Standing on West Pershing Road at Damen Avenue in Chicago, Illinois, sits an 11-story brick tower with a clock face on each of its four walls.
It was finished in 1917 as the water tower for the Central Manufacturing District, the private industrial district that ran these warehouses.
Two tanks inside held 250,000 gallons for the sprinkler system. Offices filled the floors underneath, and Abraham Epstein started his firm on the sixth floor in 1921…