- The Abraj Al-Bait Towers (a.k.a. Mecca Royal Hotel Clock Tower) is located in Mecca, Saudi Arabia and is the 2nd tallest building in the world at 1,972 feet high.
Call me crazy/picky/overly-critical, Save Jerseyans, but I’m not overly excited about New York’s “Freedom Tower” which officially became the tallest building in New York City yesterday.
Upon completion, it will stand 1,776 feet high. Symbolically poignant? Sure, I guess. But at that height, it’ll still measure up as only the third tallest building in the world.
#2? The Makkah Royal Clock Tower Hotel in Mecca, Saudi Arabia will retain that honor. It’s almost 200 feet closer to the clouds.
And the Makkah Hotel’s developer is…? You’ll never guess! The Saudi Binladin (or “Binladen”) Group, a company founded by the father of Osama bin Laden.
A little ironic?
Try “a lot,” Save Jerseyans, and it’s a little embarrassing, too, if you want your Blogger-Chief’s humble opinion.
It’s also problematic. Perception is power, and our ideological enemies think in terms of bigger/faster/stronger, even if the yuppies populating our universities, coffee houses, government institutions feel as if they’re above being measured by such primitive yardsticks.
I worry about a civilization no longer interested in being #1 in all things; that’s symptomatic of a civilization on the way out, or even wants out, and that’s what I’m going to contemplate every time your Blogger-in-Chief drives past the NYC skyline.
The Burj Khalifa, in Dubai, is 2,723 feet tall. Its the tallest building in the world. It's over half a mile tall, and while it is certainly a marvel of human engineering on its own, it looks absolutely ridiculous in the Dubai skyline. Skylines should creep higher and higher, not shoot up with one monstrously distasteful looking building that will be out of place for 100 years.
As I said when we talked about this the other day, I have to respectfully disagree. Making the tower 1776 feet tall was a great call and I think is a bigger slap in the face to those who brought down the WTC on 9/11 than just making a taller building. Any oil-funded billionaire in the middle east can always build a taller building, but no one can ever take away what the final height of the Freedom Tower stands for.
Who cares if One World Trade isn't the tallest building in the world? Does everything in this country have to degenerate into a "Who's got the biggest c*ck contest???"
I tend to agree with Matt's point although I still think it would have been quite cool if the Freedom Tower's roof were 1776 feet tall, not the spire. When the WTC towers eclipsed the Empire State Building, they had to build past the 1250' level of the 102 floor. The TV tower didn't count on either and neither should the unoccupied top twenty floors of the Malaysian twin towers.