200 Clarendon Street, previously John Hancock Tower and colloquially known as The Hancock, is a 62-story, 790-foot (240 m) skyscraper in Boston. The tower was designed by Henry N. Cobb of the firm I. M. Pei & Partners and was completed in 1976.
The building is widely known for its prominent structural flaws, including an analysis that the entire building could overturn under a certain wind loads — as well as a prominent design failure of its signature blue windows, which allowed any of the 500lb windows to detach and fall — up to the full height of the building — endangering pedestrians below.
In 1977, the American Institute of Architects presented the firm with a National Honor Award for the building, and in 2011 conferred on it the Twenty-five Year Award.[3] It has been the tallest building in Boston and New England since 1976.
The street address is 200 Clarendon Street, but occupants use both "Hancock Place" and "200 Clarendon Street" as mailing addresses for offices in the building. John Hancock Insurance was the primary tenant of the building at opening, but the company announced in 2004 that some offices would relocate to a new building at 601 Congress Street, in Fort Point, Boston.
The tower was originally named for the insurance company that occupied it. The insurance company, in turn, was named for John Hancock, whose large and conspicuous signature on the Declaration of Independence made his name so famous in the United States that a colloquialism for a signature is "a John Hancock".
Architecture[]
Minimalism was the design principle behind the tower. The largest possible panes of glass were used, there are no spandrel panels, and the mullions are minimal. Cobb added a geometric modernist twist by using a parallelogram shape for the tower floor plan. From the most-common views, this design makes the corners of the tower appear very sharp. The highly-reflective window glass is tinted slightly blue, which results in the tower having only a subtle contrast with the sky on a clear day. As a final modernist touch, the short sides of the parallelogram are each marked with a deep vertical notch, breaking up the tower's mass and emphasizing its verticality. In late evening, the vertical notch to the northwest catches the last light of the sky, while the larger portions of glass reflect the darkening sky.
A major concern of the architects while designing the tower was its proximity to Boston's Trinity Church, a prominent National Historic Landmark. Their concern led them to redesign the tower's plans, as there was a public outcry when it was revealed that the Hancock Tower would cast its shadow on the church.
History[]
An observation deck with views of Boston was a tourist attraction for several decades. However, it was closed after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Because of the closure of the John Hancock Tower's observation deck, the highest observation deck open to the public in Boston is in the Prudential Tower, as of 2020.
The building's owners cite security as the reason for the continued closure. They have rented the deck for private functions and have expressed intent to replace it with more office space. Boston city officials contend that security concerns are moot, since most similar attractions have long since reopened. In addition, they note that a public observation deck was a requirement for the original building permits to gain public benefit from the high tower. However, officials have not been able to locate the documentation of this requirement.
In 2006, Broadway Partners acquired Hancock Place for $1.3 billion. By 2009, they had defaulted on the loans they used to buy the building, and it fell into foreclosure. On March 30, 2009, Hancock Place was sold at auction for $660 million ($20 million was new equity and the $640 million of in-place debt was assumed by the buyer)[14] to a consortium of Normandy Real Estate Partners and Five Mile Capital Partners. The companies had been slowly increasing their investment over the previous months. In October 2010, Boston Properties acquired the John Hancock Tower for $930 million. As part of the purchase agreement, the name "Hancock Tower" would expire along with John Hancock's lease in 2015.
The company that built the Hancock Tower and two earlier, similarly-named buildings is known loosely as "John Hancock Insurance", or simply "John Hancock". It was known as "The John Hancock Life Insurance Company" in the 1930s and "The John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company" in the 1940s. As of 2000, the company owning the buildings was "John Hancock Financial Services, Inc." with various subsidiaries such as "The John Hancock Variable Life Insurance Company" and "Signator Investors, Inc." In 2003, Manulife Financial Corporation of Toronto acquired the company, but it still uses the name "John Hancock Financial Services, Inc." and those of various subsidiaries.
The name change from "John Hancock" to "200 Clarendon" took place in mid-2015, when the eponymous company's lease expired. It had been stipulated in the leasing contract that the building would retain the name "John Hancock" only so long as John Hancock Financial was an occupant.