I worked in New York for a dozen years. To me, the Empire State
building always was and always will be the iconic New York structure.
Paul
On Apr 1, 2006, at 6:54 PM, Igor Roshchin wrote:
Fri, 31 Mar 2006 15:48:40 -0800
E.R.N. Reed wrote:
Tom C wrote:
I haven't ever really thought about it as ugly or beautiful until
now.
I'd probably land on the positive side of it's aesthetics.
It's hard to imagine Paris w/o it though. Like London w/o Big Ben,
Seattle w/o the Space Needle, SF w/o the Pyramid, St. Louis w/o the
arch,
NYC w/o the Empire State Building.
What I find kind of interesting about that list is that all those
cities
are older than the landmarks in question. You'd be imagining a
situation
that in fact has existed, for quite a while.
Addition to the list, of course, would be "San Antonio without the
Alamo."
:)
Yes, this is an interesting observation.
But people get used to the landmarks quickly.
However, as for "hard to imagine",
yet 6 years ago I would've said "..NYC without Twin Towers".
I moved from NYC in May 2001. When I came back to NYC in Nov. 2001,
it was weird and very unreal not seeing the Twins..
It still doesn't quite fit in my mind.
BTW, probably not that many people know that Empire State Building
withstood a B-25 bomber hitting it and being stuck in the building
at the 79th floor in 1945.
I learned it about 10 years ago from a great technician in our
lab whose cousin (or uncle?) used to work very close to the
building when that happened. I have a copy of the
tape with the radio-news about the incident.
These days one can find qute a few facts on the web, e.g. here:
http://www.esbnyc.com/tourism/tourism_facts_esbnews_mar1996.cfm
Yet another interesting (though not as dramatic) story about landmarks.
Those who visited Boston probably saw the "Citgo" sign above Kenmore
square, which is well seen in the evening skyline of the city
(especially from across Charles river). It is present on many Boston
cards.
Funny enough that at some point there were no Citgo gas stations
in the vicinity of that sign. So, at some point Citgo decided to
remove the sign. City realized that the sign became a landmark,
and took it on its own budget. The hours when the sign is lit
are shorter (they switch it off around 11pm or midnight, I believe),
but it stays there.
See it e.g. here:
http://www.boston.com/travel/boston/must_sees_4/
or here:
http://images.google.com/images?svnum=10&hl=en&lr=&q=Citgo+Boston
Igor
