The Machines That Built the John Hancock Center (1968)

1,000 feet up, the men building Chicago's John Hancock Center thought it was unbreakable. Below them, 26 of its 57 foundation legs were secretly hollow, filled with mud where solid concrete should have been. This is the story of the machines that built Big John, and the hidden flaw that almost buried a skyscraper before it ever stood. Enjoyed this documentary? Subscribe for more deep dives into the world's most powerful machines: 👉 Construction Legends:    / @constructionlegends   ☕ Support our work: https://buymeacoffee.com/Construction... In 1966, developer Jerry Wolman set out to raise the second-tallest building on Earth on the soft lakefront clay of Chicago's Magnificent Mile. Then the foundations began to fail. This documentary walks up the tower one machine at a time: the caissons drilled nearly 190 feet to bedrock, the trussed-tube design that engineer Fazlur Rahman Khan proved on this tower and that still shapes every supertall skyscraper today, and the stiffleg-derrick creeper cranes, borrowed from bridge-building, that climbed the tapering steel three floors at a time. We separate the verified record from the ghost-tour legend, including the truth about who did, and did not, die building it. 📌 CHAPTERS 00:00 The Impossible Tower on the Magnificent Mile 06:43 The Hollow Legs: Chicago's 1966 Foundation Crisis 13:15 Fazlur Khan and the Tube That Changed the Skyline 19:49 The Creeper Cranes and the Men on the Steel 27:01 Topping Out, the Vertical City, and the Legacy ▶ MORE FROM CONSTRUCTION LEGENDS 🏙️ The Machines That Built the Sears Tower in 21 Months (1970-1973):    • The Machines That Built the Sears Tower in...   🗽 The Machines That Built the World Trade Center (1966-1973):    • The Machines That Built the World Trade Ce...   🏢 The Machines That Built the Empire State Building in 410 Days (1930-1931):    • The Machines That Built the Empire State B...   SOURCES Yasmin Sabina Khan, Engineering Architecture: The Vision of Fazlur R. Khan (W. W. Norton, 2004) Encyclopedia of Chicago — John Hancock Center: http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistor... SAH Archipedia — 875 North Michigan Avenue (John Hancock Center): https://sah-archipedia.org #construction #heavymachinery #engineering #crane #excavator #megaproject #documentary #JohnHancockCenter #BigJohn #Chicago #skyscraper #FazlurKhan #structuralengineering #architecture