John Tishman, builder of historic skyscrapers, dies at 90
By Alex Dobuzinskis REUTERS - John L. Tishman, who joined the construction firm founded by his grandfather and went on to oversee the building of the soaring twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City and the almost equally tall John Hancock Center in Chicago, died on Saturday at age 90, a company spokesman said. Tishman died at his home in Bedford, New York, of respiratory failure, said Tishman spokesman John Gallagher. Aside from making his mark in New York and Chicago, Tishman supervised construction of major projects across the United States, including the EPCOT center at Walt Disney World in Florida, the upscale high-rise district Century City in Los Angeles and the interconnected skyscrapers of the Renaissance Center in Detroit. The New York-born Tishman, after graduating from the University of Michigan with an electrical engineering degree, spent a couple of years in the U.S. Navy and as a math teacher before in 1948 he joined the building firm founded by his late grandfather, Julius Tishman. He focused the company on construction management, which involved providing the firm's clients with a wide range of technical experts and resources to carry out major projects. When Tishman's firm was hired in 1965 to build the 100-story John Hancock Center, there was only one other building of that height in the world, the Empire State Building, which was completed in New York in 1931. Tishman's firm in 1969 completed the John Hancock Center, a black monolith with cross-braces that form X-shapes along its sides and two large antennae at its top that became one of Chicago's most striking visual symbols. It was designed by architect Bruce Graham and structural engineer Fazlur Khan. In 1967, Tishman's firm, Tishman Realty and Construction, was hired to build the twin towers of the World Trade Center, which was designed by architect Minoru Yamasaki, and the project opened in 1973 as two towers of 110 stories each, making them the tallest structures in the world at that time. Al Qaeda hijackers on September 11, 2001, flew two planes into the towers, leading to their collapse and the deaths of nearly 3,000 people. Tishman's wife, Suzanne, died in 2005. He is survived by his daughter Katherine Blacklock, his son and his daughter-in-law, Daniel and Sheryl Tishman, and three grandsons. (Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles; Editing by James Dalgleish)
