What's Hidden Inside This Chicago Skyscraper's Dome?

This is Chicago's Jewelers' Building, famous for its six-ton father time clock, stunning artistic motifs, and the crown jewel dome which caps the skyscraper with an almost divine flair. A masterpiece so marvelous that it became a benchmark for America's City Beautiful movement. And although these breathtaking features have come to define the tower's reputation, its true resources were its security. In 1927, a jeweler could inconspicuously drive his car straight off a multi-level underground road network named Lower Wacker Drive, roll onto a steel platform, where his car would be handed off to a trusted official who secured the vehicle high inside the tower's belly, as the dealer himself wrote up a separate, secure passenger elevator to his office. And in the process, he'd ensure that his diamond transport would not be stolen. That was pretty much the entire reason this building existed. The men who built it were solving a violent and specific problem. Chicago's jewelry trade was being robbed at street level. So why did Chicago effectively build a skyscraper around a car elevator? And what's really inside of that dome at the top? Stay tuned to find out, as we uncover the fascinating history of Chicago's Jewelers' Building. I'm your host, Ryan Socash, and you're watching It's History. Let's go back to the 1920s, when Chicago's diamond merchants were clustered along South Wabash in a stretch of the city known as Jewelers' Row. For context, Chicago's Jewelers' Row rose in the decades after the Great Fire of 1871. The reconstruction boom drew watchmakers, goldsmiths, diamond traders, and wholesaler-stone dealers straight into a tight cluster of new lofts and office buildings. With regards to this era, the earliest known Jewelers' Building dates back to 1882, at 15-17 Wabash, though the trader's real anchor came later, with the Mahler's Building at 5 South Wabash, which opened in the early 1910s and eventually housed hundreds of jewelers. The customers were mostly a post-fire class of merchants and professionals, buying items such as engagement rings, watches, and fine gold to display their success. So, for the most part, the original location served everyone perfectly, but with time came a dangerous logistical challenge. Since precious stones are small, merchants of the time were known to carry them on their person, at times transporting them via Chicago's Elbe and growing suburban train lines. Remember, Chicago was the nation's railroad hub, so diamonds cut in Amsterdam could be hand-delivered by passenger train. The criminals promptly took note, and from there, armed robberies ensued. At the same time, Chicago was radically transforming its riverfront. They were tearing down gritty areas, like old food markets, to build glamorous towers in their place. As Wacker Drive, a double-decker thoroughfare, was in the works. Wacker Drive is Chicago's most famous stacked street. Opened in 1926 on the south bank of the Chicago River, it replaced the old Southwater Street produce market. The concept was simple, to sort traffic vertically. Upper Wacker Drive is the surface-level boulevard that carries ordinary cars to the fronts of buildings. Directly beneath it runs Lower Wacker, a dim passage for trucks, deliveries, and service traffic, where the towers along the river hide their loading docks. And aside from that, in a few stretches, there is a third, lower Lower Wacker Drive, which is used for utilities, rail access, and the city's tow and impound operations. In short, the whole arrangement exists because the river's drawbridges and lakefront rail lines forced the roadway to climb over them, so Chicago built the rest of the streets upwards to match. And so, between this new road artery and the rising crime, Chicago's dealers saw an opportunity to fight back. By the mid-1920s, a powerful financial syndicate known as the Riverside Plaza Corporation had conceived a tower unlike anything before it. They commissioned the office of Jeibel and Dinkenberg, but tragically, Joachim Jeiber died just one week before the final plans were approved, leaving his partner to carry on with the project alone. That surviving partner was Frederick Dinkelberg, and this was the crowning work of a long career. Years earlier, he had been one of the minds behind a building that every American would now recognize, New York's Flatiron. Some obituaries have even called him the father of the skyscraper, but his story doesn't end well. Dinkelberg had poured his fortune into stocks that were basically wiped out upon the crash of 1929. By the time of his passing in 1935, despite all of his success, he was living on relief. The man credited with the Flatiron could not afford his own funeral. However, his fellow architects ultimately chipped in and paid for a proper burial. With that aside, the first phase of the Jewelers Building project was to demolish all the old structures on the site, including a famous five-story structure dating back to 1872. From there, the steel framing went up, followed by cladding and cream-colored terracotta and various other decorations. Notably, there was also the gift from the Elgin National Watch Company, which was also one of the building's first tenants. And I have to point out that while this clock looks like a standard, elegant timepiece during the day, closer inspection reveals something far more ominous. A carved figure of Father Time, holding a sickle and an hourglass. Metaphors of death and the insurpassable passage of time. And I'd also like to add that although many sources claim the clock weighs six tons, many others also challenge that notion. At the top of the building was what the people of the time dubbed the Hawk's Nest, a space thought to have housed water tanks. However, that wasn't the case. Take a look at these four little towers on the roof. They look purely decorative, but each one hides a 5,000-gallon water tank with the building's fire sprinklers. Regardless, as time passed, the dome's reputation changed. In 1937, the Tribune announced that the building's owners would convert the open space into a restaurant named the Stratosphere Club. When renovation work was complete, the new establishment stretched across the top four floors. The kitchen was on the 37th. The dining room was between 38 and 39, with a balloon-themed cocktail lounge under the dome itself at the 40th story. Apparently, this concept was inspired by a similar club at Rockefeller Center over in New York. Now, you've probably heard that Al Capone ran a speakeasy up in the dome. Although it's the most repeated story about this building, it's also impossible. The Stratosphere Club didn't pour its first drink until 1937, whereas Prohibition had ended back in 1933, and Capone had been locked up in Alcatraz since 34. And in that spirit, there's a final twist. One of the building's real tenants in those years was the Illinois Liquor Commissioner, the very official who would have shut down any speakeasy. Directly below the crown were some of the most prestigious office views in the city. This section was known as the Tower. Located in the narrowmost tower, the 26th through 35th floors provided rentable offices on a floor plan of about 5,000 square feet each. This is where you'd find higher-end tenants who wanted the river views that made a statement. Just below that, on the 24th floor, was the on-site Terracotta Maintenance Center, which operated during the It was eventually closed and reclaimed for conversion into standard luxury commercial offices in the late 20th century. Beyond that, the truly magical aspect of this building, especially for the era, was found in its core, where there was a very unusual parking garage. Every floor between the 2nd and 22nd was built on a hollow square, a ring of rentable offices facing the windows, around an open core in the middle of the building. So the offices got all the light and air, whereas the parking garages filled the dead space in the center. In fact, back then, roughly a quarter of the entire structure was a garage, with room for about 625 cars. In practice, a driver arrived from Lower Wacker and drove straight into the enclosed building. From there, he'd hand his car keys to an attendant, who'd use a series of up to four elevators to lift that car into an assigned parking space at the building's core. And here's the security logic. The office ring and parking core were sealed off from one another on every floor. So the only place that an outside person crossed between the two worlds was that single controlled point down at Lower Wacker Drive, which was backed by an alarm system that could lock down the entire building. Once the dealer handed off his car, he'd ride a separate, secure passenger elevator directly to his office. And so he never once stepped foot on a public sidewalk, and the merchandise was safe. That system was the whole reason that dealers chose this real estate over others. And it worked. Aside from one smash and grab style robbery back in 1926, before the building was even opened, the security system had delivered as promised. Even so, just 13 years after the garage opened, it would be removed. The cars of the 20th century were tall and narrow, and they slid neatly onto parking lifts. But by the late 30s, Americans were driving longer, wider vehicles that no longer fit. Additionally, the elevators broke down constantly, and the custom parts needed to repair them were almost impossible to come by. So since most tenants could no longer get their car into the garage at all, the owners faced a dilemma. They could widen the elevator shafts that climbed up over 200 feet into the spine of the building, or they could repackage and sell tens of thousands of square feet of dead space on every floor between the 2nd and 22nd. The answer here was obvious. With that, in 1940, Cruz ripped out the entire system, kept one redesigned elevator for passengers, and filled in the other empty shafts. In that transformation, the old parking levels became ordinary office space, and they remain so to this very day. Unfortunately, the Stratosphere Club closed as well. By 1954, the cupola was taken over by a new tenant and had been transformed into a showroom for a commercial artist who kept the club's old circular bar standing right where it was. Years later, that same space was passed on to one of Chicago's most celebrated architects, who used it as a private gallery and conference room. Surprisingly, it pretty much remained that way all the way up until 2022. And throughout that time, the building had taken on a variety of different names. Chicagoans called it the Pure Oil Building for decades. Later, it became known as the North American Life Insurance Building, and so on. In 2024, the building was sold to a joint venture, and in 2026, they announced a major overhaul that would put a bar back on the rooftop and might turn the upper floors into hotels and apartments. So that's the story of Chicago's Jewelers Building. I think it's fantastic that there might be an establishment up under that dome sometime soon. Perhaps it's a reason for me to head back to Chicago. Let me guys know in the comments. Should I visit Chicago? It's a far way away from where I live. Anyways, I thank you all for watching. As always, this is Ryan Socash, signing off.