Amoco Building

The Amoco Building (initially known as the Standard Oil Building) is a supertall skyscraper located in the East of Chicago Loop, at 200 East Randolph Street.

Overview
Built jointly by architectural firms Edward Durell Stone and Perkins&Will in a Modernist architecture, it was completed in 1973. The building has 83 floors, and is 1,136 feet tall which ranked it as the second-tallest building in Chicago - surpassed only by the Sears Tower - by the time Midtown Madness was released. The building formerly served as the world headquarters of Amoco.

The building relies on a tubular steel-framed structural system with V-shaped perimeter columns to thwart earthquakes, mitigate sway, minimize column bendings, and optimise column free-space.

Nicknamed "Big Stan" due to its prominent height, the tower was eventually officialy christened as the Amoco Building when the Standard Oil Company changed its name in 1985.

History
Built for the Standard Oil Company, which was previously headquartered on South Michigan Avenue (in the present Michigan Avenue Lofts), the tower was completed in 1973. Prior to that, at the groundbreaking ceremony on April 6, 1970, a helicopter flew over the site at an altitude of 1,136 feet to show the planned height of the building. When completed, the tower became the tallest marble-clad building in the world, the tallest building in Chicago (until the completion of the Sears Tower, in 1974), and the tallest building in the world without any major antennaes, spires or finials at the top. Problems began to arise soon after construction though, when the Carrara marble slabs covering the new skyscraper began to crumble, threatening to collapse. The 43,000 marble slabs were eventually removed and replaced with two-inch-thick panels of white Mount Airy granite in a cladding process that lasted from 1990 to 1992, at an estimated cost of over $80 million.

Trivia

 * While the building is supposed to be taller than the John Hancock Center, in Midtown Madness it appears to be lower in height.
 * While the building should stand North of the Art Institute of Chicago, it stands slightly to the northwest of it, presumably because the layout of the Near East Side was completely changed (possibly because of the game limitations).