We Have a Winner! Place your bets: Willis Tallest Building Decision to be handed down Tuesday morning

Update, Tuesday morning:  The CTBUH has just ruled the One World Trade gains the title of North America's tallest.   In response to a question from the Trib's Blair Kamin, the CTBUH denied they responded to political pressure.  "Ultimately, these were 25 rational people who made a non-emotional decision."  Five hour meeting, heated debate, one abstention.  Blair's report.  And the official press release.

Ladies and gentleman! 

For the title, Tallest Building in North America . . . 

In this corner, at 1,353 feet, weighing in at 445,000,000 pounds, Willis Sears TOWER!!!!

photograph: Joe Mabel, Wikipedia

And in this corner,  at 1776 feet, minus hundreds of feet of TV antenna (or maybe not), One World Trade CENTER!!!!! 

Will the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat's "height committee" (there's a marker outside the meeting room:  You Must be THIS Tall to Serve") declare that the antenna a "spire" and include it in measuring the building's height, thereby clinching the title for New York, or will reject the antenna as a gaming-the-system poseur, leaving the Willis winner and still champion?

I know, the suspense is killing you.  But you only have to wait until tomorrow.

On Tuesday, November 12, concurrent press conferences - 10:00 a.m. in Chicago; 11:00 a.m. in New York - CTBUH will announce its final decision.  I'm hoping we'll see a Le-Sacre-like riot breaking out in the losing city.  If the decision goes against Chicago, look for the Willis's 300-foot-high antennas to be quickly enwrapped in styrofoam and declared structural for a return match.

And whatever side you're on - please, please, please:  Wager wisely.

Also Read:

Freedom Tower, from Tragedy to Farce

Retro Saturday - Revisiting Freedom's Limited Run: 4/11/06 - 3/1/09

click images for larger view - illustration: Wikipedia

Not that long ago, Freedom was big.  The 9/11/2001 attack that took down the World Trade Center brought a new appreciation of basic American values, and so it was announced that the WTC would be replaced by what architect Daniel Libeskind called The Freedom Tower, exactly 1776 feet high. A Museum of Freedom was also announced for the Ground Zero site, and in Chicago, the McCormick Tribune Foundation unveiled that it would establish its own Freedom Museum, in the Tribune Tower annex building that was originally constructed as a 600-seat radio studio for WGN.

image: Wikipedia

On April 11, 2006, in a building that had recently been a Hammacher Schlemmer gadget store, the Freedom Museum of Chicago opened its doors for the first time.  Designed by VOA, it had at its center a sculpture by Peter Bernheim and Amy Larimer called 12151791, a name that referenced the ratification date of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.  (Freedom of the Press, don't you know.)  Mounted on a framework of wires were a series of stainless steel plates, each inscribed with words commemorating �a historical record of freedom.�

12151791 was to be a work in progress, eventually to number up to 1,000 separate steel plates.  But, just as with the other �freedom� minded projects, �eventually� was never to be.  In New York, Libeskind and his cowboy boots were sent packing, and the Freedom Tower became David Childs bunkered One World Trade Center.  The Ground Zero museum never even got off the drawing board,  falling to the impassioned opposition of an extreme band of 9-11 victim families protesting the possibility that a Museum of Freedom might somehow, someday, exhibit something that they might find offensive.

And in Chicago, the McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum closed its doors less than three years after opening, its exhibits and art packed away, with a small portion remounted in The Freedom Express, a big tractor trailer on which, Flying Dutchman-style, freedom is on a never-ending journey of the seven-county area.

What happened? Revisit a story of high hopes and sinking realities, and take a peek inside a vanished interior:

Freedom's Just Another Word for Another New Museum
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Freedom Proves Fleeting