EXTRA: Let the 'height' loonies loose. We’re no longer No. 1 in U.S.A.!!!

Does anything really change because of the height ruling

The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat has made the decision that’s going to anger a lot of already irate people to the point where they’re going to pollute our space with their rhetoric.

They decided Tuesday that the proposed new World Trade Center IS taller than the Willis Tower. Without its decorative spire, the structure scheduled to open next year is 1,368 feet tall – less than the one-time Sears Tower’s 1,450 feet.

WITH THE SPIRE, World Trade will be 1,776 feet tall.

Like I wrote previously, I think the people who are getting worked up over this are being irrational. Both those New Yorkers who think their structure MUST be the nation’s tallest because it is a tribute to those who died at the site on Sept. 11, 2001, and those Chicagoans who think our city’s superiority is somehow put at risk by this move. What does New York have that Chicago would really want (other than a ball club with the history of the Yankees?).

Once the new World Trade opens, the Willis Tower becomes 10^th tallest in the world. Although it should be noted that the Petronas Towers in Malaysia that has been world’s tallest since it opened in 1996 was designed by the same Chicago-based architectural firm that gave us Willis (nee, Sears).
 

Kuala Lampur's Chicago connection

Perhaps that is our city’s claim to fame when it comes to ridiculously-tall buildings. That, and our being the home city of the board that made this official decision to begin with; one that really doesn't alter anything about the character of our home city that makes it a remarkable place to live on Planet Earth.

  -30-