John Hancock Tower
The John Hancock Tower, also called Hancock Place, The Hancock Tower, or The Hancock, is a 60-story, 790-foot (241 m) skyscraper in Boston. It was named for the John Hancock Insurance company. The tower was designed by Henry N. Cobb and was completed in 1976.[1] It has been the tallest building in Boston for more than 30 years. It is also the tallest building in New England.
| 200 Clarendon Street | |
|---|---|
 A view of Hancock Place from the Charles River | |
| General information | |
| Type | Office |
| Location | 200 Clarendon Street, Boston, Massachusetts 02116, United States |
| Coordinates | 42°20′57.4″N 71°04′29.2″W / 42.349278°N 71.074778°WCoordinates: 42°20′57.4″N 71°04′29.2″W / 42.349278°N 71.074778°W |
| Construction started | 1968 |
| Completed | 1976 |
| Height | |
| Roof | 790 ft (240.8 m) |
| Technical details | |
| Floor count | 60 |
| Floor area | 2,059,997 sq ft (191,380.0 m2) |
| Design and construction | |
| Owner | Boston Properties |
| Architect | Henry N. Cobb of I.M. Pei & Partners |
| Developer | John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company |
Its street address is 200 Clarendon Street. At first, John Hancock Insurance primarily used the building, but after 2004, some offices moved to a new building.
Architecture
The John Hancock Tower was designed in 1972. It is a glass monolith. It was made in the minimalist and the modernist skyscraper design.
The largest panes of glass possible were used. There are no spandrel panels, and very few mullions. The floor plan has a parallelogram shape. The window glass is tinted slightly blue.
Characteristics
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History
The tower has an observation deck that was a famous attraction. However, the observation deck was closed after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.[2]
In 2006, Broadway Partners bought Hancock Place for $1.3 billion. By 2009, they had defaulted on the loans they used to buy the building, and it was forclosed.[3] On March 30, 2009, Hancock Place was sold at auction for $660 million[4] to a consortium of "Normandy Real Estate Partners" and "Five Mile Capital Partners". In October 2010, Boston Properties bought the John Hancock Tower for $930 million.[5]
The Hancock Tower was built by "John Hancock Insurance".
John Hancock Tower Media
The tower during the time when windows that had fallen out were replaced with plywood
The John Hancock Tower seen from the Prudential Tower in 2007; on the left is Copley Square (and Trinity Church), to the upper left is the Boston Common, on the right is the Massachusetts Turnpike (I-90) and to the top right is Logan International Airport.
View of the John Hancock Tower during a blue hour
The dark vertical notch is prominent in this view
Notes
- ↑ [1] Pei Cobb Freed & Partners Retrieved 2010-04-20
- ↑ "Boston.com / US under attack". The Boston Globe. http://www.boston.com/news/daily/14/attacks_hancock.htm.
- ↑ Gross, Daniel; Stuart Johnson (2009-09-05). "The Skyscraper That Ate a Billion Dollars: Boston's Hancock Tower and the coming commercial real estate crisis". Slate.
- ↑ "Financing a go for Bank of America tower in New York". Daily Commercial News and Construction Record. 2009-07-02. Archived from the original on 2009-06-12. Retrieved 2009-07-02.
- ↑ "Boston Properties buys Boston tower for $930M". Business Week. Retrieved 4 October 2010.
References
- Oct. 15, 1973. "Those Window Pains" Archived 2006-06-28 at the Wayback Machine, TIME.
- Harl P. Aldrich, James R. Lambrechts (Fall 1986). "Back Bay Boston, Part II: Groundwater Levels Archived 2005-04-05 at the Wayback Machine", Civil Engineering Practice, Volume 1, Number 2.
Related pages
- John Hancock, for whom John Hancock Insurance was named
- Prudential Tower for an image of the Boston skyline from Cambridge in 1963, with the old 26-story Hancock building a conspicuous landmark.
Other websites
- John Hancock Tower at Structurae
- library-towers John Hancock Tower
- Architecture Week When Bad Things Happen to Good Buildings
- The Perfect Skyscraper The Perfect Skyscraper
- Special Report on the Boston Globe; "The Hancock at 30" includes 4 audio slideshows
- Globe Critic, Robert Campbell, on the problems of the John Hancock Tower
- So, what should we call the John Hancock Tower now? (photos of construction)
| Preceded by Prudential Tower |
Tallest Building in Boston 1976–Present 241 m |
Succeeded by None |