Quote:
Originally Posted by Ramako
In terms of what it "does" for Toronto, I'm guessing your meaning is that, beyond its function as a symbol, communications tower or observation deck, the CN Tower acts as a psychological anchor for Torontonians, in that wherever you are in the city you can instantly orient yourself by finding the tower, kind of like the North Star. There's something reassuring about its - for lack of a better word - omnipresence.
That's not to say that Calgary Tower isn't equally important to Calgarians for a different set of reasons, but it's worth noting when comparing the respective roles of the two towers.
|
Interesting. That is a real thing, and something that’s hard to quantify. The Calgary Tower doesn’t do that to the same extent that the CN tower does, I’m sure, but it serves that function to some extent i would say. It’s surprising how often it pops up in front of you when you’re driving down a major road in Calgary. But I would say that the structure that primarily serves that grounding function you speak of is the Rocky Mountains. You can’t see them from every point in Calgary, but you can see them from a lot of places, and whenever I do I feel that connection to this place. Our manmade structures are impressive, but they pale in comparison to the mountains. I was just reading some information on the new via ferrata in Banff, for example. The top of it gets you up to about 2450m. The Banff townsite in the valley below is at about 1450m, almost exactly 1000 meters below. To give that some perspective that’s almost twice the entire height of the CN Tower. Mankind builds some great things, but we’re just children in the sandbox compared to what the great forces of this earth can do.
Threaded Mode