Storm clouds are pictured behind the Tower of the Americas on Sunday March 18, 2018.
It was dubbed the “great window cleaning crisis” of 1969, the year it was revealed that the famous designer of the Tower of the Americas did not provide a means for washing the glass windows from outside the 750-foot monolith in downtown San Antonio.
When the Tower opened during the World’s Fair in April 1968, visitors clambered to see the views from atop what was then the tallest structure San Antonio. But it didn’t take long for the view from behind 12 tons of glass to spoil. The dust and bugs blew against the top house windows, and the scorching Texas sun baked it all hard.
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Residents of San Antonio were outraged when it was revealed that famed architect O’Neil Ford and his firm — Ford, Powell & Carson — did not include a way to clean the windows of the top house that loomed 622 feet above the Alamo City.
Manuel Sarmiento, 63, of San Antonio, Texas, shows his family members, Lupita Rubio, 71, and Carmen Rubio, 70, both from Mazatlan, Mexico, the skyline of San Antonio as seen from the Tower of Americas observation deck on Friday, June 10, 2016.
Angry letters to the editor filled the pages of San Antonio newspapers. It even came up during Wanda Ford's unsuccessful run for San Antonio City Council. Ford was the former president of the San Antonio Conservation Society and the architect's wife.
Paul Thompson, the legendary front-page tough-guy columnist for the San Antonio Evening News, put the blame squarely on Ford. The architect, who also designed the Murchison Tower at Trinity University, shot back in a letter published in the San Antonio Express, accusing Thompson of spreading misinformation and asking why the city did not come to his defense.
In his letter, Ford said that preliminary designs for a machine that would wash the windows were scrapped due to its high cost and Tower budget problems.
O'Neil Ford, whose work includes the Tower of the Americas and La Villita, had a lasting impact on San Antonio architecture.
“I do not know why one of these methods has not been employed but I assure you it was not our decision nor the decision of the City Public Works Dept. to do nothing," he wrote.
He concluded the letter: “Suffice it to say — we architects cannot wash the windows ourselves but there are several persons who can — mechanical system or not.”
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A week later, the Evening News published a letter sent by then-City Manager Gerald Henckel to Boone Powell, a partner in O’Neil’s firm and the architect responsible for the Tower’s final design. Henckel said he “distinctly” remembered a conversation with Powell in which the architect “stated that the windows were so high up they’d never need washing.”
“But I’m not really concerned about whose fault it all was,” Henckel said. “We just have to have a solution.”
After months of controversy and speculation, the 96 windows in the Tower of the Americas were finally washed by a magnetic scrubbing brush designed by scientists at the Southwest Research Institute. It measured 7-by-10 inches and was developed under a $12,750 contract with the city.
After months of controversy and speculation, the 96 windows of the Tower of the Americas were finally washed by a magnetic scrubbing brush designed by scientists at the Southwest Research Institute. It measured 7-by-10 inches and was developed under a $12,750 contract with the city.
Then-Mayor W.W. McAllister and then-Mayor Pro Tem Lila Cockrell were on hand that October in 1969 to witness the “historical event,” the San Antonio Express reported. The cleaning took about a week to complete.
Other proposals to wash the windows before this method was developed were more daring.
A mountain climber, Richard L. White, armed with a $20 cleaning contraption and a batch of chemical gel, offered to go over the side. His proposal was rejected when city officials discovered he would be suspended by a nylon rope.
A 1969 San Antonio Evening News story profiling Alice Contu, a North Side resident, who offered to swing from a helicopter to scrub the dirty windows of the Tower of the Americas.
Alice Contu, a North Side resident, offered to swing from a helicopter to scrub the dirty windows. She was featured on the frong page of the Evening News in January 1969. Escorted to the Tower top that morning by a reported to survey the job she'd volunteered for, Cantu "remained calm, resolute -- even enthusiastic -- despite the fact that a buffeting north wind threatened to pitch her slight frame right off the top of the Tower's observation deck when she leaned through the bars to peer down at the windows," according to the story. Additional helicopter plans were dreamed up and ditched. One woman suggested seeding the clouds with detergent.
Nowadays, the Tower employs window washers as per the city’s lease with Landry’s Inc., which runs Chart House in the tophouse. Through a contractor, the company schedules exterior window cleaning once a year.
Timothy Fanning is a digital reporter for the San Antonio Express-News.