"Designed to reach the then incredible height of fifty-five stories, it rises just short of 761 feet at the top of the pyramidal spire. As Flagg did, Gilbert has a tower shaft that rises from a supporting block base, but to maximize the expression of height (and to provide associations with other historic tall buildings) Gilbert used Gothic motifs. The piers at the corners of the supporting block and the main tower piers are widened, but nowhere are they stopped by horizontals. At the top the Gothic finials and crockets are vastly overscaled so that they read from the street and provide the proper visual termination to the upward movement. Such an achievement in height, of course, was based on the exploratory work of Jenney, Adler, and Sullivan, but the monumental impulse was much different from that in Chicago."

— Leland M. Roth. A Concise History of American Architecture. p188-9.