In 1962 it was not safe, not legal, but not uncommon for construction workers to ride hoists intended for lifting materials. Everyone did it. Mayor Richard J. Daley rode material hoists at many construction sites that he visited. At Marina City on June 19, 1962, using a material hoist to lift personnel was costly as seven workers fell ten stories when a gear shaft holding the hoist broke. (Left) A worker looks at tangled cables of the hoist that fell.

The two workers injured most seriously in the fall, Harry Epps, age 36, and Edward Torba, 41, suffered spinal injuries. Epps was partially paralyzed. William Higgins, 29, and Frank La Bruno, 28, a salesman for a company called Speed Fast, each sustained a spinal fracture and leg injuries. Harry Johnson, the 49-year-old operator of the hoist, received leg and chest injuries. Edward Reilly, 38, suffered leg and internal injuries. (Right) William Higgins lies injured in a bed at Wesley Memorial Hospital (now Northwestern Memorial Hospital).

The deputy city building commissioner said using the hoist to carry passengers violated city code. Sidney Smith conceded, however, it was the only practical way of getting workers to upper levels, and installing temporary elevators “would make construction costs more exorbitant than they already are.”

A permit had been issued for a temporary material hoist at Marina City, but it was specified the hoist would not be used to carry passengers. When use of the hoist in both towers was halted, workers had to be driven up the garage ramp to the 19th floor. They walked the rest of the way, sometimes as far as the 42nd floor.

The next week, a permanent passenger elevator was in service.

Harry Johnson was the first victim to file a lawsuit, less than a month later, asking for $500,000 from James McHugh Construction Company. Eventually, Marina City Building Corporation, Bertrand Goldberg Associates, Brighton Construction Company, and three other contractors would be named as defendants. After months of negotiation, a settlement was reached out-of-court on November 30, 1964, for $637,500 (equal to $5 million in 2014), one of the largest out-of-court settlements in Chicago at the time.

On August 6, 1962, a new city ordinance took effect, permitting use of temporary passenger elevators in high-rise apartment buildings during construction. This was intended to discourage use of material hoists to transport workers. In fact, Building Commissioner George Ramsey said his department would report to police any such use of material hoists.

Ramsey was out-voted by Mayor Daley, who announced three days before the ordinance took effect that the city would not be enforcing the ban on workers riding construction hoists. Instead, the hoists would be inspected twice each day and each project’s insurance company would certify to the city that the hoist is safe. Daley made this decision after meeting with officials of the Builders Association of Chicago, who said the ban would shut down construction on 52 high-rise buildings. (Left) 1962 news photo, looking down an elevator shaft in the east tower.