March 10, 2020

Sears.

The naming rights of the Sears Tower here in Chicago expire soon. Apparently Aon is purchasing the skyscraper, which is officially called “Willis Tower” but people don’t really call it that, and the Chicago Sun-Times ran a poll as to what the building should be called. Chicago already has an Aon Center, do we need an Aon Tower?

According to the survey everyone will still be calling it the Sears Tower. There were a couple of mentions of the United Tower, since United Airlines is the biggest tenant of the space at the moment, but Sears Tower was the overwhelming choice.

This got me to wondering where Sears would be today if they had taken their famous catalog to the internet in a timely manner. Would Sears be where Amazon is today?

I remember the excitement of seeing the yearly “Wish Book” around the holidays. I’d look at the Christmas lights selection, some of the toys, and starting the later 1970s, electronic games like Pong and the like.

Good times. What could have been.