The Leaning Tower of Pisa isn’t an unfamiliar sight in the Chicago area thanks to ventilator magnate Robert G. Ilg. In 1934, Ilg erected a half-scale replica, dedicated to Galileo, to sheath a water tower for his private parkland straddling the border between Chicago and the Village of Niles, Illinois. Ilg, who reportedly sometimes summered in the tower, decamped to his birthplace of San Francisco in the 1950s and entrusted both folly and park to the YMCA with a century-long lease.
Although I grew up in the shadow of the tower (on the Chicago side), it’s only in the past few months that I became aware of a longstanding project to make the local landmark, in the words of one former Niles mayor, “part of our brand.” In the early 1990s, the village funded a renovation and constructed a plaza intended to ennoble the spire. After dozens of diplomatic missives, Niles even convinced Pisa to become its official sister city.
The Leaning Tower of Niles, as it’s called, remains a charming curiosity, complete with authentic seicento church bells imported from Italy that play t…
