John Hancock Tower

skyscraper in Boston, United States

The John Hancock Tower, also called Hancock Place, The Hancock Tower, or The Hancock, is a 60-story, 790-foot (241 m) skyscraper in Boston. It was named for the John Hancock Insurance company. The tower was designed by Henry N. Cobb and was completed in 1976.[1] It has been the tallest building in Boston for more than 30 years. It is also the tallest building in New England.

200 Clarendon Street
A view of Hancock Place from the Charles River
John Hancock Tower is located in Boston
John Hancock Tower
Location within Boston
John Hancock Tower is located in Massachusetts
John Hancock Tower
John Hancock Tower (Massachusetts)
John Hancock Tower is located in the United States
John Hancock Tower
John Hancock Tower (the United States)
General information
TypeOffice
Location200 Clarendon Street, Boston, Massachusetts 02116, United States
Coordinates42°20′57.4″N 71°04′29.2″W / 42.349278°N 71.074778°W / 42.349278; -71.074778
Construction started1968
Completed1976
OwnerBoston Properties
Height
Roof790 ft (240.8 m)
Technical details
Floor count60
Floor area2,059,997 sq ft (191,380.0 m2)
Design and construction
ArchitectHenry N. Cobb of I.M. Pei & Partners
DeveloperJohn Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company

Its street address is 200 Clarendon Street. At first, John Hancock Insurance primarily used the building, but after 2004, some offices moved to a new building.

Architecture

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The John Hancock Tower was designed in 1972. It is a glass monolith. It was made in the minimalist and the modernist skyscraper design.

The largest panes of glass possible were used. There are no spandrel panels, and very few mullions. The floor plan has a parallelogram shape. The window glass is tinted slightly blue.

Characteristics

History

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The tower has an observation deck that was a famous attraction. However, the observation deck was closed after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.[2]

In 2006, Broadway Partners bought Hancock Place for $1.3 billion. By 2009, they had defaulted on the loans they used to buy the building, and it was forclosed.[3] On March 30, 2009, Hancock Place was sold at auction for $660 million[4] to a consortium of "Normandy Real Estate Partners" and "Five Mile Capital Partners". In October 2010, Boston Properties bought the John Hancock Tower for $930 million.[5]

 
Aerial view of Back Bay, Boston including the Charles River, 111 Huntington Avenue, Prudential Tower, and John Hancock Tower

The Hancock Tower was built by "John Hancock Insurance".

  1. [1] Pei Cobb Freed & Partners Retrieved 2010-04-20
  2. "Boston.com / US under attack". The Boston Globe.
  3. Gross, Daniel; Stuart Johnson (2009-09-05). "The Skyscraper That Ate a Billion Dollars: Boston's Hancock Tower and the coming commercial real estate crisis". Slate.
  4. "Financing a go for Bank of America tower in New York". Daily Commercial News and Construction Record. 2009-07-02. Archived from the original on 2009-06-12. Retrieved 2009-07-02.
  5. "Boston Properties buys Boston tower for $930M". Business Week. Retrieved 4 October 2010.

References

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  • John Hancock, for whom John Hancock Insurance was named
  • Prudential Tower for an image of the Boston skyline from Cambridge in 1963, with the old 26-story Hancock building a conspicuous landmark.

Other websites

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Preceded by
Prudential Tower
Tallest Building in Boston
1976–Present
241 m
Succeeded by
None