Reliance Building

This guide to the Reliance Building traces the problem developer William Hale faced in 1890 when tenants with time left on their leases refused to leave a building he wanted torn down, and the unheard-of fix his crews attempted: jacking the upper floors and rebuilding the foundation beneath them while business went on above. It follows architect John Root's design for the new base, his death months later, and Charles Atwood's steel-and-glass answer wrapped in thin ribbons of white terra cotta. Look up at the windows that made this a forerunner of the glass tower.