Participants climbed 50 flights of stairs inside a West Loop skyscraper Saturday morning, part of the first Chicago Tower Climb organized by the Tunnel to Towers Foundation. The event at 150 North Riverside Plaza kicked off at 8:30 a.m. and had raised $44,000 by 9 a.m., already surpassing its original $30,000 fundraising goal.
The climb is the newest addition to the nationwide Tunnel to Towers Run, Walk & Climb Series, which the foundation organizes to honor the legacy of Stephen Siller, according to WGN-TV. Siller, a New York City firefighter, died on September 11, 2001, after running through the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel toward the Twin Towers while carrying 60 pounds of gear, per the same report.
That sprint has become the foundation's origin story. On the morning of the attacks, Siller had just finished an overnight shift with Brooklyn's Squad 1 and was on his way to play golf when he turned back, grabbed his bunker gear, and ran nearly two miles on foot through the closed tunnel toward the burning towers, according to Military.com. He was among the 343 FDNY members killed that day.
A Skyscraper Built for the Challenge
The climb's West Loop setting is itself a feat of engineering. Completed in 2017, the 54-story, 752-foot tower at 150 North Riverside Plaza was built with a cantilevered design resting on a base covering just 25 percent of its two-acre site, which sits above active railway tracks, according to Wikipedia.
Chicago's inaugural Tunnel to Towers event joins a roster of established local high-rise fundraisers. SkyRise Chicago sends climbers up 103 floors and 2,109 steps at Willis Tower to benefit the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, as reported by Time Out. Hustle Chicago, meanwhile, draws more than 2,000 participants each February to scale 94 stories and 1,632 steps at 875 North Michigan Avenue in support of the Respiratory Health Association, an event that has raised over $21 million across its history, according to the Respiratory Health Association.
How Chicago's Climb Compares to the Flagship Event
Chicago's 50-flight ascent is considerably shorter than the foundation's flagship climb at One World Observatory in New York City, established in 2015, which challenges 1,250 participants to scale 104 stories and 2,226 steps, per the Tunnel to Towers Foundation. That climb's height nods to the original World Trade Center towers destroyed in the 2001 attacks.
The Chicago event is part of a rapidly expanding national series. The Tunnel to Towers National Run, Walk & Climb Series now includes more than 80 events across the country each year, engaging tens of thousands of participants who raise money for first responders and military families, according to the foundation.
Where the Money Goes
Funds raised through events like Chicago's climb support the foundation's broader mission of aiding injured veterans, first responders, and the families of fallen heroes, as noted in the WGN-TV report. That mission has included building custom smart homes for paralyzed or amputee veterans, featuring tablet-controlled lighting, climate systems, motorized doors, pull-down kitchen cabinets, and roll-in showers engineered to restore independent living, according to the Tunnel to Towers Foundation.
The foundation has also expanded its Homeless Veteran Program beyond single-family homes into multi-unit Veterans Villages in cities including Houston, Memphis, and Atlanta, offering permanent housing with 24/7 supportive services, per Military.com. Hoodline has previously covered the foundation's conversion of a former Memphis hotel into 110 permanent homes for homeless veterans, and reported on a mortgage-free smart home delivered to a paralyzed Marine in Pinellas Park.
To mark the 25th anniversary of 9/11 this year, the foundation pledged to deliver 343 mortgage-free homes nationwide, one for each FDNY firefighter killed in the 2001 attacks, with recipients including Gold Star families and catastrophically injured first responders, according to Military.com. The Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation directs an average of 93 to 94 percent of its expenditures directly to program services and maintains a 4-star fiscal management rating from Charity Navigator, a distinction that signals financial transparency to donors weighing where their dollars go.
Chicago's climb followed closely on the heels of other local 9/11 anniversary events, including a River North gallery walk that folded in a Tunnel to Towers fundraiser earlier in the week. Together, the events reflect a city increasingly woven into the foundation's growing national footprint, one flight of stairs at a time.
