![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
roadrunnertwiceFoshay Tower is the namesake of Wilbur Foshay, a businessman who bought and sold utilties companies in order to build his fortune. The building has the name "FOSHAY" in capital letters on all four sides just below the top. The top few floors of the building were designed as Foshay's business office and personal residence. When the building was completed, he held a large ceremony featuring music by John Philip Sousa. Foshay even persuaded him to create a special march named "Foshay Tower-Washington Memorial March" that was only played once during Foshay's lifetime, for the opening of the Tower. Six weeks after the building's opening, Foshay's corporate empire had crumbled to dust as the Great Depression began. Ignominiously, Foshay's check to Sousa bounced, and in retaliation, Sousa prohibited the playing of the march so long as Foshay's debt to him remained outstanding. In 1999, a group of Minnesota investors repaid Foshay's debt to Sousa's estate, and the march was permitted to be played again.
no subject
Date: 2007-02-12 09:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-12 09:05 pm (UTC)