TALL BUILDINGS

Oh my goodness, good heavens -- why in the world are we building tall, taller, tallest buildings?

For tourists -- to  get them flocking into the area?    This is the Nina Tower in Hong Kong, that Hong-Kongers brag about to the tourists.

Or maybe the tall buildings are built so that hugely important corporations can promote their names, and prove they are the most powerful guys in the world?

What thoughts, what ambitions -- what inspires the guys who give us these needles?  Is there a Freudian, symbolical significance to these massively  marvelous structures that penetrate, poke into, and impregnate the sky?


Would you want to stay at the only seven star-hotel in the world on the left? (It's the Burj al, in Dubai.)

Hey, maybe it would be fun to have your Dubai office in one of the EmiratesTwin towers on the right.

I can't help wondering what it costs to rent space in one of these sky pokers?  Or get your thrills at the top of one of these other sky poker-peckers?   

  Doesn't anybody worry about huger than ever hurricanes and enormous earthquakes in this day and age of weird, woefully unpredictable weather?

China, in July, started building the "highest building in the world," but temporarily stopped because of concerns with safety, and the need for government approval. The Kingdom tower in Jaddah, Saudia Arabia -- "higher than a mile high" -- is currently (for a few years now) under construction, but when or if it's ever finished, you can bet your bottom dollar someone's going to announce the next taller, tallest record breaker.

Golly, remember what it took, how long it took, and what it meant to rebuild just one wonderful new World Trade Center?  For me, here in New York City, it's high enough.  It tells us, shows us, that mankind's greatest power is to affirm life, and survive.