The changing Chicago skyline
 

I've always been intrigued by city skylines, and I'm lucky to have a great view of Chicago's from my balcony.

Today for the first time in probably 3-4 months I stepped outside (it's a clear, crisp day today) and took a glance at the skyline. There are two new large additions that weren't there the last time I checked, I believe they are the Chicago Spire and the Trump Tower.

TT has been under construction for a while, but I believe the cranes have jumped up a few stories over the winter.

The Chicago Spire appears to be about half-way there; it's going to be taller than the Sears Tower and right now it's about half-way up.

It's still fascinating how these things can get so tall!

The Spire is halfway? Two weeks ago, it was still a round hole in the ground. Aqua, across the river, seems a little less than halfway up.

Spire site three weeks ago:
http://www.emporis.com/en/il/im/?id=597678
and many other buildings:
http://www.emporis.com/en/wm/ci/bu/cs/?id=101030

Trump Tower is more than a few stories up over the winter. While the building is not yet complete, the hotel has opened. As for the spire, huh?? Not sure which window you were looking out of, but when I look out my window, the spire is literally a hole in the ground!!!

The picture on the first link is accurate of what the spire site looks like, but many buildings in the second link have long since been completed.

Not sure of it's exact name, but I love the new building overlooking Grand Park from the South. My guess is it's 70+ stories. The building is stunning and stands above everything else in the area. There was an ad a week or two ago in the Trib. showing the views from the building. I was drooling. Anyone have the name?

Ok, it's not the Spire. :) There are two obvious buildings when viewing the city from the West.

The northernmost one has cranes that are about the height of the Amoco building. Then there's one just to the south (but still north of the Amoco bldg).

The Amoco building is now the Aon center. Aon means the number one in Irish (Gaeilge).

the "lotus" shaped building along Roosevelt is One Museum Park. will have to take another look to see how Lakeshore East is going these days.

btw, the second link I posted has construction photos of all those buildings, many of which are indeed complete -- click on them to see when those construction photos were taken.

Trump is obviously the tall one.

Waterview Tower is on Wacker at Clark - its gonna be about 90 stories and will have the Shangri-La Hotel. I don't think it's very high yet, however, but from where you are probably looks like it is just south of Trump across the river.

That's how it looks. :)

For those of you who are interested in such things, I recently discovered SkyscraperCity, which is a board about all things related to new buildings and developments. There is a fairly lively Chicago forum. See:

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/forumdisplay.php?f=104

The "highrise development" subforum has a page for virtually every current Chicago project.