Off to the law library... and a look out the window

I don't know that I was inspired by my blogfriend Dave's recent example; I'd like to think that, despite paying a King's Ransom each month to Westlaw, I retain a fondness for books, an appreciation, that can occasionally overcome my considerable interia and get me out of my chair and over to the Daley Center Law Library. That is where I am headed momentarily.

Because it was designed as a courthouse, the ceilings in the Daley Center are all unusually high. Though only a 30 story building (31 if you count a floor entirely devoted to mechanical equipment), the Daley Center is taller than a lot of buildings with more floors. In fact, according to this Wikipedia article, the Daley Center stands 648 feet tall and is the tallest flat-roofed building in the world that contains fewer than 40 floors. This is something like being the world's tallest midget, I suppose. For comparison sake, the George W. Dunne County Administration Building across the street at 69 W. Washington (the old Brunswick Building) has 35 floors but stands only 476 feet tall.

This would make 69 West Washington shorter than the Chicago Temple Building next door. (Clarence Darrow maintained an office in the old Temple Building, you may remember. Or not.) Wikipedia claims that the Temple Building (77 W. Washington) is 568 feet tall. The 69 W. Washington Building just looks taller because it is a standard Miesian box; the Temple building has a Methodist Church, complete with spire, sitting atop the office floors.

Anyway... the views from the Daley Center Law Library, on the 29th floor, are rather spectacular. Today, I guess I shall have to make a point of verifying for myself that the County Administration Building really is shorter than the Temple Building.

But the real purpose of my mission is not to look out of windows, but rather to consort with books. I have a project due Friday -- and, so that I don't give away too many potentially identifying facts -- let me just recite an old legal maxim: "When the law is against you, pound the facts. When the facts are against you, pound the law." There is often a third sentence included in this saying: "When both the law and the facts are against you, pound the table." Let's just say that my mission this afternoon is to give the law just one more chance before I am reduced, in this particular case, to pounding on the table....