‘Man who built America’: Skyscraper giant John Tishman, dies at 90

He was the man who shaped modern America. John L. Tishman, who joined the construction company 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. 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. Tishman died at his home in Bedford, New York, of respiratory failure, said Tishman spokesman John Gallagher.

We are now in the service business for others.

John L Tishman

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. 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.

Tishman