John Hancock Tower

I have a love hate relationship
with the John Hancock Building.
It’s made entirely of reflective glass,
So it is a beautiful work of art…
But it blocks the Timeless Trinity Church.
Go inside and lunch at their cute Café.
Ride up to the top of the tower for
some of the best views in the city.
The deal: watch out for the wind tunnel
this building creates with one back bay,
The other high rise across the street.

Standing shinny and tall. It’s always clean and I love the flowers they have in the lobby at the check-​in desk.
Cons-​I don’t like how they only leave one door open at night. I guess it’s good for the building and for the person at the front desk. Hopefully I don’t have to stay too many late nights at work so I can use the side doors too :)

I work here, up in the 40s. The view is, of course, amazing. The location is great as well, except that we’re surrounded by a wind tunnel. If the weather is even slightly bad, it’s much worse right around this area with the strong winds. The elevator system is a little confusing. If you want to go to the even floors, you have to go up one level from the lobby (to the mezzanine) and take those elevators. The elevators from the main lobby only go to odd floors. When you’re going down, you can go to any elevator. If you don’t want to go upstairs for an even floor, the «trick» is to take the elevator up to an odd floor, let the doors open, and then hit the even floor that below it that you want to go to.
I’m not sure if this is a building thing, or just specific to my office, but the climate control could use some work. Most of us have space heaters, which I often use during the summer as well.
The only downside to being so high up is that when things like the Back Bay blackout happen, it’s a looooong way down. I know from experience.

I work here and especially when it’s decorated for Christmas I feel like I’m working in the same building as the dad from Adventures in Babysitting. The view is INCREDIBLE. And so many of the floors are laid out with the main focus on the view. From my floor you can see the public garden, common, airport, all bridges into the city and the White mountains, on a clear day. Love how efficient the security is. No hobos in the bathroom like my old job. I love that you don’t even have to leave the building on a crummy day because there is a cafeteria/​coffee bar downstairs. This building is awesome.

This building is pretty damn impressive. A sight to see in the Baaahston Back Bay area. If you make it up to one for the top floors, you’ll get a great view of the Boston Financial District, Cambridge area, Charles River and more. It’s gorgeous on a clear, sunny day. Floor to ceiling windows is hard to beat when you’re overlooking a city as beautiful as Boston.
If you’re hungry, check out the café downstairs. It’s great for a quick breakfast, lunch or snack. They also have several gluten and dairy free options, for peeps with dietary restrictions.

So I work here in the upper-​40s floor area. It’s super windy in the winter. Snow/​rain will pelt you in the face. You need full body protection — your umbrella is useless.
The temperature is pretty erratic inside our office. Somedays it’s cool, somedays it’s warm — but that’s what you get with a giant blue-​glassed air aquarium.
It gets five stars because the view is fantastic and the omelette guy in the café is a superstar.

So tall and shiny,
from Storrow Drive, you can watch
the sun set in it.

I am extremely fortunate to work in this building. Our company is located pretty close to the top and I always joke that the best thing about my job is the view. Actually, I’m not really joking when I say that. The views from up here are incredible and literally will stop you in your tracks while you move about during the work day. The security guys in the building are super friendly and the food they serve at the Blue Glass is good, albeit expensive.
It’s one of my top 3 favorite buildings in Boston and I’m so lucky to get to spend my work week here.

my criteria for observatories is very simple. #1: does it have a good view? #2: does it have food? for example, an observatory in boise, idaho will never get 5 stars.
this place has 5-​star views of boston. decent food at the restaurant. relaxing atmosphere.

I am kind of surprised that you can review a BUILDING on Unilocal?So I am going to talk about the food offered here.
The only food item the downstairs cafeteria has mastered is potatoes. Flavorless sandwiches, bad pizza and odd tasting pasta and stir fry dishes are pretty common. The salad bar is full of weird beans and other gross items. They don’t carry Italian dressing either. What salad bar doesn’t have Italian or at least a plain vinaigrette?! I have been told that they used to have a great salad bar, but it has really gone downhill. One day I ordered lemon chicken, and they literally hacked a chicken in half with one swipe, right in front of me, placed it in a styrofoam container with broccoli and sent me on my way. They also find it necessary to put parsley on everything, which puzzles me. The employees are really friendly, but If it wasn’t cheap and convenient I would never eat there since the food is usually horrible.
Sometimes they have blood drives just outside the cafeteria, which I find a little disturbing. Needles and blood draws give me the creeps in a major way. Nothing like seeing someone laid out on a bed with a needle strapped to their arm while you’re picking up a panini!

My company is located in this building and we are near the top. I love that every morning when I come in that I have the best view (except on cloudy days) of the sunrise over the bay, and just about any sunset seen from the tower is breathtaking as well.
My advice is to make friends with somebody who works in the tower (like me) and they can get you past security to go up and check out the place.

The last two years I’ve snagged nose-​pressed-​to-​the-​window seats for the 4^th of July Fireworks Spectacular on the forty-​something floor here. Helps that my SO works on said floor. The views are gorgeous and I’m often surprised by sites I don’t recognize from this bird’s eye view. I love looking at all of the boats on the Charles — reminds me of a bathtub with children’s toys bobbing around. It is also cool to be up here on a foggy day and watch as the fog clears out and your view is restored.
Don’t forget your binoculars in the chance of spying on a rooftop party or zooming in on a tussle between pedestrians down below!

Cool, sleek, almost-​Kryptonian crystal (except darker). It’s so tall you can glimpse it from lots of Boston locales, but my favorite vantage point is Copley Square. There you can see the 19^th-​century Trinity Church’s granite and sandstone, reflected in the Hancock’s smooth blue glass — a happy meeting of old and new.
Ranked 142d on the AIA’s Favorite Architecture survey:

My husband works on one of the mid-​floors of the building, and it’s actually very cool to be inside. His office has a view of the ocean, which he sometimes enjoys if he isn’t staring at a computer monitor for hours straight. The offices on the long sides of the building apparently get too much direct sun in the morning or afternoon, thereby often ruining a great view with greenhouse-​like warming effects that require the shades to be drawn. But the best part of the building is how views of it pop up unexpectedly when I am driving. The kid, when he’s with me, never faIls to exclaim, «there’s daddy’s building!» as though his daddy were the only person in it. Sometimes I drive along memorial drive and see window washers on the sides. It freaks me out a bit sometimes, and they often give my husband the willies as they descend over his windows. Another kind of creepy thing is that when there is a rainstorm and clouds fill the sky, the view even in the middle of the day is one of truly night-​time darkness.

The modern symbol of Boston, the tallest building in New England and one of two IM Pei masterpieces in Boston — I can’t give the John Hancock Tower anything less than five stars, I love it.
IM Pei was trying to create a 1970s minimalist modernist monolith and I don’t think anyone can say he failed. The mirrored surface and parallelogram plan were all designed to minimise the building’s visual impact on the skyline, and especially at Copley Square. It’s true how much more the Pru seems invades your sky compared to the JHT — nice one Pei.
What I love most about the JHT is that it never ever looks the same as the mirrored surfaces reflect the sky and angular design gives it a different shape from all around Boston. The beam of light it catches down it’s side at sunset makes it look extraterrestrial from MIT, whereas simultaneously it’ll be looking like Kubrick’s 2001 monolith for the folks in Southie.

Yeah, so I’m a little obsessed with the Hancock Tower, or as I like to call it, The Cock. But it’s a great building with great space, great views, and even a not-​bad catering place/​cafeteria in the basement. It’s too bad the top floor is no longer open for viewing. My space halfway up is so amazing that I can’t even imagine what it’s like up there. Despite the psycho wind tunnel from Hades, this might be the best building in which to work in Boston.

Tallest building in New England! Striking prismatic form covered in 10,000 perfect mirror glass panels which reflect the historic buildings that surround it. A beautiful member of the boston skyline.
You used to be able to go to the observation deck on the 60^th floor and get a spectacular view of the city but since Sept. 11^th it has been closed. Maybe it will open again one day.