Thursday, April 21, 2011
Tunnel in the sky.
Yesterday's wikiwander was too meandering to trace in its entirety, but I remember it went from The Fountainhead to the Chrysler Building, and through the Peachtree Plaza, past John Portman, and into the atrium of Atlanta's Marriott Marquis, (or as I call it, the Marriott De Sade,) which is apparently designed with the solitary purpose of reducing acrophobes to gibbering wrecks. I've been there, and the photo of it at Wikipedia is still enough to make my palms sweat.
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28 comments:
I hadn't realized Marriott used the same design anywhere else but New York City. Are there other Marriotts around like that?
Think of it. 40 stories of mostly empty, just so people can watch the elevators go up and down.
I love that view in the picture.
Been to the Marriott Marquis myself, doing things no 17 year old kid should be allowed to do.
Thank God for dumb chaperones.
Hard to believe that's a photo and not one of MarkHB's "creations".
As a teen, my first real job was walking and hopping around on 36" dia. steam lines hundreds of feet up in a manufacturing plant, doing my job as a pipefitter's helper. I was fearless and invincible.
Now just anticipating what I will see when I look over a sheer precipice kicks in the vertigo.
Sucks to get old, but I guess it's good that my stupid young self was unable to prevent that from happening in spite of such diligent effort...
AT
wv: hiastmil...don't know how Bugger knows, but yeah that plant was indeed the highest mill in Fla.
Fun Heinlein fact: The gargoyles on the Chrysler Building were designed by Chesley Bonestell, who painted the backdrops for Destination Moon.
Ugg. That picture gives me a most unpleasant tingle down under. Much like the upper floors of the Luxor Hotel.
Thanx for the "heads up". As I am mildly acrophobic--I can handle heights, but REALLY don't like them--I know where NOT to stay should I ever make it back to Hotlanta...
cap'n chumbucket
I've recently realised that I now climb a ladder like my grandfather used to do.
Ah to be young and immortal again.
Having said that, the Marriot looks interesting and not particularly scary to me.
I find the picture Highly Awesome, but then I'm fond of heights
Lissa,
Go to the Wiki article on Portman and check out the links to some of his other hotels, then. He loved him some soaring atria, and there are some groovy photographs along those lines in there.
The one at the Hyatt Regency in ATL is typical:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hyatt-regency-atlanta-atrium.jpg
I recall a New Year's Eve when a bunch of drunks started throwing Coke machines off those balconies at that Marriott. The very idea gave me the sweats & flaps.
The mobile sculptures in those places are psychologically designed to fill the air-space and make it less inviting to jumpers.
Now I have a reason to get off the freeway in the ATL.
ZOMG. Who else played Starship Titanic, and who know also knows what some of the design art must have been inspired by?
I don't mind heights, it's the falling that's irritating.
It's the impact that really has me worried.
enough to make my palms sweat
Then don't wander into the downtown Hyatt. (Yeah, it's only 20 stories, but once you're past the first 5 or so, what difference does it make?)
The Marriott has the amazing atrium, but the Hyatt Regency across the street that Tam mentioned has the steampunk-ish elevator cars.
Yeah, that carpeting makes me a little queasy, too.
Maybe I'm just weirdly obsessed, but I can't pass by a discussion about hotels without giving some love to Kim Jong Il's monument to Crazy; the Ryugyong Hotel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryugyong_Hotel
Evidently they've resumed construction on it.
Thanks for that info, an interesting place to visit next time I go to ATL (I like doing architectural photography)
I did not mind Marriott Downtown, but Hyatt Regency Atlanta brings back some unpleasant memories. I was booked into the airport Hyatt with a group. I knew we were in trouble when we pulled up and the entire Hyatt staff was standing across a deep ditch from the hotel.
That was early July 1989 - and I will NOT stay in a Hyatt. Getting beaten with an ugly stick will only go so far.
Stranger
If I ever get a room at the Marquis, I will be sure to request a tippy-top floor, and I'm taking a ream of top-quality paper with me.
I wonder how long it'll take to figure out where all the origami aircraft and paper lawn darts are coming from...
Kind of reminds me of the Krell ventilator shafts in "Forbidden Planet".
http://travel.webshots.com/photo/2662247120099682693FSbNVW
Who wants to climb that ladder?
That's a view of one of the bridge wings of the Golden Princess. General view of the ship:
http://travel.webshots.com/photo/2377102960099682693djEndb
The disco, which is that long thing hanging in the air, 17 or 18 decks up at the top of the stern, is a very interesting place to be during stormy weather....
My least fav height sensation was the elevators outside of the GM building in Detroit ... watching a 40 story tower recede below as you travel to something like floor number 70.
Yikes!
linky
Its not the fall that kills you. Its the sudden stop at the end (and its not like you'd be able to tell anyone if you had a heart attack half way down).
"My least fav height sensation was the elevators outside of the GM building in Detroit ..."
What's that hotel in that building? I once had two days off there. The first night, I woke up restless in the middle of the night, just in time to watch a thunderstorm roll up the Detroit River from the 62nd floor. Full-height windows. That was a hell of a show.
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