Manhattan Building | The Most Beautiful Places in Chicago with Geoffrey Baer
The Manhattan Building was one of the world’s earliest skyscrapers. Credit: Alan Brunettin for WTTW
Manhattan Building
It might be hard to imagine a time when 16 stories was considered a towering skyscraper, but upon the Manhattan Building’s completion in 1891, it was just that. The Manhattan Building was designed by William LeBaron Jenney. Previously, Jenney designed what some (though not all) consider the world’s first skyscraper, the Home Insurance Building. On the bottom of the Manhattan Building’s bays, there are spooky-looking faces looking down at the street below. The beauty of this building lies partly in its strength: skeleton frame construction – innovative in its time – supports the height of the Manhattan Building.
