Object Details
Artist
Margaret Bourke-White
Date
1928 (negative); ca. 1965 (print)
Medium
Gelatin silver print
Dimensions
Image: 13 1/2 × 9 1/2 inches (34.3 × 24.1 cm)
Mat: 18 × 14 inches (45.7 × 35.6 cm)
Credit Line
Gift of the artist, Class of 1927, and LIFE Magazine
Object
Number
65.573
When Terminal Tower in Cleveland was dedicated in June 1930, it became the fourth tallest building i(…)
When Terminal Tower in Cleveland was dedicated in June 1930, it became the fourth tallest building in the world. Originally planned to rise fourteen stories, it eventually reached a height of fifty-two floors. Its developers, the Van Sweringen brothers, hired Bourke-White in late 1927 as exclusive photographer of their commercial interests. Brimming with self-confidence, Bourke-White asked to rent a studio at the very top of the tower, a request that was refused since it was higher than even the brothers’ offices. She compromised and took a studio on the twelfth floor instead. In 1930, she closed her Cleveland studio, trading it for one on the sixty-first floor of New York City’s newly completed Chrysler Building. (“Margaret Bourke-White: From Cornell Student to Visionary Photojournalist,” curated by Stephanie Wiles and presented at the Johnson Museum January 24 – June 7, 2015)
