Why are we so interested in skyscrapers?

[pacarlson]

Why are we so interested in skyscrapers? I've been enamored with skyscrapers since the Humble Building (now abandoned Exxon building) in Houston was built in 1962. I was 4 years old when it was completed. At 606 feet tall, it was the tallest building west of the Mississippi River. I love the statistics, the architecture, the community impact, and the sheer majestic size of skyscrapers. 99.9% of my friends and everyone else I know could give a 🞵🞵🞵🞵 about them. But I love them. When I started college back in Fall of 1977, I actually majored in architecture for the sole purpose of designing skyscrapers. Of course, that's about as realistic as playing football in college to become an NFL Hall of Famer. I ended up switching to Mechanical Engineering and then spent 43 years as a petroleum engineer...no connection to skyscrapers at all. Anyway, this and other skyscraper websites draw a very diverse, and I think unusual, group of people together. Any thoughts?

[JManc]

I first moved to Houston in the early 80's from a small town in upstate New York and much of the skyline at the time was under construction and was absolutely fascinated with all the tall buildings at 8 years old. I also wanted to be an architect because of that but went in a completely different direction, careerwise.

[Steely Dan]

Growing up in Chicago, how could I not be a scraper nerd?

I was about 10 years old when the big tower boom of the late '80s started, with a whole new slew of big towers that, while they didn't quite challenge the big 3 (sears, big stan, & big john) for dominance, still redefined the city's skyline nonetheless: Franklin Center, 2 Pru, 311 S Wacker, 900 N Michigan, and many others.

I was hooked! Every time we went downtown, my face would be pressed to the glass of the L train surveying all of the new progress on the new towers heading skyward simultaneously. There was no internet to check for construction pic updates back then; riding the L down to the loop was literally the only way I could get my fix. It was a kind of real world magic!

I eventually went in to architecture thinking that I too might design such towers someday, but schooling/career path choices led me down a different road of working at smaller architecture firms that designed smaller scale stuff. It's all good though. Despite the fact I've never personally worked on a project taller than 7 floors, I genuinely love having the opportunity to work on so much urban infill development here in chicago. Its EXTREMELY rewarding helping to rebuild and redensify some of the more forlorn neigborhoods of Chicago with new middle and working class small-scale MFH. It's not super-🞵🞵🞵🞵 work like new super-talls, but it's still a hell of a lot of fun in its own way. At least it is for me, which is all that really matters.

And who knows, I'm only 50, maybe I'll get a shot at a highrise someday down the line (though that would involve having the desire to work at a much larger firm).

[MayDay]

I grew up in a small town outside of Youngstown, Ohio and back in the 70s when I was around five years old, we had to go to downtown Youngstown to handle paperwork for my grandmother. The law office was on the top floor of the First National Tower (a whopping 224-footer) but had great views of the cityscape. A few years later, we went on a day trip to Cleveland, including up to the observation deck of the Terminal Tower and I was hooked. I read every single edition of the World Almanac and followed their tallest building section like a complete nerd. Any time I traveled I annoyed everyone around me by pointing out buildings, heights, random facts, etc. At some point I’m sure I wanted to be an architect but my dismal math skills made sure that wasn’t going to happen. Instead I read and absorbed every architecture book I could get my hands on. Only thing was - the books might have *a* photo or two of the building but not a collection.

Fast forward to about 1996 when I had moved to Cleveland after college and I saw sites like Worlds Tallest Buildings and a few for New York and Chicago but nothing for Cleveland. No, Cleveland has nothing on the scale of those cities but there was some cool stuff here so I created a site on GeoCities, started taking photos on lunch breaks with my Minolta 414 film point and shoot to upload. That thing about books only having one or two photos - well, thanks to the internet I could upload as many as I could take. One day I was looking around for more information and came across SSP. What? A place where I’m not the only person who (really) geeks out about this stuff? A place where I can say something about a building/city/skyline and not annoy friends and loved ones? Sign me up!

In 2000, I procured the URL for my site (clevelandskyscrapers.com) and kept taking photos and building out the site. In 2002 I was approached by the folks at Arcadia Publishing who asked if I’d be interested in writing a book. I personally know folks who had struggled to become published authors and here I am - the opportunity fell in my lap. In 2003, Cleveland’s Downtown Architecture was published - in the past 23 years it’s sold over 8,000 copies (I get $1 per book sale) - not bad, but I still work 40 hours a week.

In 2010 I got an email from someone (using their personal AOL account!) who asked about using one of my photos for a “TV pilot”. Not taking it very seriously I wrote back and said “sure, just send me whatever paperwork is needed and I’ll take a look.” One week later I get a PDF from the legal team at Hudson Street Productions, a division of Viacom - my husband (an attorney) took a look, said it was legit, made a few edits to made sure I retained rights and sent it back. About a year later, “Hot in Cleveland” starring Betty White premiered - 4.6 million viewers, with a photo of the skyline I randomly *took on a lunch break*. The show ran for 128 episodes, I met the cast when they came to Cleveland and my husband treated me to a trip to LA and the TV Land studios to see a live taping which was probably one of the most amazing and surreal experiences I’ve ever had in my life. 

Just being an architecture geek like many of you, taking photos and putting them on a website lead me to a book deal *and* my photo on a show that had millions of viewers in 170 countries around the world? Who'da thunk?

[ColDayMan]

The first house I lived in had a view of Carew Tower from my bedroom window. That started the journey.

I read every single edition of the World Almanac and followed their tallest building section like a complete nerd.

Ditto.

[MolsonExport]

The rare times we (my mom and me and my brothers) had to pick up my dad from his downtown office (Montreal) during the 1970s was always a treat for me. As the oldest, I'd ride shotgun (that is, until my dad came into the car). We'd drive down Highway 20 (we lived in the far Western Suburbs), which then becomes the Ville-Marie Expressway. This expressway heads straight to the skyline then BAM! It goes underground, diving beneath it...then you emerge from one of several exits and you are in the heart of it all (as they say at the end of Stevie Wonder's "Living for the City": "Wow...Just like I pictured it....Skyscrapers...and everything!")

Another treat would be visiting the grandparents in Metro Toronto, arriving by VIA Rail at Union Station in the heart of the downtown, which was burgeoning with skyscrapers (right at that time (late 70s), Toronto was on the cusp of taking the "largest city" crown from my beloved Montreal....already the skyscrapers were more numerous and taller, plus they had the CN Tower, which I went up maybe a few weeks after it first opened).

that was it. I was hooked. I knew I wanted to become an architect (except that I never did become one). In high school, my buddies and I would skip school, hop on the bus, transfer to the metro, and ogle the skyscrapers of Montreal.

I went to New York City in 1985 at the tender age of 16, and that sealed my fate. Skyscraper super fan, for life.

And I bought that damned World Almanac every year, just to look at the lists of tall buildings.

[NYguy]

Wow, interesting stories. As for myself, I’ve always been into things like giant monsters and comic books. Naturally, they went hand in hand with skyscrapers. (King King climbing both the Empire State and the Twin Towers! King Kong fighting a giant MechaniKong on top of a giant radio tower in Japan! Spiderman swinging through giant buildings! Superman vs Zod over the Empire State! And of course, other super-hero battles that always seened to be happening in the cities). But I was also fascinated a lot by the giant tractors and dump trucks involved with construction when I was younger. I still remember a slight disappointment when I was still a child, and was somehow able to visually understand from the street that the Twin Towers were taller than the ESB.

Fast forward to now, and I’m getting the best of everything! Multiple giant towers going up in the city, but beyond that, new super towers going up around the world! Multiple comic movie franchises and series! Not one, but two Godzilla universes to keep track of! (Though the Japanese is still my favorite). A pretty exciting time, if you’re in to all that stuff.

[MolsonExport]

Oh, I forgot a day of epiphany: When I was maybe 11 years old, I was sent by my dad to find something in a storage room which was behind our garage. While looking, I found a giant box containing back issues of the National Geographic. One of the first issues that I came across was this:



Initially, the story on the world's tallest tree captured my eye, but that was nothing compared to the third article in the issue. I was hopelessly in love with skyscrapers and New York City after that. I must have memorized that article from reading it so often.

[Raptor Jesus]

Long time listener first time caller

Something about the scale of cities has always enamored me. I'm from Boston which has a nice pool of skyscrapers to fawn over. Monster and disaster movies helped my interest grow and when I found this website in the 8th grade there was no going back ive checked the diagrams and forums daily since.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

The rare times we (my mom and me and my brothers) had to pick up my dad from his downtown office (Montreal) during the 1970s was always a treat for me. As the oldest, I'd ride shotgun (that is, until my dad came into the car). We'd drive down Highway 20 (we lived in the far Western Suburbs), which then becomes the Ville-Marie Expressway. This expressway heads straight to the skyline then BAM! It goes underground, diving beneath it...then you emerge from one of several exits and you are in the heart of it all (as they say at the end of Stevie Wonder's "Living for the City": "Wow...Just like I pictured it....Skyscrapers...and everything!")

Another treat would be visiting the grandparents in Metro Toronto, arriving by VIA Rail at Union Station in the heart of the downtown, which was burgeoning with skyscrapers (right at that time (late 70s), Toronto was on the cusp of taking the "largest city" crown from my beloved Montreal....already the skyscrapers were more numerous and taller, plus they had the CN Tower, which I went up maybe a few weeks after it first opened).

that was it. I was hooked. I knew I wanted to become an architect (except that I never did become one). In high school, my buddies and I would skip school, hop on the bus, transfer to the metro, and ogle the skyscrapers of Montreal.

I went to New York City in 1985 at the tender age of 16, and that sealed my fate. Skyscraper super fan, for life.

And I bought that damned World Almanac every year, just to look at the lists of tall buildings.

haha...I did the exact same.

[pacarlson]

I remember excitedly waiting for the new World Almanac to arrive at B. Dalton's or Walden Books in the mall! Once I got my hands on it, I immediately fanned to the skyscraper pages first and then the city population matrix next. I always knew exactly where they were. After my sophomore year in Architecture, I switched my major to mechanical engineering, which better suited my skills. Then I got hired by a major oil company to be a petroleum engineer, so I never worked as a mechanical engineer either. Now I'm retired after 43 years in the industry. But I've never lost my fascination with skyscrapers.

[Yackemflaber69]

To me skyscrapers are like giant pieces of art and visiting a city that has skyscrapers downtowns is like going to a museum