Donald Trump predicts Trump Tower sign will become Chicago icon

CHICAGO (WLS) -- TRUMP is now part of the Chicago skyline, like it or not. Crews completed and illuminated the sign along the Chicago Riverwalk overnight.

And, the 20-foot by 141-foot sign on the 96th floor of the Trump Tower is getting a lot of attention. Sandy Stevens and Steven Lynch stopped outside the tower on Friday to take a selfie with TRUMP in the background.

"When I heard about it I was thinking something much more dramatic," Steven Lynch said. "Seems like an appropriate thing to do, looked pretty nice to me."

"I don't get the commotion over him putting his name up there," Sandy Stevens said.

Bill Beers, a bus tour guide who waits under the giant letters every day, said the city's architecturally acclaimed second tallest skyscraper doesn't need a label.

"Trump is crazy. . . It's like putting a mustache on the Mona Lisa," he said.

Chicago designer Richard Dayhoff says the label itself doesn't work.

"It's a label that's sticking out, that just doesn't fit the image of our city," Dayhoff said.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the Trump sign's most outspoken critic who called it "tasteless," appeared to concede Friday there's nothing he can do about it. The letters were approved by the city during the Daley administration.

"I've asked my staff to look at it so a situation like this doesn't emerge in the future," Mayor Emanuel said.

The fact the sign was approved by the City Council years ago makes some people, like Stevens, wonder why all the fuss now.

"If he's had this plan since day one and they weren't up in arms about it back then, there's got to be some other reason why," Stevens said.

Donald Trump said Friday that Chicago's got "other problems they should be worrying about" and said he has no plans to change anything. He predicts the Trump Tower sign could become a Chicago icon.

"People are standing outside the building by the hundreds today taking pictures so it's probably already become very iconic," Trump said.