Tower Life Building

The Tower Life Building is identifiable by its octagonal shape and the deep green, glazed terra-cotta tiles that cap its roof. Completed in nineteen twenty-nine, this thirty-one-story neo-Gothic skyscraper remains the tallest eight-sided building in the United States. Designed by the local father-and-son firm Ayres and Ayres, the tower features stone grotesques lining its upper tiers, which once served as elaborate waterspouts to drain rain from the crown.