“Cities are ever-changing organisms, shedding elements of the past while retaining others. Striking the right balance is the challenge, and it’s easy to feel cynical about the moneyed interests driving so many changes that remove, bit by bit, the idiosyncrasies of our surroundings.
“Which is why it’s a pleasant surprise to learn that the office-to-residential conversion underway at the Rector Building in the Loop includes the restoration and repair of the weather bell affixed to its second story at the southeast corner of Clark and Monroe streets.
“Non-functional for at least a decade, if not longer, it once provided a simple forecast. When lit up red, the thermometer was expected to rise. When yellow, temperatures were expected to drop. And when green, conditions remained unchanged. The bell’s color would flash if rain or snow were imminent.
“Now, after a prolonged dormant period, the weather bell is aglow once again.
“‘The bell was in pretty rough shape,’ said Gary Stoltz, the chief design and development officer at the private equity real estate firm R2, which is redeveloping the building. ‘It’s acrylic with stainless steel accents, and then you have the metal panel that kind of clads the armature. All of that was in some form of disrepair.’
“But according to Stoltz, ‘I think it would have cost more to take the bell down and then do repairs to the façade behind it.’ Also, ‘if we wanted to maximize profits, we would not be converting and adapting an office building into residential. It’s not an excellent way for the owners to make money; building new would have been less expensive. But this is absolutely necessary for Chicago’s future. We’ve been working on it for four years and two mayoral administrations; you basically have to convince their teams why this is important.’
“The high-rise was built in 1905 by the restaurateur Charles E. Rector and it is ‘one of the oldest surviving examples of early commercial high rises designed by architect Jarvis Hunt,’ combining ‘classical design features with aspects of 20th century modernism from the Chicago and Prairie Schools,’ according to Preservation Chicago’s website.
“In 1884, Rector opened an oyster house at Clark and Monroe — the future site of a much larger building to come — and it became notable enough that it shows up in Theodore Dreiser’s 1900 novel ‘Sister Carrie,’ when a character dines at Rector’s, a restaurant ‘of some local fame, which occupied a basement at Clark and Monroe Streets.’
“Originally, there was no weather bell. That wouldn’t be added until a half century later in 1951, when the Rector Building became the headquarters for Bell Federal Savings and Loan, a bank founded by the employees of Illinois Bell Telephone. The bank occupied offices in the building until 1997.
“Ornamentally, many financial institutions of the 20th century distinguished themselves with a public clock as part of the building. It seems that decision-makers at Bell Federal decided to take that idea a step further with the installation of the weather bell.
“The bank was an alternative to the more starchy, white-collar financial institutions up and down Monroe and Clark and LaSalle streets, and ‘it must have appeared that perhaps Bell Federal Savings was sending a message,’ said Ward Miller, the executive director of Preservation Chicago. ‘The idea might have been that they were a little more contemporary, hip and fresh versus the solid and traditional banking building across the street with its large analog bronze clocks.’
“Miller is referring to the original First National Bank building at Dearborn and Monroe, a contemporary of the Rector Building designed by Daniel Burnham and torn down in 1970.
“‘We almost forget now that Monroe Street was a big financial powerhouse,’ he said. ‘But there have been so many changes — demolitions but also consolidations of banks — that you don’t get that same feeling that you used to get when you looked down Monroe Street, when there were a whole slew of bank buildings.’
“‘This electronic flashing bell would have really distinguished the location in this darkened canyon of buildings at the time,’ said Miller. ‘And then in the 1960s and 1970s, if you looked down the street, you would have seen the Italian Village neon sign sticking out in the same view as the weather bell. And if you looked further down, there was the Monroe Theatre, with its flashing marquee. And if you looked down Clark to Madison, you would have seen the Clark Theatre with its marquee and flashing lights. So the bell was competing not only with the bronze clock of First National Bank, but it was also competing with these theater marquees and these restaurants. The Loop was more than just big banking operations and office buildings, and the Rector Building was on this border between the financial district and the restaurant-entertainment district that we sort of forget about now because so much of that has been sanitized and demolished and removed.’
“But the bell remains.
“‘If you talk to anyone in Chicago and you say the building with the weather bell, they know it,’ said Stoltz. ‘So from a history and branding perspective, the weather bell was a really important part for us. Yes, it was less money to rehab it than to remove it, but also it’s a selling point. It’s something people talk about. Anyone who has experience in the Loop, it means something to them. It’s a landmark.’
“That’s because it used to be controlled manually, relying on a human being to stay alert to changes in the forecast. ‘There’s a dial in the basement and you just turn to what the weather is. But now it’ll be completely digital.’ There is a time and temperature display, and they’ve also installed a mini-weather station on the underside of the bell itself, which will determine which color is displayed.
“Unlike public clocks, a weather bell is a rarity. According to Miller, there was, at one time, a branch of Bell Federal Savings on Michigan Avenue and Lake Street. ‘Right at the corner, they had a two-panel sign which was the outline of a weather bell, and it had the same color-coding for the forecast.’ But that was a two-dimensional sign, unlike the one at Clark and Monroe, which makes the latter unique and special.
“And yet, when the Rector Building recently received landmark designation from the city, the weather bell was not included. According to Miller, it’s not clear why. In theory, it should be safe for as long as the building is branding itself as the Bellwether, but could be in jeopardy at some future point if an owner chooses to get rid of it.
“‘The landmarking is a local designation and usually concerns itself only with the exterior of the building,’ Stoltz said. But the developers have sought historic preservation tax credits, and on the federal level (which is overseen by the National Park Service), the government agency ‘looks at everything. And so they opined on how we were rehabbing the building … and we had to renovate the bell to their standards, which basically means replacing it in kind. More or less, other than the change in the name, it will look almost identical to what it looked like originally.’
“‘It was cracked, and it has custom-molded acrylic panels. We couldn’t find anybody to reproduce that, so one of the panels has been repaired. It’s on a side that isn’t very exposed, so hopefully not a lot of people will notice it. And then we had to clean the acrylic, because it had 50 years of gunk on it. I don’t think a lot of people knew that the bell was translucent and glowed, just because it’s been dirty for so long, it almost looked solid.’
“It may not have official landmark status, but it is a landmark all the same.” (Metz, Chicago Tribune, 9/25/26)
Preservation Chicago was in contact with stakeholders and testified multiple times in support of the adaptive reuse of the Rector Building and its Chicago Landmark designation, and we asked that the Weather Bell be restored and the lost cornice rebuilt. We congratulate R2 Companies and Gary Stoltz on the restoration of the Weather Bell.
The Weather Bell was installed in the mid-1950s, and it had its own 1950s-era jingle:
When Weather Bell is emerald green
No change in temperature is foreseen.
When Weather Bell is glowing red
Warmer weather is ahead.
When Weather Bell is gleaming gold
A temperature drop is foretold
When Weather Bell is in agitation,
Prepare yourself for precipitation.
The Commission on Chicago Landmarks identified the Rector Building’s significant features as all exterior elevations including rooflines. The Weather Bell is suspended over the sidewalk at the corner and was not named. Preservation Chicago encourages the Commission on Chicago Landmarks and the City to add the Weather Bell to the designation.
Originally the Rector Building had an elaborate, multi-story masonry cornice. Preservation Chicago encourages the development team to rebuild the lost cornice and other lost elements when a future phase of work allows.
Read the full story at the Chicago Tribune
- Once dormant, the Loop’s weather bell is aglow once again; Nina Metz, Chicago Tribune, 9/25/26
- First office-to-apartment conversion in city’s $250M push to remake the Loop opens, Rachel Herzog, Crain’s Chicago Business, 9/9/26
- Downtown building built in 1905 converted to apartments open to lower-income residents, Erik Runge and Andy Koval, WGN 9 Chicago, 9/9/26
- WIN: Rector Building / Bell Federal at 79 W. Monroe Street Becomes Designated Chicago Landmark; Preservation Chicago
- WIN: Preliminary Landmark Recommendation Approved for Rector Building / Bell Federal at 79 W. Monroe Street; Preservation Chicago
- Iconic Loop weather bell to shine again after years in the dark; “It’s an icon for the city,” said Gary Stoltz of R2 Companies, which is redeveloping the Rector Building where the sign is located, Lee Bey, Chicago Sun-Times, 7/14/26
- Neon Signs; a Preservation Chicago 2015 Chicago 7 Most Endangered, 3/4/15
- The Bellwether Residences