Fire Breaks Out At Former Sun-Times Building; No One Hurt

Dec. 29, 2004
No one was seriously hurt in a fire Wednesday morning at the former Chicago Sun-Times building, which is being demolished to make way for a 90-story condominium and hotel tower developed by real estate mogul Donald Trump.

CHICAGO (AP) -- No one was seriously hurt in a fire Wednesday morning at the former Chicago Sun-Times building, which is being demolished to make way for a 90-story condominium and hotel tower developed by real estate mogul Donald Trump.

The blaze, which apparently started in the building's ventilation system and was fueled by insulation in ductwork, burned for about an hour and a half before firefighters struck it out at 10:24 a.m., fire officials said.

Fire investigators would interview the 22 construction workers who were in the building, Chicago Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford said.

A total of 125 firefighters worked on the blaze, Langford said. Two suffered minor smoke inhalation and were sent to the hospital despite their objections, he said.

It was initially unclear where in the ventilation system the fire started, Fire Commissioner Cortez Trotter said.

The blaze sent clouds of smoke floating north of Chicago's downtown Loop district.

The Sun-Times occupied the building just off of Chicago's Magnificent Mile from 1958 until October, when staff moved to new offices a few blocks west.

``The Apprentice,'' Chicagoan Bill Rancic, is in charge of developing the Trump property. It will replace a building that, as the story goes, was supposed to look like a river barge and is arguably the ugliest building in a city known for its soaring, elegant architecture.

The building is a big part of the history of Chicago journalism. Legendary newsman Mike Royko worked there. So did Ann Landers. Bill Mauldin was working there when he drew one of the most enduring editorial cartoons, that of the Abraham Lincoln statue from the Lincoln memorial grieving the assassination of President Kennedy.

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