Willis Tower KWO39, programmed by the National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office in Chicago, is equipped with Specific Area Message Encoding (SAME), which sets off a siren on specially-programmed weather radios to alert of an impending hazard, such as a tornado or civil emergency. The building has appeared in numerous films and television shows set in Chicago such as "Ferris Bueller's Day Off", where Ferris and company watch the streets of Chicago from the observation deck. The television show "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" introduced a character called The Sears Tower Dressed In Sears Clothing when the show visited Chicago in 2006.
Chicago Water Tower Pumping Station, it drew clean water from water cribs in Lake Michigan. The tower gained prominence after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. While some incorrectly believe that the tower was the only building to survive the fire, a few other buildings in the burned district survived along with the tower. The tower was the only public building in the burned zone to survive, and is one of just a few of the surviving structures still standing. In the years since the fire, the tower has become a symbol of old Chicago and of the city's recovery from the fire.