Rural Electrification Act [1] in 1936, which coincided with a drop in radio prices and increased sales for the Chicago company.

The southwest corner is now the "City Place" building at 676 North Michigan Avenue and home to the Omni Chicago Hotel.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

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[1] The Rural Electrification Act (REA) of 1936, enacted on May 20, 1936, provided federal loans for the installation of electrical distribution systems to serve isolated rural areas of the United States. REA crews traveled through the American countryside, bringing teams of electricians along with them. The electricians added wiring to houses and barns to utilize the newly available power provided by the line crews. A standard REA installation in a house consisted of:

A 60 amp, 230-volt fuse panel, with:

• A 60 amp range circuit
• A 20 amp kitchen circuit
• Two or three 15 amp lighting circuits

A ceiling-mounted light fixture was installed in each room, usually controlled by a single switch mounted near a door. At most, one outlet was installed per room, since plug-connected appliances were expensive and uncommon. 

A Freak Michigan Avenue Bridge Accident Occurred in Chicago on September 20, 1992.

The closure of the Michigan Avenue bridge threw a monkey wrench into downtown traffic on Monday, and there was little relief in sight. Mayor Richard M. Daley, who visited the scene, said he didn't know when the Bridge would reopen.

Meanwhile, crews planned to brace the southeast leaf of the span, one of four comprising the Bridge, to ensure it was stable enough to allow removal of debris.

The southeast leaf sprung open unexpectedly Sunday afternoon, sending a construction crane plummeting to the street and slightly injuring six people. The crane crashed through Michigan Avenue to Lower Michigan. The span rose so violently that it ripped off its structural mounts and twisted down and back into a concrete counterweight pit.

The Raised South Leaf of the Michigan Avenue Bridge in Chicago.

The Bridge has been undergoing a two-year reconstruction in a $31 million ($58 million today) project was scheduled for completion by late November. The southeast leaf was the last segment to be renewed.

Because of the work on the leaf and removal of some heavy steel, it has become unbalanced, officials said. But it was unknown how it became unlocked, permitting it to spring up.

Officials said a section of nearby Wacker Drive from Wabash to Stetson Avenues that was closed after the accident could reopen on Tuesday.

Jesus Lopez escaped serious injury Sunday when a leaf of the Michigan Avenue bridge suddenly sprang up, causing a 70-foot crane to come crashing to the street, damaging his car and others, and injuring six people.

"We were waiting for the bridge to come down so we could go back to work," said Lopez, a bridge maintenance worker. Lopez was parked on the south side of Wacker Drive, sitting in the driver's seat of his Ford Escort, when the southeast leaf of the Bridge unexpectedly rose, and the crane sitting on the Bridge came barreling down. Its cab became wedged in the gap between Wacker Drive and the Bridge. The boom, the crane's moveable post, toppled across Wacker Drive. Two traffic light poles, a crossing gate, and a Chicago police patrol car were damaged.

The huge iron ball and hook attachment to the end of the cable that runs along the boom bounced off the asphalt of Wacker Drive, leaving about a 4-inch crater and smashing through the rear driver's side window of Lopez's car, mangling the door, roof, read quarter panel and back seat.

"I guess I was just lucky," Lopez said, patting a silver cross that hung from his neck and trying to catch his breath. "I'm glad I wasn't sitting in the back seat."

The six who were injured were passengers on a CTA bus. All of them were treated for "bumps and bruises" at area hospitals and released. According to police, Michigan Avenue from Randolph Street to Ohio Street was closed to vehicle traffic.

The accident led to an acknowledgment on the part of the city that none of its inspectors had the experience or training to determine the proper balancing of weight on a bridge under construction.

The contracting team working on the Michigan Avenue bridge during the freak accident bears full responsibility for the costly mishap, experts hired by the city. The investigators exonerated the city bridgetender on the scene when the span's southeast section suddenly flew open. And on December 3, 1992, Chicago Transportation Commissioner J.F. Boyle Jr. asserted the man was "absolutely blameless."

The unnamed employee, a 12-year veteran, insisted to investigators that he did not activate the switch that normally operates a lock on the 1,700-ton bridge section. But even if he hit the switch inadvertently, the contractors were supposed to have disconnected it.

The three unsafe conditions were found by engineers included:

• Two locks-6 1/2-inch thick steel bars located under the rear of the leaf and designed to secure it in the "down" position were bent instead of straight, robbing them of strength.
• Motors that engage and disengage the locks were left fully operational.
• Electrical circuitry connecting lock motors with controls in the bridgetender's tower was fully connected, while safety features were bypassed.

Though the "unsafe construction procedures" set the stage for the accident, it had not been determined what actually triggered the Bridge's release. Possibilities include a structural failure of the rear locks or a mechanical or electrical disengagement of the locks. For the bridgetender to fully disengage the locks, he would have had to press control for eight seconds.

The investigation had gone to the point where they could go no further.

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The Michigan Avenue Bridge was renamed the "Du Sable Bridge" in October of 2010 to honor the "Father of Chicago," Jean Baptiste Pointe de Sable (the "du" of Pointe de Sable is a misnomer. It is an American corruption of "de" as pronounced in French. "Jean Baptiste Point du Sable" first appears long after his death) a French Haitian and the city's first non-native settler.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.