< From Atop Sears Tower, A Ledge With A View

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Heard on All Things Considered

July 2, 2009 - MELISSA BLOCK, host:

In Chicago, near the top of the 110-story Sears Tower, a new attraction opened to the public today. It's called the Ledge and if you're already feeling some vertigo, Chicago Public Radio's Susie An can assure you the Ledge is not for the faint of heart.

(Soundbite of crowd)

SUSIE AN: I'm on the 103rd floor of the Sears Tower in Chicago, about to check out the view from what designers call the Ledge. It's basically a glass box that juts out just over four feet away from the building and it allows visitors to stare more than 1,300 feet straight below them. Okay. Now I'm not - I don't have a fear of heights. It's the glass that I'm nervous about. Wow, it's a cloudy day but it's a spectacular view. I can see straight down to Wacker Drive.

(Soundbite of crowd)

Ms. PAULA LAVORSKY(ph): That first step going out on to the Ledge, especially when you wear progressive lenses...

(Soundbite of laughter)

Ms. LAVORSKY: ...it's enjoyable. It's really enjoyable to be able to see the city in this perspective.

AN: That's Paula Lavorsky of New Jersey. She says the $15 admission fee and the hour-long wait in line was worth it. Randy Stancik is the general manager of the Sears Tower Skydeck. He walks on the Ledge as if it's his own living room.

Mr. RANDY STANCIK (General Manager, Sears Tower): Five tons is the weight load, and that was way more than it was mandated for us to do. It's physically impossible to put five tons of people into these boxes.

AN: Stancik says before the Ledge was built, visitors here would constantly leave forehead prints on the windows up here, trying to get a better look. So as part of a multimillion-dollar renovation project, the tower's architecture team built these glass boxes. There are three of them and each can accommodate up to 15 people staring straight down and giving them the view they crave. But now the Ledge has created a different problem for window watchers - forehead smudges on the glass floor.

For NPR News, I'm Susie An in Chicago.

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