The cathedral of baseball was built in 1922-23 after John McGraw, the owner of the New York Giants, kicked the Yankees out of the Polo Grounds. The relationship between the teams began deteriorating when the Yankees added Babe Ruth to their roster and the tenants started eclipsing the owners of the ball field. In 1920 Yankee attendance doubled to 1,289,422, 100,000 more than the Giants. Yankee co-owners Jacob Ruppert and TillinghastHuston set out to build a spectacular ballpark of their own, baseball’s first three-tiered structure. With an advertised capacity of 70,000, it would also be the first to be labeled a “stadium.”

Babe Ruth hit most of his 714 home runs here. Roger Maris hit his 61st here in 1961. Reggie Jackson went deep three times in one World Series game here to become Mr. October, and Derek Jeter homered here in November. And those are just a sampling of the great baseball moments that took place in Yankee Stadium:

• In 1939, the Yankees became the first team to retire a uniform number. That was the day Lou Gehrig gave his famous speech. You know the one: It begins “Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth …”
• It was the site of the infamous Pine Tar Game, which began here on on July 24, but finished on August 18.
• Baseball’s first televised World Series was played here in 1947 where the Yankees met crosstown rivals, the Brooklyn Dodgers.
• Yankee pitcher Don Larsen pitched the only perfect game of the of the post-season here on on October 8, 1956, game 5 of the 1956 World Series. There have only been 17 such games in Major League history and Yankee Stadium has hosted three of them. Forty-two years after Larsen’s feat, David Wells, who went to the same high school as Larsen in San Diego, would pitch a perfect game of his own at the stadium. And with Larsen and his perfect game pitcher Yogi Berra on hand to celebrate Yogi Berra Day at Yankee Stadium, David Cone went out and pitched the 16th perfect game in major league history.

And it doesn’t end with baseball. Thirty championship fights have been fought at the Stadium, perhaps none more memorable than the one for the heavyweight title between Joe Louis and Germany’s Max Schmeling on June 22, 1938. In their first match in 1936, Schmeling defeated Louis, a win that Nazi leader Adolf Hitler used to propagandize Aryan superiority. Two years later, they met again at Yankee Stadium. This time, Louis, now the heavyweight champ, avenged his defeat with a first-round knockout.

The stadium also played host to two of football’s greatest games. On November 12, 1928, with Notre Dame and Army locked in a scoreless game at halftime, Knute Rockne made his famous “win one for the Gipper” pep talk and the Fighting Irish went out and beat the Cadets, 12-6.

And, on December 28, 1958, the New York football Giants hosted “the greatest game ever played” at Yankee Stadium. With the NFL championship at stake, a crowd of 64,185 watched the Baltimore Colts tie the game 17-17. Eight minutes into professional football’s first-ever sudden-death overtime period, the Colts’ Alan Ameche crashed through from the one yard line, ending the contest.

On October 4, 1965 with the Yankees out of the World Series for only the third time in 17 years the Stadium hosted an event of worldwide significance. During the first visit to North America by a Pope, Paul VI celebrated mass before a crowd in excess of 80,000. Fourteen years later, John Paul II also made Yankee Stadium a stop on his tour of the United States.

But Yankee stadium isn’t the only abandoned sports venue where history happened. Here’s a look at 10 more.

Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium
The former home of the Atlanta Falcons and the Atlanta Braves was once known as the home of baseball’s worst playing surface. The ballpark didn’t even have a full-time groundskeeper until 1989 when Bobby Cox became manager. The old infield was ripped out and the entire stadium was resurfaced. Soon after, the NFL Falcons moved out, leaving the sod safe from damage by football cleats.

Known as the launching pad for the many home runs hit there, Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium was the highest park in the majors until the Colorado Rockies entered the major leagues and began playing at Mile High Stadium.

On April 8, 1974, Hank Aaron became baseball’s all-time career home run leader here by hitting his 715th home run off the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Al Downing. Three statues outside the stadium honor Ty Cobb, Hank Aaron, and Phil Niekro.

The stadium’s final event was Game 5 of the 1996 World Series; Andy Pettite of the New York Yankees closed down the stadium with a 1-0 shutout over John Smoltz of the Braves. Luis Polonia, made the final out in stadium history. via flickr

Comiskey Park
The fourth concrete and steel stadium in major league baseball was known as the Palace of Baseball when it was built in 1910.

The first-ever All-Star Game was held there in 1933; Comiskey went on to host three more All Star games. Comiskey Park was also the site of four World Series.

• In 1917, the Chicago White Sox won games 1, 2 and 5 at Comiskey Park and went on to defeat the New York Giants. It was the last Championship for the White Sox for 88 years.
• In 1918 Comiskey Park hosted the World Series between the Boston Red Sox and the Chicago Cubs, who borrowed the stadium for the series to take advantage of its larger seating capacity.
• In 1919 the White Sox lost the infamous “Black Sox” World Series to the Cincinnati Reds, five games to three in a nine-game series. Games three, four, five and eight were played at Comiskey Park.
• In 1959 the White Sox lost four games to two to the Los Angeles Dodgers. Games one, two and six were played at Comiskey Park.

Comiskey was known for the creative landscaping work of its groundskeepers. “Camp Swampy” referred to the area in front of home plate that was dug up and soaked with water when White Sox sinkerball pitchers were on the mound. But the dirt was mixed with clay and gasoline and burned to provide hard soil if a sinkerballer was pitching for the visiting team.

Opposing team bullpen mounds were lowered or raised from the standard 10-inch height to upset visiting pitchers rhythm. Under Eddie Stanky, the grass in front of shortstop was cut long because the Sox shortstop had limited range, but at second base the grass was cut short because the Sox second baseman had good range. via wikipedia

Ebbets Field
The home of “Dem Bums,” the Brooklyn Dodgers, featured an 80-foot rotunda made of Italian marble with a floor tiled to look like a baseball and a chandelier with 12 baseball-bat arms holding 12 globes shaped like baseballs.

Major League Baseball’s first televised games were held here om August 26, 1939; the Dodgers split the double header with the Cincinnati Reds.

The park opened on April 9, 1913, with double-deck seating from third base, around home plate, and all the way down the right side. There was an open, concrete bleacher extending the rest of the way down the left side to the outer wall. There was no seating in left or center. Known as the bandbox or the cigar box because of its small dimensions,

The Dodgers won pennants in 1941, 1947, 1949, 1952, 1953, 1955 and 1956. But as the team’s fan base grew, it grew increasingly apparent that the field couldn’t accommodate them. For one thing, there was no parking for suburban fans from Long Island, although the field was conveniently located near a subway stop. Team owner Walter O’Malley lobbied to build a domed structure in downtown Brooklyn. But City Building Commissioner Robert Moses wanted to build a stadium in Flushing Meadows, in Queens–the site of the current Shea Stadium. O’Malley refused to consider Moses’ position, and Moses refused O’Malley’s.

The Dodgers moved to Los Angeles, California, after the 1957 season. The stadium was demolished in 1960 with the same wrecking ball that was used to demolish the Polo Grounds–home of the then-New York Giants, who had also defected to the West Coast. via flickr

Forbes Field

The home the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Steelers, Forbes Field was the nation’s first ballpark made completely of poured concrete and steel. The field, which opened in 1909 and closed 62 years later upon the completion of Three Rivers Stadium, also became one of the first ballparks to have luxury suites; the first to have ramps to take people to their seats and elevators to take patrons to the third level.

The University of Pittsburgh bought Forbes Field for $2 million in November 1958. The Steelers played their final game at Forbes Field on December 1, 1963; the team opted to use the University’s much larger Pitt Stadium. The Pirates played their last game at Forbes Field on June 28, 1970. The field is now the site of a University of Pittsburgh library and dorms. Home plate remains on display in its final location. Via wikipedia

Foxboro Stadium
The home of the New England Patriots was known as the worst stadium in the NFL. It was built in September 1970 for $7.1 million with no funding from the state of Massachusetts or the city of Boston. Because of this, Foxboro had virtually no amenities: No club seats, luxury suites or deluxe locker rooms for the teams. It also only had about 60,000 seats, among the lowest in the league.

Foxboro opened in 1971 as Schaefer Stadium, was renamed Sullivan Stadium in 1983 and became Foxboro in 1989. Foxboro Stadium hosted the 1994 World Cup Soccer Championship. The last game at Foxboro Stadium took place on January 19, 2002. The stadium was demolished in the spring of 2002. The Patriots moved into Gillette Stadium the next year. via wikipedia

Gator Bowl Stadium

Built more than 70 years ago with a seating capacity of 7,600, the Gator Bowl, originally called Fairfield Stadium, was constructed for Jacksonville’s three new high schools – Lee, Jackson and Landon. The stadium emerged into the national spotlight with the first Gator Bowl in 1946. The stadium was expanded in 1948 to 16,000 seats and renamed the Gator Bowl. The stadium also hosted the annual Georgia/Florida college football game, known as the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party.

One of the most famous events held at the stadium is unrelated to sports, however. The Beatles played at the Gator Bowl on September 11, 1964, shortly after the city was struck by Hurricane Dora. The concert almost didn’t happen–not because of the weather but because the band had announced that they wouldn’t play for a segregated audience.

“We will not appear unless Negroes are allowed to sit anywhere, announced The Beatles in a press statement on September 6, 1964. Halfway through a 23-city US tour? their first? the group was looking ahead to a date in Jacksonville, Florida, where they`d heard that blacks were confined to the balconies or upper tiers at public events such as concerts.

The next day, The Florida Times-Union, Jacksonville’s daily paper, ran a disparaging editorial entitled Beatlemania Is A Mark Of A Frenetic Era. The group was called a passing fad, whose appearance on the scene was perfectly timed and fitted to the mores, morals and ideals of a fast-paced, troubled time. Their sound was described as high-pitch monotone. There was no mention of segregation, but it was clear that those in the news media hardly considered these hirsute scourges of Liverpool intelligent enough to comment on social issues. By today’s standards, their pronouncement was taken about as seriously as N`Sync`s Lance Bass saying he wanted to join the space program.

In the end, the concert went off as planned.

The Gator Bowl was demolished in 2004 to make way for Jacksonville Municipal Stadium. via wikipedia

Mile High Stadium
Mile High’s history goes back to 1948, when private funds were used to build a stadium for the Denver Bears, a minor league baseball team and the local football team. A hill at 19th and Clay Street was built of mainly bleachers. By the time Denver’s football team became part of the AFL, the 17,000-seat Bears Stadium, as it was then called, was too small and the stadium’s seating capactity was increased to nearly 34,000 to satisfy the Broncos. By the late 1960s, seating capacity was increased even further to accommodate more than 50,000 spectators.

Minor League Baseball teams moved in and out Mile High Stadium throughout its existence but it took 30 years before Denver got a major league baseball franchise. On the 1993 Opening Day for the Colorado Rockies, the club drew 80,227 fans, a record for single game.

The last Rockies game at Mile High Stadium was on August 7, 1994. The Denver Broncos continued to play at Mile High Stadium until the end of the 2000 NFL season. The stadium was demolished during the winter of 2002. via wikipedia

Orange Bowl Stadium
Orange Bowl stadium opened in December 1937 with a seating capacity 74,476 as the home of the Miami Hurricanes, the football team of the University of Miami.

The Orange Bowl was the site of the NCAA?s longest college football winning streak. Between 1985 and 1994, the Hurricanes won 58 straight home games. The Miami Dolphins also set an NFL record for most consecutive home games won at the Orange Bowl, 31. The Orange Bowl has played a part of 16 National championships – including three University of Miami National Championships ? five Super Bowls and the 1972 Miami Dolphins Perfect Season.

The stadium also was the site of President Kennedy’s Cuban Missile Crisis Speech.

The President went to the Orange Bowl with Jackie, who made a speech in Spanish hailing the bravery of the members of the brigade. Kennedy was so overwhelmed with emotion when he was pressented with the rebel flag from the Bay of Pigs that he declared in his address that “this flag will be returned to this brigade in a free Havana.”

Diplomatically, it was the worst possible gesture that a President of the United States could have made at that time, but, as Bobby expected, it did John F. Kennedy a lot of internal good.

The stadium was demolished this year to make way for a baseball-dedicated park for the Florida Marlins. The Hurricanes have moved to Dolphins Stadium.

Polo Grounds
There have been four ballparks known as the Polo Grounds dating back to the 1800s. The first opened in 1883 on a site just north of Central Park. The city of New York evicted the Giants in 1889 and the team moved uptown to a ballpark between 155th and 157th streets, on the southern parcel of Coogan’s Hollow. Although that park had previously been known as Manhattan Field, it was now called the New Polo Grounds.

After the Players League collapsed in 1891, the Giants moved into Brotherhood Park and changed the name to the Polo Grounds. This third incarnation burned down on April 14, 1911 and a fourth version was built on the same site with temporary stands for 1911. The infield stands were rebuilt with concrete for 1912, and the outfield concrete double deck was finished in 1922.

The New York Yankees shared the field with the Giants from 1913 until 1922 when Giants owner John McGraw evicted the team because they were drawing more fans than his team, thanks to the home run hitting prowess of one Babe Ruth. The park was a pull hitter’s paradise with short lines to the foul poles, 279 feet to left and 258 feet to right. It was, however, a long 505-foot shot to straightaway center, which enabled the team to plant a large flowerbed in center field.

The Mets moved into the park after the Giants departed for the West Coast in 1957. The new expansion team played at the Polo Grounds until Shea Stadium opened in 1964. via flickr

Rion-Antirio Bridge – Greece

photo credit: madmetal

The bridge crosses the merge point between the Corinth Gulf and the Patraikos Gulf, connecting ?mainland? Greece with its huge peninsula, the Peloponnese. Before now, only ferries tied to the two land masses together along this stretch of coast.

Due to the strong seismic activity in the area the Rion-Antirion Bridge needed to be able to withstand an earthquake of 7.4 on the Richter Scale. Engineers solved that issue by building a suspended deck that acts as a pendulum during an earthquake.

Gateshead Millennium Bridge – United Kingdom

photo credit: ny156uk

Designers entering the competition to build the world?s first and only tilting bridge were briefed to design a structure for pedestrians and cyclists that wouldn?t overshadow the six bridges already crossing the River Tyne. The winning entry did end up overshadowing the other bridges, but not because of its size. Instead, the unique tilting mechanism, built to allow ships to pass underneath, became a landmark on its own. The bridge is made up of a pair of steel arches: a pedestrian and cycling deck and a supporting deck that form an ark over the river. The tipping movement of the two curves that make up the bridge?s structure has been compared to the opening of an eyelid.

Millau Bridge – France

photo credit: PhillipC

At 984 feet tall, the Millau Viaduct over the Tarn River soars above the Eiffel Tower, which was also built by the French construction group Eiffage. It is the world?s tallest road bridge as well as the world?s longest cable-stayed bridge. The bridge, which opened in 2004, has a steel rather than a concrete roadbed. Drivers over the span have compared the experience to flying. At almost 1.5 miles long, the Millau Bridge is longer than the Champs Elysees.

Tower Bridge – United Kingdom

photo credit: robmcm

A bascule bridge in which the platform is raised and lowered to accommodate ships along the Thames, the Tower Bridge opened in 1894 to catcalls and derision. Critics panned its Neo Gothic architecture, designed to mimic the nearby Tower of London, as

? architectural gimcrack ?

? a monstrous and preposterous architectural sham ?

? a discredit to the generation that created it ?

But the critics eventually came around perhaps because of the sophisticated mechanism for lowering and raising the platform that lay underneath its gimcrack exterior. Originally powered by steam and now by electricity,the energy created by the bridge?s enormous pumping engines was then stored in six accumulators so power was instantly available as soon as the bascule needed to be raised. The accumulators fed the driving engines, which drove the bascules up and down. Despite the complexity of the system, the bascules only took about a minute to raise to their maximum 86 degrees.

Stari Most – Bosnia and Herzegovina

photo credit: JasonRogers

Stari Most, the ?Old Bridge? is now the new bridge crossing the river Neretva in Mostar. The 16th Century bridge was destroyed in 1993 by a Croatian shell. The shell not only destroyed the physical bridge, it also destroyed a structure that had symbolized Mostar since the bridge was built by the Ottoman emperor Suleiman the Great in 1566. Mostar means bridge keeper and Mostar?s bridge had enabled the town to become a vital crossroads of the Ottoman Empire.

The bridge reopened in 2004 after a 10-year reconstruction that used as many of the stones from the original bridge that could be salvaged from the river. The remaining stones were cut from the same quarry that was used in the original bridge. Flanked by the Halebija Tower on the right bank and the Tara Tower on the left, the bridge has a single hump-backed arch that rises 13 feet in the center.

Kintaikyo Bridge – Japan

photo credit: d?n’c

The Kintaikyo was built in 1673 by the feudal lord Kikkawa to be used by Samurai. Devasted by a typhoon in September 1950, it was rebuilt in 1953 without the use of a single nail, exactly as the original had been. The span stretches 210 meters long across five wooden arch bridges.

xSydney Harbour Bridge – Australia

photo credit: krossbow

Known locally as the coat hanger, the bridgeand adjacent Opera House in Sydney Harbor are Australia?s most feted landmarks. Australians had been talking about building a bridge in Sydney Harbor since the early 19th Century, but it took 20th Century advances in both engineering and the production of steel and reinforced concrete make the project feasible.

Golden Gate Bridge – United States

photo credit: cking

When the idea for building a span across the Golden Gate was first broached, many thought that it couldn?t be done. Experts said that the ferocious winds, blinding fogs and swirling tides at the location would prevent construction. And San Francisco?s chief engineer said the project would cost around $100 million, an unheard of figure at the time.

A 1916 newspaper article asked engineers to come up with a cheaper plan and Joseph Strauss took up the challenge. It took Strauss more than a decade of lawsuits and political infights to get permission to build the span, but the project broke ground in 1930 and opened seven years later.

Strauss, the public face of the bridge, wasn?t, however, the man responsible for its design?though he pretended to be. That honor belongs to Charles Ellis, a self-taught engineer who was never given credit for the design until his obituary. Irving Morrow designed the shape of the bridge towers, the lighting scheme, and the streetlights, railing, and walkways.

Verrazano-Narrows Bridge

photo credit: mborowick

The last great public works project by Robert Moses, the Verrazano was the world?s longest suspension bridge from 1964 until 1981. Its 693-foot-high towers are farther apart at their tops than at their bases to compensate for the curvature of the earth. The bridge remains a vital link in New York City?s vast transportation network, carrying approximately 190,000 cars traveling a day along 12 lanes.

A bridge along the narrows had been the subject of great discussion since before all five boroughs united to form New York City in 1898. Until the bridge, Staten Island was only accessible by ferry, a method that worked fine when the weather was fine but not when the bay was choked with ice or when a fog closed in.

Brooklyn Bridge – United States

photo credit: ??I????O

The great bridge linking the then-separate cities of Brooklyn and New York opened in May 1883 after 13 years of construction costing $15 million and 20 lives. Designed by John Augustus Roebling and completed by his son Washington Roebling, the bridge was the longest suspension bridge in the world at the time of its completion. It was also the first suspension bridge to use steel for its cable wire and the first bridge to use explosives in a dangerous underwater device called a caisson. Work on the caissons permanently debilitated Washington Roebling, who was afflicted with the bends while working underwater.

Kintaikyo Bridge – Japan

photo credit: d?n’c

The Kintaikyo was built in 1673 by the feudal lord Kikkawa to be used by Samurai. Devasted by a typhoon in September 1950, it was rebuilt in 1953 without the use of a single nail, exactly as the original had been. The span stretches 210 meters long across five wooden arch bridges.

Mackinac Bridge – United States

photo credit: mandj98

After the 1883 opening of the Brooklyn Bridge, Michigan residents began lobbying for a bridge to span their state?s lower and upper peninsulas. Unfortunately, they wouldn?t get one until 1957. Until then, traffic between the two landmasses was strictly by ferry and thus came to a virtual standstill in the winter when the waters froze.

Michiganders claim their bridge is the longest in the Western hemisphere, a fact disputed by champions of the Golden Gate and fans of the Verazzano-Narrows bridge in New York. Length, it turns out, is subjective. The total length of the Mackinac Bridge is 26,372 feet. The length of the suspension bridge (including anchorages) is 8,614 feet. The length from cable bent pier to cable bent pier is 7,400 feet while the length of the main span between the towers is 3,800 feet. The Golden Gate stretches 4,200 feet between its towers.

Pont du Gard – France

photo credit: Wolfgang Staudt

Built around 19 AD to carry water from Uzes to Nimes, a 30-mile trek, this bridge over the Gard is 900 feet long and 160 feet high. On its first level it carries a road and at the top of the third level, a water conduit, which is 6 feet high and 4 feet wide.

The three levels were built in stone without mortar. Every stone block was cut to fit its place perfectly and some still bear the numbers assigned to them at construction. It is believed to have taken three to five years to build and around a thousand workers. It is the highest aqueduct bridge ever built by the Romans with three rows of arches: six on the bottom row, 11 on the second level and 47 on the top.

Bosphorus Bridge – Turkey

photo credit: WhatCouldPossiblyGoWrong?

The only bridge in the world to connect two continents?Europe and Asia?the Bosporus Bridge was also the site of the only tennis match on two continents, an exhibition game between , Venus Williams and Turkish star Ipek Senoglu. The 4,954-foot-long bridge opened in 1973, but men have been trying to bridge the waters since 490 BC when a pontoon bridge was built so the Persian Emperor Darius the Great could move his army into Europe.

Conwy Suspension Bridge – United Kingdom

photo credit: inf0mike

One of the first road suspension bridges in the world, the bridge?s supporting towers were designed by builder Thomas Telford to match the turrets of the Conwy Castle, a 13th Century structure built by King Edward I. The bridge, in fact, is built into the rock on which Conwy Castle stands. The suspension bridge is small, only about 2 1/2 meters across, and is now open to pedestrians only. A wrought iron tubular railway bridge built by Robert Stephenson runs alongside the suspension bridge.

Oresund Bridge – Denmark and Sweden

photo credit: gripso_banana_prune

The longest combined road and rail bridge in Europe connects the two metropolitan areas of the Oresund Region: the Danish capital of Copenhagen and the Swedish city of Malmo. More than a bridge, the 10-mile-long structure consists of a tunnel, a bridge and an artificial island. The artificial island of Peberholm was built to transfer traffic from the tunnel up onto the bridge. Peberholm is about four kilometers long and made up of dredged material from the surrounding seabed. The Oresund is the longest border crossing bridge in the world and the tunnel is the longest immersed tube tunnel for road and rail traffic in the world.

Ponte Vecchio – Italy

photo credit: freshwater2006

Built in the 14th Century, the Ponte Vecchio is the most famous of Florence?s six bridges spanning the Arno River. Lined with shops since its opening, Ferdinando I kicked out the original butchers, tanneries and greengrocers to make way for goldsmiths, reducing the odor emitting from the Ponte Vecchio and upgrading the neighborhood. The row of shops is interrupted in the center and the bridge opens over the Arno with two panoramic terraces.

In the 16th Century, Cosimo I de? Medici, Duke of Florence, commissioned a corridor to run over the bridge and connect the Palazzo Vecchio with the Palazzo Pitti.

Rialto Bridge – Italy

photo credit: C.Alary – expose ? La Taverne de Cluny-Paris 5?

Built between 1588 and 1591, as a permanent replacement for the boat bridge and three wooden bridges that had spanned the Grand Canal at various times since the 12th Century, the Rialto was the only way to cross Venice?s Grand Canal on foot until the Accademia Bridge was built in 1854.

Khaju Bridge – Iran

photo credit: Hamed Saber

Built about 1650 by Shah Abbas I as a dam, the 435-feet-long bridge has two levels: The lower level regulates the flow of river by locks; a covered indoor area upstairs provides a space for people to drink tea and socialize.

Lupu Bridge – China

photo credit: harryalverson

The world?s longest arched bridge, at 550 meters high, is also the world?s first completely welded bridge structure. It opened in Shanghai in 2003.

Whether you?re looking at big, established cities or smaller towns, the places in the United States that are growing most rapidly are likely technology hubs close to universities, according to ?Forbes? magazine. The country?s fastest growing metro areas are also likely to be warm weather places in the west or the south.

Measuring what it calls gross metropolitan product, GMP, ?Forbes? looked at large and small metropolitan areas. The first group consists of the the largest 100 metro areas?areas with at least 528,000 people?with the largest projected GMP.

1. Austin, Texas has a projected population increase of 15 percent by 2012.
2. Cape Coral-Ft. Myers, Fla.: Forbes predicts that average personal income here will grow by 6.9 percent annually by 1812. During that time, the area?s population is also forecast to grow by 13.3 percent.
3. Atlanta, Ga.: Already a boom town, by 2012, it?s expected to grow another 11 percent. Personal income will grow by 6.3 percent annually during that time, according to estimates.
4. Seattle, Wash.: Boeing and Microsoft help make this area thrive.
5. San Francisco, Calif.: Proximity to Silicon Valley, its status as financial capital of the west and a thriving tourism business put San Francisco in the top five.
6. Dallas-Ft. Worth, Texas: Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson and Texas Instruments have headquarters in the Dallas metro area. So do ExxonMobil, Kimberly-Clark and Energy Future Holdings Corp.. Research In Motion, which makes BlackBerry, will open its US headquarters here.
7. San Jose, Calif.: Adobe Systems, eBay and Cisco are headquartered here, among others. San Jose produces more patents than any other US metro area.
8. Houston, Texas: During the next five years, population here is projected to grow by more than 10 percent and personal income for Houston residents will increase by nearly 6 percent,
9. Orlando, Fla.: Not just for tourists, Orlando is also an engineering center with Lockheed Martin and Siemens headquartered nearby in addition to Disney.
10. Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville, Fla.: Its position on Florida?s space coast attracts major government contractors and their highly educated employees to this area.

Alabama has three candidates in the smaller metropolitan areas ?Forbes? highlights.

1. Mobile, Ala. has become a thriving manufacturing centers since Australian shipbuilder Austal set up its U.S. operations here in 1999. Last year, ThyssenKrupp announced plans to build a $3.7 billion steel plant in Mobile, expected to bring 2,700 new jobs by 2010.
2. Texarkana, Texas/Ark.: Not expected to increase much in population?only 2.84 percent by 2012?growth here is expected to come from the area?s largest employer, the Red River Army Depot, a major maintenance and storage facility for ammunition and military equipment.
3. Palm Coast, Fla.: Has a projected population growth of 31 percent by 2012, the fastest rate in the country.
4. Huntsville, Ala.: Another military facility, the Redstone Arsenal, is expanding due to U.S. military base realignments, creating as many as 12,000 new jobs. Boeing, Lockheed Martin and NASA are among the other major employers here. Huntsville?s population is expected to grow by 15 percent by 2012.
5. Prescott, Ariz.: Expected to grow by more than 16 percent, partly because of its ?perfect climate? and partly because of its proximity to Phoenix.
6. Auburn-Opelika, Ala.: By 2012, Auburn?s population is expected to grow by more than 17 percent.
7. St. George, Utah: Construction has been the driving force behind the growth here, thanks mostly to an influx of retirees. Located about 120 miles from Las Vegas, St. George is also becoming a low-cost manufacturing area.
8. Port St. Lucie, Fla.; The city is becoming part of a biotech cluster.
9. Gulfport-Biloxi, Miss.: Its population is expected to increase by 17 percent by 2012. Gulfport is a transportation hub and a refiner and producer of oil and natural gas.
10. Naples-Marco Island, Fla.: With its ideal location along the Gulf of Mexico, Naples has attracted a large number of already wealthy residents who don?t have to go into debt to buy property here. Personal income is expected to grow by 7.2 percent on average until 2012?the top rate in the nation.

Of course, these are just predictions and GMP is just one way to look at city growth. America?s two largest cities, New York and Los Angeles, experienced the largest growth numerically between the years 2000 and 2003. Los Angeles grew by 125,000 to more than 3.8 million people, while New York increased its population by 77,500 in three years. And San Francisco, projected to keep growing by ?Forbes,? actually experienced a 4.2 percent decline in population during those years. Could be the city on the bay also suffered from sky-high housing costs before the bubble burst. Detroit, Chicago, Philadelphia and Baltimore also experienced population declines.

Census stats show that the largest growing city from 2005 to 2006 was North Las Vegas, Nev., which grew by 11.9 percent from 176,527 to 197,567. Its proximity to still-booming Las Vegas and Nellis Air Force Base likely contributed to that growth.

photo credit: That Other Paper

001 Cemetery Lane, “The Addams Family”

Their house was a museum, where people came to see ‘um. The Addams family mansion at 001 Cemetery Lane was filled with instruments of torture and landscaped with hemlock and poison ivy.

The house was said to be inspired by creator Charles Addams’ real-life boyhood home in Westfield, NJ.

The TV series house was originally an LA house on Adams Boulevard, that had been doctored by the set designer.

To create the matte painting, the artist took the photograph of the original house on Adams Boulevard and had it enlarged to a thirty-by-forty inch black-and-white portrait. The photograph was then custom painted with various shades of colored oils. Details such as the bent television antenna on the mansion’s tower and the leafless trees flanking the house were added for mood.

“The Beverly Hillbillies” mansion
Zillow.com estimates that the 1938 building located at 750 Bel Air Road in Bel Air, is worth $19,944,500. But that was just the exterior of the mansion where Jed, Granny, Jethro and Elly Mae lived. The rest of the house was constructed on the studio lot, including the swimming pool, or cee-ment pond, where Elly Mae used to swim.

Mary Richards’ apartment, “The Mary Tyler Moore Show”

Rhoda had dibs on it, but Phyllis gave Apartment D at 119 N. Weatherly to her friend Mary Richards. Mary’s studio apartment with its sunken living room, pass-through kitchen and large window became an icon for women as did the character who lived there. Every single gal on her own, or little girls aspiring to be single gals, wanted to live in a place just like Mary’s, with her own giant initial tacked on to the wall.

The house used for the exterior is still there, In Minneapolis where the show is set. Late in the show’s run, the producers decided it was time to move Mary into an apartment with a separate bedroom, a decision made in part by the behavior of the owner of the house at 2104 Kenwood Parkway. It seems the owner had gotten so sick of the cameras and the curious crowds the house drew that she strung up an “Impeach Nixon” sign outside to prevent filming.

Southfork, “Dallas”

The sprawling ranch where JR Ewing schemed his way into our hearts was, according to the show, founded in 1840 and? built by Miss Ellie’s grandfather, Enoch Southworth. In reality, the Ewing homestead was a built by another JR in 1970. The ranch house was chosen because it looked good from every angle and was deemed big enough at 8,500-square-feet to house an oil tycoon and his extended family.

The interior scenes were California soundstages, but the cast and crew went out to the ranch near Plano, Texas for about three months each year to film exterior shots. Almost as soon as “Dallas” aired in 1978, Southfork attracted tourists. The owner at the time, Joe R Duncan, took advantage of the house’s fame by selling off bits of the ranch land for $25 a square foot. Duncan eventually sold the house, but he kept 124 acres of the ranch, from there he sells t-shirts and other Ewing memorabilia. The house itself is now a conference center that’s open daily for tours.

1313 Mockingbird Lane, “The Munsters”

The house where Lily and Herman Munster lived had a revolving suit of armor leading to a secret room, a trapdoor in the staircase and a basement laboratory where Grandpa mixed his potions.

The real-life house is actually a shell built on Colonial Street in Universal Studios, right across from the house where Beaver Cleaver of “Leave it to Beaver” fame lived. Universal transformed the house, originally built for motion pictures in 1940, by building a big stone gate in front of it. A stovepipe and weathervane were installed on the roof, and the house was landscaped with hanging moss, tumbleweeds, dead bushes, and strewn leaves.

But the house lived on, even after the show died. Most recently Colonial Street has become the setting for Wisteria Lane of “Desperate Housewives” fame. And the Munster’s house was remodeled and draped with wisteria to welcome Oprah Winfrey.

Wayne Manor, “Batman”

Stately Wayne Manor, ancestral home to Batman’s alter ego Bruce Wayne, was located on extensive grounds outside Gotham City. The vast mansion was kept in shape by Wayne’s butler, Alfred, who had no other help to dust the bric a brac. But the real attraction was the Batcave, Batman’s HQ. Access to the Batcave from the house was through Wayne’s den by pressing a switch hidden in a bust of William Shakespeare. A bookshelf would appear, then disappear to reveal twin fire poles that took Batman and Robin under the house.

The Batcave was built in a studio. But the exterior was located on five acres on South San Rafael Avenue in Pasadena. Unfortunately the 16,000 square foot Tudor mansion was destroyed by fire in 2005.

4222 Clinton Way, “The Brady Bunch”

The interior of the Brady house, with its open staircase and groovy 60s color scheme, wouldn’t actually fit into the San Fernando home used for the exterior. Built in 1959, it’s actually a split-level and not the spacious two-story structure viewers see. To give the effect of a full second floor, a fake window was attached to the house’s A-frame section before filming.

The house was chosen because it looked so normal.

It was the house’s middle-class appearance, and modern(at the time) furniture that attracted the show’s producers when they came around asking to make it the residence of Mike and Carol Brady, their six kids and Alice the housekeeper, recalled Carson’s son, Guy Weddington McCreary.
“It just had a good look to it,” he said. “It symbolized California living.”
Series creator Sherwood Schwartz agrees.
“We didn’t want it to be too affluent, we didn’t want it to be too blue-collar,” he said. “We wanted it to look like it would fit a place an architect would live.”

But it’s not all fun and games. In the tech world, green is the new black as leading technology companies strive to make their HQs more energy efficient and environmentally friendly.

And not every technology company is headquartered in a glass-walled state-of-the-art complex. Sun Microsystems, for example, is housed in a historic landmark that’s been painstakingly renovated to look exactly like it did almost 100 years ago.

Here’s a look at where the employees of some of the nation’s leading technology companies work.

Adobe

photo credit: KiltBear

The three office towers in San Jose, California share a sixth-floor outdoor courtyard that’s equipped with a bocce ball court and a basketball court. The buildings contain 980,953 square feet of office space and two underground parking garages. The company received LEED platinum certification for its green buildings, which were retrofitted after California’s 2001 energy crisis.

Apple – 1 Infinite Loop

photo credit: Matt McGee

Comprised of six buildings, Apple’s corporate headquarters in Cupertino, California contains offices, labs, a conference center with theater for presentations and meetings, a full-service cafeteria and the Apple Company Store. The company has purchased more land in Cupertino that founder Steve Jobs says will be used to build a second campus.

Dell

photo credit: webg33k

In April the computer maker announced that its headquarters in Austin would be powered with 100 percent renewable energy. Forty percent of the 2.1 million square foot facility’s power will be generated from Waste Management’s Austin Community Landfill gas-to-energy plant; the rest will come from existing wind farms.

The Googleplex

photo credit: Pathfinder Linden

photo credit: mariachily

Money named it the best place to work in 2007 and its not hard to see why. The 978,000-square-foot Googleplex in Mountainview, California is loaded with amenities:

• 11 free gourmet cafeterias, plus snack rooms for when employees are feeling only slightly peckish.
• Onsite gym, rock-climbing wall and lap pools to keep up your strength.
• Company washers and dryers for when you don’t have a thing to wear
• Hair salon
• Car wash, you can also get your oil changed while you work.
• Motorized scooters for traveling around the Google campus.
• A bookmobile to cater to intellectual cravings,
• Foosball tables, video games and pool tables when you need to unwind.

The HP Garage

photo credit: b_d_solis

photo credit: b_d_solis

The birthplace of Silicon Valley, the country’s first high-tech region. The idea for such a region originated with a Stanford University professor who encouraged his students to start their own companies in the area instead of joining established firms in the East. The first two students to follow his advice were William R. Hewlett and David Packard, who moved into 367 Addison Avenue in Palo Alto because of the property’s garage.

David and Lucille Packard moved into the three-room apartment on the first floor while Bill Hewlett moved into the shed in the back. With only $538 in working capital–which included the cost of Packard’s used Sears-Roebuck drill press, the pair began working in the garage. They developed numerous products here, including HP?s first product, the Model 200A audio-oscillator

The Palo Alto garage, designated a California landmark in 1987, was renovated by HP in 2005. More here.

IAC Building

photo credit: waywuwei

Barry Diller’s Internet conglomerate is housed in a brand new building along New York City’s West Side Highway. The building, designed by Frank Gehry, looks like a ship tied up along the Hudson River. Here’s a look inside. The interior offices of the nine-story all-glass facade feature cubbies along the interior wall so employees won’t mess up the view with their personal belongings.

Intel

photo credit: Marcin Wichary

A highlight of the chip maker’s corporate headquarters is the Intel Corporate Museum, a free-of-charge, 10,00-square-foot facility that tells the story of the computer’s development. Exhibits include how microprocessers work, how silicon chips are made and how transistors work.

Microsoft

campus_aerial_1_web

Microsoft’s headquarters are located in a decentralized, corporate park in Redmond, Washington with around 40 buildings housing 14,000 offices. The campus had 29,000 parking spaces in 2007 with plans to build 5,000 more.

Oracle HQ

photo credit: Peter Kaminski

Designed to look like the data stacks the company is famous for, Oracle’s corporate campus is situated in Redwood Shores, California along a saltwater marsh known as “Larry’s Lake” after founder Larry Ellison. The 2,979,000 square-foot headquarters contains six office buildings, four parking garages, a fitness center and conference center.

Like the Googleplex, Oracle HQ is loaded with amenities, starting with the 50,000-square-foot gym that includes a full-size NCAA basketball court, a volleyball pit and a five-lane lap pool.

There are several cafes in addition to a bakery, a florist, a shoe repair shop and a dry cleaner on the Oracle campus. Employees can also get their cars detailed while at work.

Pixar

photo credit: orphanjones

photo credit: joeydz

The centerpiece of the building is an atrium/lobby that runs the entire length of the building. It features the company cafeteria and is decorated with art depicted Pixar characters like the Incredibles.

You’ll find no cubicles at this corporate headquarters. Instead, animators work in custom-designed “cottages” laid out along a “street.” Game rooms and lounges are sprinkled throughout the facility.

Sun Microsystems

photo credit: romainguy

Built on the site of the former Agnews Insane Asylum, the company bought this group of buildings on the national historic register from the state of California in 1996.

The Agnews facility plays a notable role in California history. Its first facility was the site of the worst tragedy on the 1906 earthquake, which killed 100 inmates. The institution was then rebuilt in the Mediterranean Revival style to resemble a college campus of low-lying buildings and became the state’s first modern psychiatric hospital.

Sun invested $10 million to create a 14-acre public park within it 82.5 -acre campus that includes four historic buildings from the asylum and many of the site’s original trees.

Yahoo!

photo credit: jay.tong

The Yahoo! campus includes five buildings and 820,000 square feet of office space, plus a three-story parking garage. Four of the buildings have arcades.

The Yahoo! campus is praised for its participation in the Santa Clara Valley Urban Runoff Pollution Prevention Program. The campus uses permeable rock walkways to transfer runoff directly to the soil, and angles walkways and parking lots so rainwater runs into the landscaping instead of storm drains.

Beatle Island

There’s nothing on Dorinish Island and there never has been. Perhaps that was part of its appeal to John Lennon who, at the height of his fame, was heard to say “There is nowhere I can go anymore where they can’t find me.”

Lennon bought the island in 1967 for ?1,700 after he saw a newspaper advertisement for “an island off Ireland.” While awaiting planning board approval to build a house there, Lennon paid for a caravan painted with psychedelic colors to be installed on the island as a temporary getaway for himself, his wife Cynthia and his 4-year-old son, Julian. But the marriage broke up before building could start and Lennon allowed the building permit to lapse.

Rumor has it that Lennon changed his mind about building a home on Dorinish because his new companion, Yoko Ono, wasn’t fond of the place.

Donie Quirke … wonders if the answer lies with Ono. He remembers the Beatle sitting at the top of the island gazing out over the glassy bay, but his memory of Ono is of a black-clad figure flapping in panic as nesting terns divebombed her.

In the 1970s, Lennon gave permission for a group of hippies led by Sid Rawle to build a commune on the island. The group, known as the Diggers, stayed for two years until a fire destroyed the main tent and the group abandoned the island.

Shortly before his death, Lennon was talking again about building on the island. But it wasn’t meant to be and Ono sold Dornish Island to a local farmer in 1983.

Teriaroa, Brando’s bounty

Tetiaroa, which Marlon Brando bought in 1962 after filming “Mutiny on the Bounty” in Tahiti, was once the resort of Tahiti’s royal families. Brando lived there in rustic semi-seclusion until his death in 2004.
Christian Brando was the Polynesian island’s only only inhabitant until a small eco-resort opened there earlier this year.

Mad Mel’s Melanesian hideaway

Mel Gibson bought Mago Island in Fiji in 2004. The actor/director paid $15 million to the former owner, Tokyu Corporation of Japan. The purchase was protested by natives at the time who were angry at being displaced.

Johnny Depp’s island retreat

The Pirate of the Caribbean has his own Caribbean hideaway in Little Hall’s Pond Cay an island in the Bahamas that he bought in 2004 for $3.6 million. The island, part of the Exuma archipelago of about 365 islands in the southern Bahamas, is accessible only by plane, boat or helicopter and boasts six white sand beaches, a private harbor and a palm-tree-fringed lagoon.

Nicolas Cage
Depp’s close friend Nicolas Cage is also a neighbor. Cage bought Leaf Cay in the Exumas in 2006. The island retreat boasts a 1,500-foot airstrip, underground wiring and its own desalination plant. The 40-acre island reportedly cost Cage $3 million, a bargain as far as Cage is concerned. “It’s nice to walk on the beach and not have to worry about having your picture taken,” he told the Associated Press.

Faith Hill and Tim McGraw
There must be something in the air in the Exumas that celebrities find particularly appealing; Faith Hill and Tim McGraw own another island in the chain.

Gene Hackman and Robin Williams prefer Canada

Rumor has it that Gene Hackman and Robin Williams each own an island among the Gulf Islands off British Columbia. Details are sketchy, but the San Francisco Chronicle published a rumor that Williams was chewed out by a store owner in Salt Spring Island, BC for reading a newspaper without buying it.

Tony Curtis’ rocky retreat

Rocky and Curtis Islands in Nova Scotia, once owned by actor Tony Curtis, were on sale for CAN$245,000 as recently this January. The only building on the islands, off the coast near Halifax, is a cottage. Curtis, apparently, likes it rough.

Richard Branson’s Necker Island

Virgin Atlantic owner Richard Branson bought this once-uninhabited island in the Caribbean more than 30 years ago. He’s been slowly building on it ever since. But Branson doesn’t keep his island to himself; anyone with enough cash can rent the island. It’s an excellent venue for a special event like a wedding–just ask Google co-founder Larry Page who was married here.

David Copperfield’s fountain of youth

Magician David Copperfield also rents out his island, Musha Cay, in the southern Bahamas. Oprah Winfrey and John Travolta have reportedly stayed here. And the other Google co-founder, Sergey Brin, got married here. It costs $325,000 a week to rent this 150-acre retreat, which Copperfield bills as “the most private private- island resort in the world.” Musha Cay is one of four islands Copperfield bought for $50 million; the other three act as buffers to the resortm ensuring maximum privacy.

But Musha Cay offers more than private beaches and luxe accommodations. According to Copperfield, the waters off the island offer perpetual youth.

“I’ve discovered a true phenomenon,” he told Reuters in a telephone interview. “You can take dead leaves, they come in contact with the water, they become full of life again. … Bugs or insects that are near death, come in contact with the water, they’ll fly away. It’s an amazing thing, very, very exciting.”

Leo’s eco-friendly resort

Leonardo DiCaprio bought Blackadore Caye off Belize in Central America in 2005 in order to build an eco-hotel there. DiCaprio struck a deal with Four Seasons Resorts to build the hotel, which will still preserve the island?s majestic wildlife and marine life. Groundbreaking is scheduled for 2008.

The Onassis retreat

Athena Onassis, the sole heir to the Aristotle Onassis fortune, still owns the Greek island of Skorpios, where Jackie Kennedy became Jackie O, but she never visits it.

For five years in the 1960s, Skorpios was home to some 500 workers who built the structures there as well as the island’s electrical plant and water supply. Now about 30 people work on the estate–largely as security guards. Aristotle Onassis and his children are buried there.

In the early years, the world’s highest building seemed to change from week to week as architects, engineers and business magnates raced to design, build or own the biggest, best and tallest building in their city’s skyline.

It was a race that started in the United States, where the Empire State Building won the race and held the title for more than 40 years after Depression called a halt to the building boom. The US picked up the ball again in the 1970s with the construction of the World Trade Center and the Sears Tower. But in recent years, Asia has thrown its heart and soul to the race: Taipei 101 in Taiwan is currently the world’s tallest building, but Dubai’s Burj Dubai will take the title later this year. And more buildings are in the works. Here’s a look at some of the more noteworthy skyscrapers of the last 100 years or so.

30 St. Mary Axe
London

photo credit: .Martin.

Known in London as “The Gherkin”–also as the Erotic Gherkin, the Towering Innuendo and the Crystal Phallus–this 2004 building is London’s first environmentally sustainable skyscraper. Atria between each floor link together vertically and spiral up the building. These spaces function as the building’s lungs, distributing fresh air drawn in through panels in the facade. This system allows the building to use half the energy needed to cool conventional air-conditioned office towers.

The building sits on the site of the Baltic Exchange, which was damaged by an IRA bomb in 1992. Headquarters for Swiss Re, an insurance company, the building is 591 feet tall and covers 516,100 square feet. The top level contains a private restaurant and lounge while the landscaped plaza on the ground features numerous shops and restaurants and is open to the public.

By the numbers:

• The elevators attain speeds of more than 19 feet per second and can accommodate 378 people.
• The building’s maximum circumference is just two meters less than its height.
• 21 miles of steel and 258,333.850 square feet of glass was used in its construction.
• Each floor rotates five degrees from the one below.

20 Exchange Place
New York

photo credit: C R

The fourth tallest building in the world when it was completed in 1931, architects Cross and Cross originally envisioned a pyramid sitting atop a 71-story structure, which would have made it the tallest building in the world–at least for a short time. But the Depression forced the builders to scale back to 56 floors and to eliminate the pyramid altogether. In June 2004, real estate developers Berman and Bruckner bought the building for $152 million. The firm is in the process of converting the top 41 floors into luxury apartments.

2 International Finance Center
Hong Kong

photo credit: laszlo-photo

Tower 2 in this four-building complex is the seventh tallest building in the world at 415 meters, or more than 1,361 feet. The complex consists of two skyscrapers, the IFC mall and the Four Seasons Hotel.

Fun facts:

• The complex includes three garage levels that can accommodate more than 1,800 vehicles.
• The tower is 56.960 meters wide at its base, and 39.148 meters wide at the main roof.
• The building is featured in a scene of the movie “The Dark Knight.”
• Officially, the building has 88 stories and 22 trading floors, numbers the Chinese believe to be lucky. However, two floors are missing: The 14th and the 24th, both of which are associated with death in Chinese culture.

2 Prudential Plaza
Chicago

photo credit: mrkathika

Its beveled roof makes “Two Pru” instantly recognizable in the Chicago skyline. The tallest reinforced concrete building in the city was built in 1990 and designed by Stephen T. Wright of Loebl, Schlossman & Hackl. The skyscraper has 64 floors and reaches 995 feet with its spire.

Al Faisaliah
Riyadh

photo credit: Snap?

Riyadh’s first skyscraper is part of a complex that includes a five-star hotel, a banquet hall/conference center, luxury apartments and a mall. The skyscraper is organized into three blocks that are nine, 10 and 11 stories high respectively and separated by cross beams that transfer the load of the columns onto the pillars. Offices take up the building’s first 30 floors. Inside the golden glass globe at the top of the building is a three-story restaurant. The globe is 24 meters at its diameter.

Below the plaza is a 50,000-square-foot conference and banquet center, which can be adjusted for size with removable panels. Prince Sultan’s Grand Hall, can accommodate 4,000 conference attendees or 2,800 diners.

American Radiator Building
New York

photo credit: Doonvas

Architect Raymond Hood had been designing the company’s radiator covers when he was chosen to design the its new showroom and office tower.

The black brickwork facade and gold-painted friezes were designed to make the building look like a glowing radiator coil when illuminated at night, at least that’s one theory. Others say the architect made the bricks black so that the windows would blend in with the facade to create the illusion of a solid mass. The bricks were dipped in manganese to make them black.

The base of the structure is clad in black granite and adorned with bronze carved allegories, symbolizing the transformation of matter into energy. The black motif continued into the lobby, which was decorated with black marble and mirrors.

After remaining vacant for years, the building opened as the Bryant Park Hotel in 2001. The interior was completely changed, with black tiles and red leather replacing the lobby’s marble and mirrors. but the exterior remains the same thanks to the building’s status as a national landmark.

AT&T Building
Nashville

photo credit: Exothermic

The top of this 32-story skyscraper was supposed to look like a telephone, but the addition of a pair of illuminated spires led natives to call it the “Batman Building” because of its resemblance to the headgear worn by the caped crusader.

Baiyoke Tower II
Bangkok

photo credit: Khaosaming

Thailand’s tallest building contains the Baiyoke Sky Hotel, the tallest hotel in Southeast Asia and the third-tallest all-hotel structure in the world. Some fun facts:

• The hotel has 673 guest rooms.
• The Baiyoke Tower was opened in 1998.
• The building has 1,740 windowpanes.
• There are 2,060 steps from the bottom to the top.

Bank of America Center
Houston

photo credit: rkimpeljr

The seventh-highest building in Texas was inspired by the architecture of the houses along the canals of the Netherlands. The red granite of the building sets it apart from its mostly blue, black and white neighbors in the Houston skyline. Completed in 1983, Bank of America Center is 56-stories high and contains 1.5 million square-feet of office space.

The Bank of America Center contains a building within a building: The two-story Western Union building, which wasn’t torn down because the electrical connections it houses.

Bank of America Tower
Miami


photo credit: The Anti-ZIM

This landmark building is actually two separate structures: The 37-story office tower sits atop a 10-story parking garage owned by the city of Miami Beach. Inside, there’s a 150-seat auditorium, an elevated Metro rail station, a gym and a restaurant. Designed by modernist master IM Pei, the building is also known for its luxurious appointments, like the gym’s mahogany lockers and the 11th-floor Sky Lobby, which is covered in marble and gold and features a 10,000-square-foot terrace with a reflecting pool.

Bank of China
Hong Kong

photo credit: Joe Hastings

Another creation of IM Pei, whose inspiration for the tower was the structure of bamboo. Pei had two challenges to surmount when designing this project: The small lot located near a busy roadway and the constraints of feng shui:

The term means ‘wind and water’ and it has its roots in the worship of the forces of nature, which sometimes degenerated into a form of superstition. When you design buildings in Hong Kong, you cannot get away from that problem. There are specialists, feng shui masters, who advise people on all matters of things, especially on the selection of a building site; placement of the building on the site; and the shape and form of the building.

I was aware of this, but did not take it seriously. As soon as we made our design public, I was immediately attacked–just as fiercely as I was attacked for the Louvre, but for different reasons.
for instance,…(the) building had too many sharp corners (which would) bring bad luck to one’s neighbours.

Burj al Arab
Dubai

photo credit: mikeakelly

Designed to look like a dhow, an Arabian ship, the building features two wings spread in a V to form a mast. The space between the wings is enclosed by a Teflon-coated fiberglass sail. The Burj al Arab is 1,052 feet high to its spire, making it the tallest hotel in the world. It rests on its own man-made island and has its own heliport.

It costs a minimum of $1,000 a night to stay in one of the hotel’s lavishly appointed 202 suites. Each suite comes with its own butler and is equipped with the latest technology, including an outside video monitoring system that allows guests to see who’s at the door and to open it without getting out of bed. Top tier rooms cost about $7,000 a night and contain even more amenities, such as private movie theaters and mosques.

Fun facts:

• The hotel atrium is 590 feet high.
• One of the restaurants is accessible by submarine.
• Model Naomi Campbell rented out 18 floors in May 2006 to celebrate her 36th birthday. The party cost an estimated cost of $1.8 million.

Cathedral of Learning
Pittsburgh

Thomas J. Grant

The second tallest educational building in the world at 42 stories, 535 feet tall. the cathedral was built by University Chancellor John Bowman to be

a symbol of the life that Pittsburgh through the years had wanted to live. It was to make visible something of the spirit that was in the hearts of pioneers as, long ago, they sat in their log cabins and thought by candlelight of the great city that would sometime spread out beyond their three rivers and that even they were starting to build.

The building was completed in 1937, the heart of the Depression, with the help of contributions from people throughout the world.

The building houses the three-story, Commons Room, the University’s administrative offices, libraries, a computer center and a restaurant but it’s most famous for its Nationality Rooms–25 classrooms and two display rooms that celebrate the Pittsburgh area’s ethnic heritage.

Chrysler Building
New York

photo credit: Martini Captures

From the steel-clad sunburst at the top of the building, to the gargoyles modeled after Chrysler hubcaps and hood ornaments, the Chrysler Building is never boring.

Neither is the story of its construction.

The building’s architect, William Van Alen and his patron Walter P. Chrysler desperately wanted the building to be the tallest in the world. After the architect of the Lincoln Building proposed building 63 stories, Van Alen redesigned the building, originally to be 57 stories, to rise to 65 stories. But Chrysler wanted more and Van Alen raised the building’s height again, going from 808 feet to 925.

Enter Van Alen’s former partner, H. Craig Severance, whose building for Manhattan Bank was going up at the same time as the Chrysler Building. When Severance finished structural work on his project, the bank building beat the automaker’s building by two feet. That’s when Van Alen unveiled his secret weapon: A 180-foot finial that builders put together secretly inside the building’s fire shaft. The day after the bank at 40 Wall Street topped out, Van Alen hoist the finial into place, making the building 1,043 feet high. Alas, the honor of world’s highest building was the Chrysler’s for less than a year: The Empire State Building took its place in 1931.

The inside of the Chrysler Building is just as impressive as the outside. Like one of Chrysler’s automobiles, the lobby is beribboned with chrome; its walls are red marble and it floor is yellow marble. Amber onyx and blue marble trim complete the look. Each of the building’s 32 elevators is covered with a different marquetry pattern made from eight rare varieties of wood from around the world. A mural, “Energy and Man’s Application of It” by Edward Turnbull, covers the lobby ceiling.

midweekpost	caspermoller	.Martin.	MrScratch	ktylerconk
ktylerconk	caspermoller	t_a_i_s	giopuo	ktylerconk

Citigroup Center
New York

photo credit: .Martin.

The base of this skyscraper, one of its signature elements, came about as a result of the unique deal the bank made with the church that owned the corner of the lot. Citibank negotiated a deal with St Peter’s Lutheran Church to build its headquarters on the Lexington Avenue lot with the proviso that the bank pay for construction of a new church building on the corner of the lot. That led engineers to devise four 127-foot-tall supports at the mid-point of each face instead of the edge, plus a supporting core.

But there was a problem with the columns: An engineering student working on the job pointed out that the the skyscraper’s bolted joints were too weak to withstand 70-mile-per-hour winds at specific angles. If high winds were to hit the building at a 45-degree angle, the bolts holding up the columns might fail. Structural engineer William LeMessurier solved that problem by welding steel plates over the building’s 200 bolted joints.

A mass damper on the building’s unique triangular roof, also ensures the stability of the skyscraper. The damper counteracts the effects of high winds by swaying against their motion, thus reducing the effect of high winds by 50 percent.

CN Tower
Toronto

photo credit: alexindigo

Rising 1,815 feet above land, the CN tower is currently the world’s tallest completed freestanding structure on land. The bottom of the tower is a hollow pillar containing elevators, stairwells, power and plumbing connections. On top of this is a 334.6-foot broadcast antenna. Two visitor areas are located at 1,135 feet and the 1,465 feet. On the first visitors’ level, sightseers can walk across a glass floor 113 stories above the ground. The first of its kind in the world, the glass floor is only 2 1/2 inches thick but it’s strong enough to hold up to 85,000 pounds.

The CN Tower was named one of the seven wonders of the world by the American Society of Civil Engineers in 1995. Other fun facts:

• All major TV and radio stations as well as wireless service providers use the CN Tower for transmission.
• The tower weighs 130,000 tons.
• 53,000 cubic yards of concrete were used in the tower’s construction.
• 360, the tower’s 1,151-foot-high restaurant make a complete revolution every 72 minutes.

Commerzbank Tower
Frankfurt

photo credit: chaouki

Europe’s tallest building from from 1997 to 2003, the Commerzbank Tower was also Europe’s first “green” skyscraper. It was planned by Frankfurt’s then-ruling Green Party.

Four-story gardens are set at different levels on each side of the tower’s triangular central atrium. The gardens bring natural light and fresh air into the building and act as a natural ventilation chimney for the inward-facing offices.

Eiffel Tower
Paris
photo credit: mike (el madrile?o)

Who can picture Paris without the Eiffel Tower? Yet when the tower was built in 1889, no one thought it would be around for this long.

Originally built as the main entrance for the 1889 World?s Fair, designer Gustav Eiffel could only get a 20-year permit for the structure. At the time, many thought it was an eyesore that clashed with traditional Paris architecture. By 1909 there were calls to tear it down. Yet the tower survived to become a symbol of Paris.

Eiffel approached the military in 1901 with a view to making the Tower into a long-distance radio antenna. In 1903 a radio connection was made with the military bases around Paris, and a permanent radio station was installed in the Tower in 1906, ensuring its survival.

Fun facts:

• The Eiffel Tower is 1,050 feet high; it was the tallest structure in the world until the Empire State Building opened in 1931.
• The tower is made from an exposed criss-cross lattice work of iron beams weighing 7,000 tons.
• The Tower has to be painted every seven years to protect the iron from deterioration. It takes 15 months, 50 tons of paint, 50 kilometers of security cords, 5 acres of protection netting, 1,500 brushes, 5,000 sanding disks, 1,500 sets of work clothes and 25 painters to paint the Tower from top to bottom.

Empire State Building
New York

photo credit: Swami Stream

King Kong climbed it while clutching Fay Wray, space aliens decimated it and Robert Cummings saved it from destruction by the Nazis. Even if you’ve never been to the Empire State building, which ruled the sky as the world’s tallest building for 40 years, you’ve seen it in at least one of these movies:

• An Affair to Remember
• Annie Hall
• Any Wednesday
• April Fools
• Ask Any Girl
• Auntie Mame
• Bachelor Apartment
• Ball of Fire
• Bell Book and Candle
• Best of Everything
• Bright Lights, Big City
• Big City Blues
• Blackboard Jungle
• Bon Voyage
• Broadway Melody
• Butcher’s Wife
• Champion
• Charlie Chan of Broadway
• Come to the Stable
• Coogan’s Bluff
• Daddy Long Legs
• Detective Story
• Easter Parade
• Edge of the City
• Fail-Safe
• FBI Story
• Fine Madness
• Finian’s Rainbow
• Footlight Serenade
• Fitzwilly
• French Connection I
• For Pete’s Sake
• Funny Face
• French Line
• Garment Jungle
• Guys & Dolls
• Hatful of Rain
• How to Succeed in Business
• I Take this Woman
• Independence Day
• Its Always Fair Weather
• Ivory Ape
• King of the Gypsies
• King Kong
• Klute
• Kramer vs. Kramer
• Last Action Hero
• Law & Disorder
• Love With a Proper Stranger
• Lullaby of Broadway
• Madigan
• Man in Gray Flannel Suit
• Manhattan
• Manhattan Melodrama
• Moon is Blue
• My Man Godfrey (Remake)
• My Sister Eileen
• New York Confidential
• New York, New York
• New York Town
• New York Stories
• North By Northwest
• Nothing Sacred
• On the Town
• On the Waterfront
• Pawnbroker
• President’s Analyst
• Prisoner of Second Avenue
• Rock Around the Clock
• Saboteur
• Safety First
• Saint in New York
• Serpico
• Seven Ups
• Shaft
• Sky’s the Limit
• Slaughter on Tenth Avenue
• Sleepless in Seattle
• So This is New York
• Stand Up and Cheer
• Street Scene
• Sunday in New York
• Superman II
• Sweet Charity
• Taxi Driver
• When Harry Met Sally
• Who Done It
• World of Henry Orient
• World Flesh & Devil
• You Gotta Stay Happy

Flatiron Building
New York

photo credit: cwbuecheler

Built to accommodate its site at the intersection of Broadway and Fifth Avenue, the Flatiron building opened in 1902. At the time, some people felt that the building’s strange shape would cause it to fall over on its side; the 285-foot-high building is only six feet wide at its tip.

GE Building
New York

photo credit: azza-bazoo

The tallest building in the Rockefeller Center complex, the 70-story building is prized for its Art Deco detailing. Sculptor Lee Lawrie designed the frieze above the main entrance to the building as well as the sculpture of Atlas that sits in front of the complex’s Fifth Avenue entrance.

Picasso and Matisse were to be commissioned for artwork for the building’s lobby, but when those deals fell through artist Diego Rivera was hired to paint a mural. That work, “Man at the Crossroads” glorified the Soviet Union and featured a large portrait of Lenin; it also offended the center’s tenants. Nelson Rockefeller asked Rivera to ditch Lenin’s face, but the artist refused. So Rockefeller paid him off and eventually destroyed the work. The story was depicted in the movie “Cradle Will Rock.”

The painting was replaced by another mural, “American Progress” by Jose Maria Sert.

Hearst Tower
New York

photo credit: midweekpost

The first New York City skyscraper to break ground after the 9/11 attacks, the Hearst Tower rises above the corporation’s 1928 headquarters. The 1928 building was commissioned by founder William Randolph Hearst who had always planned to build a tower there. In fact, the original L-shaped building was structurally reinforced for an office tower, but the depression called a halt to its construction.

The tower was built using 80 percent recycled steel and was designed to consume 25 percent less energy than conventional skyscrapers. “Icefall”, a three-story sheet of flowing water that runs through the atrium helps keep the lobby cool. A rainwater collection system keeps the water feature running.

Het Strijkijzer
The Hague

photo credit: ** Maurice **

Chosen as the Best New Skyscraper of 2007, Het Strijkijzer pays homage to New York’s Flatiron building. The 43-story residential building was praised for

I]ts structurally expressive folded-triangle shape which responds well to its small site. The triangular shape is indented along most of its height, forming a V-shape. The building thus appears differently from every angle, yet can be recognized at once by its prominent overhanging crown.

The building contains 51 luxury apartments and 300 studios reserved for young people between ages 18 and 27.

Jin Mao Tower
Shanghai






photo credit: Montrasio International

The Grand Hyatt, a 555-room hotel, occupies the top 38 floors, so the building contains the world’s highest hotel rooms, and is the world’s tallest building with a hotel inside. The hotel atrium starts at the 53rd floor and extends to the 87th floor to a height of 152 meters. The world’s longest laundry chute runs down the full length of the tower to the basement.

John Hancock Center
Chicago

photo credit: jordanfischer

The John Hancock Center was only the third building in the world 1,000 feet and the first outside of New York. With a giant steel tube at its core, the X-braces on the building’s exteriors eliminate the need for inner support beams and increase its usable floor area.

Fun facts:

• The skyscraper is 40,000 square feet at the base and 18,000 square feet at the summit. This tapered design provides additional structural stability against wind forces.
• The country’s highest indoor swimming pool is located on the 44th floor of the building.
• The observation floor features a screened-in area called the Skywalk that’s the highest balcony in America.
• Jerry Springer and comedian Chris Farley were next door neighbors on the 60th floor until Farley’s death in 1987.

Library Tower
Los Angeles
photo credit: Clinton Steeds

The tallest building between Chicago and Hong Kong at a height of 1,017 feet, this skyscraper is designed to resist an earthquake of 8.3 on the Richter scale. The building has has 73 aboveground stories and two below ground parking levels and a total of 1.43 million square feet of office and retail space. A series of overlapping spiraling cubes creates a building that is both circular and square–and provides a multitude of profitable “corner offices.” The world’s highest helipad sits on the roof of the structure, which opened in 1989 .

MesseTurm
Frankfurt

photo credit: loop_oh

The second-tallest building in the European Union holds the record for the longest continuous concrete pour; 240 workers poured 22,200 cubic yards of concrete from 90 trucks using four pumps in a three-day operation for the foundation.

NTT DoCoMo Yoyogi Building
Tokyo

photo credit: mrhayata

Featuring the world’s tallest clock tower at 787 feet, the building houses the base station and switching equipment for the Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Company’s cellular phone service. The tower was built with an eye toward conserving energy through the use of solar power. Waste water is recycled for reuse and rainwater is used for toilet flushing.

One Liberty Place
Philadelphia

photo credit: Lucius Kwok

Until this skyscraper was built in 1987, Philadelphia developers followed an unwritten rule that no building should reach higher than William Penn’s hat on top of City Hall. Since the rule was breached, none of the city’s sports teams have won a championship, a phenomenon Philadelphians attribute to the curse of Billy Penn, which is kind of a second cousin to Boston’s famed Curse of the Bambino.

Palace of Culture and Science
Warsaw

photo credit: Jarosław Pocztarski

A relic of the Iron Curtain, this was Poland’s most detested building during the Cold War. Originally the Josef Stalin Palace of Science and Culture, the building was a “gift of Stalin to to the Polish people.” When Khrushchev took over the USSR and “destalinized,” all references to Stalin were cleansed from the building.

But to Poles it still served as a symbol of Soviet domination. Many Poles also objected to the structure on aesthetic grounds; they called it “an elephant in lacy underwear” and the “Russian wedding cake” because of the 560 ornamental sculptures adorning the building. Shortly after its 1955 opening, only those with a pass could enter the building, further alienating the Polish people who joked that the best views of Warsaw could be seen from inside the palace because it was the only place in the city where you couldn’t see the building.

Although there was talk about razing the building after the Berlin Wall fell, the building remains and Polish attitudes toward it have softened.

Petronas Towers
Kuala Lumpur

photo credit: lrargerich

The first buildings outside the United States to win the coveted “world’s tallest” designation, the Petronas Towers are 88 stories high and feature a pedestrian bridge at the 41st and 42nd floors that links the two stories.

The building’s “world’s tallest” designation was not without controversy as both the Sears Tower and the World Trade Center were 110 stories high when the Petronas opened for business. But according to the rules of the game, the addition of a 241-foot spire put the Malaysian building in first place.

In fact, the spires play an essential role in the aesthetics of the towers. Designed to look like minarets, they complete the developer’s vision of a modern building based on traditional Islamic elements. That vision begins with the footprints of the towers–two eight-point stars constructed of interconnected squares that evoke the arabesques of traditional Islamic art and architecture.

Vital statistics:

• At 170 meters, the skybridge between the two towers is the highest such bridge in the world. The bridge is 58 meters long and weighs 750 tons.
• It takes window washers a month to wash the windows of each tower, which have a combined total of 32,000 windows.
• Each tower was built by a different company; Tower I was built by Japan’s Hazama Corporation, while Samsung Construction and Kukdong Engineering & Construction of South Korea built the second.
• The towers contain more than eight million square feet of offices, shops and entertainment facilities, underground parking for 4,500 cars, a petroleum museum, a symphony hall, a mosque, and a conference center.
• The buildings sit on the world’s deepest foundation–120 meters.

Pirelli Tower
Milan

photo credit: Tengis

Italy’s first and tallest skyscraper stands on the site of the first Pirelli tire factory. The first building in Milan that was taller than the Madonnina statue on the highest spire of the cathedral, Duomo di Milano, a small statue of the Virgin Mary sits atop the modernist structure as a mark of respect to the cathedral.

Puerto de Europa
Madrid

photo credit: bjaglin

photo credit: David Poblador

Standing astride the Paseo de la Castellana,these twin towers are the world’s first leaning high-rise buildings. To distinguish the two buildings, the helipad on the roof of Tower I is blue, while the helipad on Tower II is red. The first building is also a centimeter taller than the second.

Rialto Towers
Melbourne

photo credit: mugley

The tallest office building in the Southern Hemisphere consists of two adjoining towers–a 63-story main tower with a 43-story wing. The 1,450 steps to the top of the building are the site for a yearly Run Up race.

Rose Tower
Dubai

Imre Salt

This 1,093-foot tall building was slated to open in April 2008, but that has been delayed. When the building does open for business as the Rose Rotana Suites, it will be the world’s tallest hotel, beating out the Burj al Arab by 20 meters.

Russ Building
San Francisco

photo credit: J. Tegnerud

The first building in San Francisco to have an indoor parking garage, the Russ Building was the tallest building in that city from 1927 to 1964. It has such a prominent place in the heart of the city’s financial district that for years it was known simply as “the skyscraper.” The neo-Gothic structure is a California State Historic Landmark. It’s known for its exquisite interior of granite floors and marble wainscoting.

Seagram Building
New York

photo credit: stevecadman

Named the millennium’s most important building by New York Times architecture critic Herbert Muschamp, the 1958 building was designed by Ludqig Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson.

Set on bronze-clad pillars, the 38-story facade consists of alternating bands of bronze plating and thick brown-tinted glass. A triumph of the International Style, it was the first building with floor-to-ceiling windows, an idea Mies himself espoused as early as the 1920s.

It was the world’s most expensive building upon completion because of the materials used and the architect’s decision to sacrifice rentable office space in favor of building a large plaza at the building’s base.

Within the building is the Four Season’s Restaurant, which was designed by Johnson and whose design and decor remain unchanged since the restaurant’s 1959 opening. It has since been named an interior landmark by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission.

Sears Tower
Chicago

photo credit: KM Photography..

The world’s tallest building from 1974 to 1998 reaches 1,451 feet to its roof and 1,725 feet with its antennas.

The superstructure consists of a bundle of nine interlocking tubes that terminate at different heights. As the building climbs upward, the tubes begin to drop off, reducing the wind forces on the building. The configuration was pioneered by Fazlur R. Khan. It allowed for large open office spaces on the lower levels and smaller floor plates on the upper levels with unobstructed views.

Fun facts:

• The Tower weighs more than 440 million pounds.
• 2.5 million cubic feet of concrete were used during construction.
• The building’s facade has been climbed twice: by Dan Goodwin in 1981 and by Alain Robert in 1999.
• On a clear day, you can see Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Michigan from the Skydeck.
• The Skydeck attracts 1.5 million visitors a year.

Shibam
Yemen

photo credit: ninjawil

kurvenalbn

kurvenalbn

kurvenalbn

It is known as “the oldest skyscraper city in the world” and “the Manhattan of the Desert.” Shibam is an ancient walled city of five- to nine-story mud brick towers that date back to the 16th Century. They were built to resist attacks by Bedouin invaders who coveted the city’s stores of frankincense and myrrh.

The bricks become gradually smaller for the higher floors. Which means the building walls gradually become thinner, forming a trapezium shape. The walls are thinner on higher floors to reduce the pressure on lower floors, making the building strong and stable. Each building is usually occupied by one family which uses the 3rd floor up as its residence. The 1st and 2nd floors are often used to store food and as a stable for livestock. People kept cattle inside their homes to live through times when the town was under attack. The earthen houses stay cool inside despite the heat outside.

Inhabited since the Third Century AD, Shibam was the capitol of the ancient Hadramawt Kingdom.

Space Needle
Seattle

photo credit: Piutus

Like the Eiffel Tower, the Space Needle was built for the World’s Fair. A space-age structure was chosen to go along with the 1962 fair’s theme, Century 21.

By the numbers:

• There are 848 steps from the bottom of the basement to the top of the Observation Deck.
• The foundation weighs 5,850 tons and there are 250 tons of reinforcing steel in the foundation.
• The Needle weighs alone 3,700 tons.
• The center of gravity for the Space Needle is 5 feet above the ground.
• The Space Needle is fastened to its foundation with 72 bolts, each 30 feet in length.
• The Space Needle is 605 feet high and 138 feet wide at its widest point
• It is built to withstand winds of up to 200 miles per hour.
• The Space Needle was designated as an official historic landmark in 1999.

Taipei 101
Taipei

photo credit: AllenHo

The world’s tallest completed building will likely lose that designation this year with the opening of Burj Dubai. Taipei 101 was the first tallest building to be built in this century.

The building is 1,671 feet tall, has 101 floors and boasts the world’s fastest elevators, which rise at 1008 meters per minute and descend at 610 meters per minute.

State-of-the-lifting-art permanent magnet synchronous motors power the tower’s system, and are smaller and produce more torque than conventional motors. High-strength steel hoist ropes with solid steel cores were developed to limit stretching and improve wear. Because braking temperatures would melt bronze safety shoes, designers specified ceramic shoes.

Surprisingly, achieving the height and speed required for Taipei 101 was the easy part. The real challenge was the human factor. To hold down noise–for those in the building, as well as in the elevators–the observation-deck shuttles are shaped like twin-nosed bullets, reducing aerodynamic drag, what is known in the trade as windage. They’re equipped with sound-isolation shrouds, acoustic tiles and isolated floor platforms. Even the counterweights are aerodynamic.

Time Warner Center
New York

photo credit: Matthew Black

The two towers and concourse at Columbus Circle house Manhattan?s largest food market, the Mandarin Oriental hotel, offices for CNN, condos, a jazz center, a gym, seven restaurants and dozens of shops. Ricky Martin lives in one of the condos as does Mexican financier David Martinez, who paid $54.7 million for a penthouse apartment.

The towers are 750 feet tall with 55 floors.

Torre Latinoamericano
Mexico City

Daniel Manrique

Mexico City’s oldest skyscraper, Torre Latinoamericano was South America’s tallest building when it was completed in 1956.

The building received the American Association of Construction and Engineering Prize of Merit for “the tallest building ever exposed to a huge seismic force” after surviving an earthquake in 1957. The building also withstood an even deadlier earthquake in September 1985 that destroyed many other downtown buildings.

Transamerica Pyramid
San Francisco

photo credit: nor?cal?jeff

The iconic Transamerica Pyramid is to the San Francisco skyline what the Eiffel Tower and Space Needle are to Paris and Seattle: Instantly recognizable symbols on the cities they tower over. he shape of the building was chosen because its tapered design casts a smaller shadow and allows more natural light to filter down to the streets below than conventional high-rises.

Fun facts:

• The building’s facade is covered in crushed quartz, giving the building its pure white color.
• Pyramid architect William Pereira shared an Academy Award for best special effects for his work on the 1942 film “Reap the Wild Wind.”
• The Pyramid Center sits on the site of the former Montgomery Block, the tallest building in the West when it was built in 1853, and the City’s first fireproof and earthquake-resistant building.
• When The Pyramid’s construction began in 1969, signs around the site proclaimed it “a San Francisco landmark since 1972.”
• The largest floor is the 5th, at 21,025 square feet and the 48th floor is the smallest, 2,025 square feet.

Tuntex 85 Sky Tower
Kaohsiung, Taiwan

Taiwan Junior

The shape of Taiwan’s second tallest building is based on the Chinese character Kao, which means tall and is the first character in the city’s name. With 85-floors, Tuntex Sky Tower is 1,240 feet high with its spire. The building houses a department store, offices, private apartments, a hotel and an observation deck.

Turning Torso
Malm?

photo credit: borya

Architect Santiago Calatrava based the shape of this Swedish building on his sculpture, “Twisting Torso” for which he set seven cubes around a steel support to produce a spiral structure that twists like a human spine.

The building consists of nine five-story cubes that twist as the building rises so that the top box is twisted 90 degrees from the ground floor box. The two lowest cubes contain offices and the two highest house a conference center. The rest of the building is apartments, each with a different floor plan, and modern furniture and consumption monitor that allows residents to control their energy costs.

United Nations Secretariat
New York
photo credit: Pro-Zak

Based on a plan submitted to the UN’s Board of Design by modernist master Le Corbusier, the UN building was New York’s first major skyscraper built in the International style.

The north and south facades are covered with marble, while the east and west facades are all-glass curtains. The blue-green-toned Thermopane windows, designed to lessen the effects of heat from the sun, are bordered by glass spandrels painted black on the inside. Air conditioning grilles on the 6th, 16th, 28th and 39th floors, extend the whole width of the facade

Wells Fargo Plaza
Houston

The tallest all-glass building in the Western Hemisphere survived a 1983 hurricane with minimal damage–unlike neighboring skyscrapers. Locals claim that 992-foot-high building’s footprint was designed to look from the air like a dollar sign. The architect, Richard Keating ,says not.

photo credit: Dhanix

Woolworth Building
New York

photo credit: Helico

The Cathedral of Commerce has a cruciform floor plan,and a Romanesque lobby with barrel-vaulted ceilings. Outside and in, it’s covered with gothic details–gargoyles, arches, flying buttresses and stained glass. It also had the highest office space to elevator space ratio for any building at the time of its completion, making it very profitable.

Paid for with cash in 1913 by original owner Frank W. Woolworth, the Woolworth building never had a mortgage until the building changed hands 85 years later.

World Trade Center
April 4, 1973-September 11, 2001
New York

photo credit: pingnews.com

Terrorists flew two planes into the Twin Towers on the morning of September 11, 2001, destroying all of the complex’s seven buildings and killing almost 3,000 people. Plans are underway for a new complex, which will include five new skyscrapers, a museum and memorial to September 11, a retail complex and a performing arts center.

House of the future

Futuro house

The Futuro house was designed in 1968 by Finnish architect Matti Suuronen, who designed it as a vacation house for a friend. After the first house was built, Polykem approached the architect about designing a prefabricated model and it became an overnight sensation.

The house came in 16 pieces of fiberglass and plastic. A hatch door in its lower half opened down to reveal steps, like an airplane, and led into a room outfitted with six plastic bed-chair combinations, a fireplace, a kitchenette and a bathroom. The house sold for between $12,000 and $14,000 in the US before the energy crisis of the 1970s and changing tastes led the manufacturer to stop production.

But there are still some Futuros out there and Richard Pisani has made it his mission to find them. You can read about it here.
          
The Pod House
          

Pod house, Rochester

          
Also known as the Mushroom House and the Floating House, the house was actually designed to resemble the flower known as Queen Anne’s Lace. The house, a series of pods on “stems,” was built in 1970 for Robert and Marguerite Antell by architect James H. Johnson. It has been declared a national historic landmark.
          
          
          
          
          
The Storybook House
          

Storybook house, Olalla, Washington

          
An homage to Hansel and Gretel, the Storybook house was built in the 1980s by Richey & Karen Morgan. A stone bridge, a tree house and five fireplaces complete the house, which was up for sale as recently as March of this year for the asking price of $359,000.
          
The Mushroom House
          

Mushroom house, Cincinnati

This hodgepodge of a house looks thrown together, but it was designed by Terry Brown, professor of architecture and interior design at the University of Cincinnati.

The house was a nondescript bungalow until the early 1990s, when Brown got his hands on it. The remodeling created a structure adorned with wood shingles, mosaics, art glass, peekaboo windows, and swirly orange stairs. Since the remodel, the house has sparked controversy among Erie Avenue residents, who have dubbed it “the Mushroom House” and the “Dr. Seuss House.”
          
The Airplane House
          

Airplane house, Nigeria

The house with the airplane on top was built by Said Jammal as a tribute to his wife, Liza, an avid traveler. The plane is 100 feet long and 20 feet tall with a 50-foot wingspan.

As of 2006, the house was unfinished, mostly because Said has done most of the work himself. Jammal has built a two-story control tower and planned to build a guest cottage topped by a smaller plane.
          
The Football House
          

Football house, Malawi

An odd-shaped lot and a passion for soccer led Dutch architect Jan Sonkie to design and build this house in Blantyre, Malawi’s capitol city where he lives with his wife.

The house is four-stories high with at least one room on each level. According to the architect, the house stays cool in summer and warm in winter because of the materials he used: metal on the outside and wood inside.
                    
          
The Bubble House
          

Bubble house, France

Actually, there are three bubble houses, all designed by Hungarian architect Antti Lovag, who prefers to be known as an habitologue, and is committed to the concept of organic architecture inspired by the shapes and forms found in nature.

Designer Pierre Cardin stumbled upon a Bubble house under construction when he was looking to build his own home in the French Riviera. Lovag was finishing up the house, which had been commissioned by an elderly man who had since died. Cardin fell in love and built the house.

For what better habitation could one imagine for the genius behind the bubble dress, the trapeze coat, hat-sculptures, giant buttons, asymmetrical collars, and the chic-shock pairing of miniskirts and maxicoats? This promoter of the unusual in the realm of fashion?who got his start creating costumes and masks for Cocteau’s La Belle et la B?te, was the first couturier to launch a ready-to-wear line, in 1959, staged the first fashion show in communist China, in 1979, and wasn’t afraid to turn businessman, licensing his name to anything and everything and opening Maxim’s restaurants worldwide?this agent provocateur had finally found his dream house.

Daniel Bord, mayor of the village Festes-et-Saint-Andr?, owns another house which he built himself after attending a workshop run by Lovag. It took him 10 years.
          
The Crooked House
          

Crooked house, Poland

Architect Szotynscy Zaleski, was inspired by the fairytale illustrations of Jan Marcin Szancer and the drawings of the Swedish artist and Sopot resident Per Dahlberg. The most photographed building in Poland, the 4,000 square meter house is located in Rezydent shopping center in Sopot, Poland.
          
          
          
                    
          

The Crazy House

The Hang Nga Guesthouse, known to locals in Dalat as the crazy house, was designed by Dang Viet Nga, the daughter of Vietnam’s president in the 1980s.

The base of the building is a tree, which can be seen especially from the outside.

Nga says 10 of the rooms, which are used as a hotel, are luxuriously fitted out, with fireplaces in each room in the shape of a wild animal, named Tiger, Bear or Kangaroo. The hotel?s top room, with a skylight, has an unobstructed view.

“I have for years dreamt of having a house resembling a jungle with flowers, trees, birds and beasts,” Nga said. “With such a place, I want to bring people back to nature.”

“Many people criticised me, even my colleagues. I don?t blame those who don?t understand me.”

The Upside Down House

Upside down house, Poland

The house was built by Daniel Czapiewski in the village of Szymbark as a statement about the Communist era and the state of the world. The furniture inside the house hangs from the ceiling. Construction of the house took five times longer than usual because workers were disoriented by the strange angles.
          
          
The Cookie Jar House

Cookie jar house, Glendora, NJ

The builder of this house intended to make a community of similar houses, but the plan fell through.

“The house was built in 1947,” said John. “It was built as a speculation house. They were going to make a community of them. Originally it had a flat roof and a stucco finish. The brickwork was added later, probably because with a flat roof, it had a lot of leak problems. I spent a lot of time fixing it up.”

The three-story, steel framed building has a spiral staircase in the center going up to the roof, and a widow’s walk. A tour of the inside makes one a bit disoriented because every room is semi-circular.

Mr. Toilet’s House

Mr. Toilet’s House, South Korea

Talk about bringing your work home with you. The Toilet House, located outside Seoul, is the brainchild of Sim Jae-Duck, member of the World Toilet Association. It was designed as part of Sim’s campaign for better public hygiene.

The interior features a glass-walled bathroom that contains a mis-producing device to make sure users do not feel too exposed. Upon entering the bathroom, music erupts and the toilet’l lid raises.

Koreans also call the house “Haewoojae,” meaning “a place of sanctuary where one can solve one’s worries.”
          
          
The Gangster House

Gangster house, Russia

Nikolai Sutyagin, the gangster in question, started out wanting to build a house larger than his neighbors’ to reflect his position as the city?s richest man.
          
          
Fifteen years and 13 stories later, the house in Archangelsk, Russia remains unfinished owing to Sutyagin’s unfortunate incarceration.
          
Sutyagin was penniless after being released from prison; he says his rivals stole his business. He now lives on four rooms at the bottom of the house, which is falling apart.
          
Archangelsk city officials say the wooden structure a fire hazard and they want to tear the house down.
          
          
          
Shoe houses

Shoe house, Pennsylvania

The Haines Shoe House from Pennsylvania was built as a gimmick by Mahlon Haines, owner of several shoe stores in Pennsylvania and Maryland.

Haines didn’t live in the house, which was built in 1948. But he did open it up–for free–to guests.

The five-storey shoe house has three bedrooms, two baths, a kitchen and living room. Plus a boot-shaped dog house in the yard, a shoe mailbox and stained glass windows of Haines holding shoes in every window.
          
          

Shoe house, India

The Shoe House from India is in Kamala Nehru Park in Muimbai, India.
          

Shoe house, South Africa

The South African shoe house, located in Mpumalanga Province, was built in 1990 by entrepreneur and artist Ron Van Zyl, who built it for his wife Yvonne. The interior houses a museum of rock and wood carvings made by Van Zyl.
          
                    
          
          
          
          
The House on a stick

House on a stick

The “Single Hauz” concept by Poland?s Front Architects borrows ideas from billboards. It sits atop a mast, creating you a two-story house that can be built just about anywhere. Its cantilevered design makes it easy to balance on top of a pole and pole-driven into a lake bed or bolted onto the side of a mountain.

credit: TheMuuj

Each year, thousands of of people are bilked by movers or have their belongings lost or destroyed due to incompetence. Don’t become one of them.

Ask around
Don’t just pick a company after a quick Internet search. Ask friends and family members for recommendations. A good source of information is your real estate broker; he or she has seen plenty of botched moves. Look for companies that have been in business for a while. Then ask the moving company for references. And follow through.

credit: RebekahSue
Investigate your mover
Is the company a broker? Sometimes one company farms out the work to another. If that’s the case, find out who, exactly will actually more your things and investigate both companies.

Consult the Better Business Bureau, your state consumer agency and the American Moving and Storage Association, the leading industry association, to see if there are any complaints lodged against your mover. Interstate movers are regulated, loosely, by the US Department of Transportation’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration so if you’re moving to another state, make sure your mover is registered with the agency and DOT number.

Consult a Web source like MovingScam.com or RateItAll to see if any movers your considering was the subject of a bad review there.

credit: Clav
Get an estimate in writing
Don’t settle for an oral agreement. And make sure the mover comes to your home and does a thorough check. Does the company require an upfront deposit or pre-payment in cash? Not a good sign. You shouldn’t pay the mover until all your household goods have been transferred from one house to another.

Ask about additional fees and get answers in writing. Extra labor, stairs, or parking problems may increase the price. Make sure you know how the company calculated all the costs and ask if you don’t understand how the calculations were made. Almost any variation from the standard moving from point A to point B can be grounds for an extra charge. Some of them perfectly legal. For instance, long distance moves are subject to a linehaul charge which may not be included in your estimate.

If you have furniture that needs to be disassembled, ask the moving company when they provide the estimate if this service is included. Other additional charges may be imposed for preparing appliances for moving. Check to see whether your mover does this and what the cost will be.

The lowest price isn’t necessarily the best choice
Sometimes movers lowball you to get the job ,so get more than one estimate. If you consult three movers and one of them submits a bid thousands of dollars less than the others, that’s a red flag that could mean extra charges later.

Get insurance
Movers are only liable to pay a percentage per pound for damaged or lost goods. It might be a good idea to purchase full replacement coverage. Needless to say, read over any policy carefully to make sure you know what’s covered. If your household things are going to be stored for a while, visit the mover’s warehouse first.

Before the driver leaves
Make sure you have a copy of your contract and an inventory of your belongings. As the to see the driver’s license; get his full name, truck number and cell phone number, too.

Consult “Your Rights and Responsibilities When You Move,” the booklet put out by the moving industry’s regulator, the FMCSA. Make sure you’ve crossed the Ts and dotted all the Is so that if you need to lodge a complaint, you’re covered. But don’t expect miracles if it comes to that. With only a handful of investigators to cover the whole country, many cases slip through the cracks.

If you do have to lodge a complaint, contact the moving company first to see if you can resolve it with them. Then proceed with FMCSA, the Better Business Bureau, the Federal Trade Commission and/or your state or local consumer agency.

credit: Jeff Belmonte

• Points: The IRS consider those hefty fees paid to lenders as a form of prepaid mortgage interest. So if you bought a home in 2007–or refinanced your adjustable rate mortgage you get a break.
• You may also qualify for a mortgage interest deduction on a second vacation home as well as any second mortgages or home equity loans you hold.
• Owners of investment property can deduct expenses related to the property, so keep receipts for repairs, upgrades, or real estate management fees.
• If you rent out your vacation home when you aren’t using it, you might be able to deduct the cost of travel there and routine upkeep.
• Home improvements made for health reasons are deductible from your taxes, if they’re made for the chronically ill or disabled and don’t add value to your home.
• Tax credits can also be deducted for “green” improvements, such as energy efficient windows and doors and solar energy systems.

If you sold your home and moved because of a job, you may be able to deduct some of your moving expenses. You must move at least 50 miles and you must have moved in order to take a full-time job. You can deduct the cost of packing and transporting your household goods. You can also deduct travel expenses for yourself and your family, which includes lodging, but not food.

You cannot deduct:

• Any part of the purchase price of your new home
• Expenses of buying or selling a home
• Expenses of entering into or breaking a lease
• Home improvements to help sell your home
• Loss on the sale of your home
• Losses from disposing of memberships in clubs
• Mortgage penalties
• Pre-move househunting expenses
• Real estate taxes
• Refitting of carpet and draperies
• Return trips to your former residence
• Security deposits
• Storage charges except those incurred in transit and for foreign moves

If you invest in real estate good record-keeping is essential. Keep the purchasing contract and closing statement, which establish the basis on which you’ll calculate depreciation as well as capital gains. Also keep track of capital improvements you’ve made, which you can depreciate; rental income records, including vacancy periods and security deposits received; and operating expenses.

If you work from home, you can deduct expenses that are related to business, including real estate taxes, rent, insurance and maintenance and repairs. Those expenses are based on the amount of square footage you use exclusively for business.

If you have a lot of complex real estate investments, or even if you just own your own home, it’s a good idea to read up on what the IRS allows you to deduct and when.

For example, timing is everything. If you sell your home but immediately reinvest the windfall in a better property, you may be entitled to defer the taxes on those capital gains. On the other hand, homeowners who have lived in a house that served as their primary residence for two years can exclude up to $250,000 of the profit from their reported income–twice that for married couples. Investment property, on the other hand, has a whole different set of rules.

There are a number of places on the Web with information on real estate taxes, starting with the IRS:

• IRS: Selling a home looks at when you can avoid paying capital gains on the sale of your property.
• IRS: Rental Income and Expenses details how to report income and what expenses are deductible.
• IRS: Passive Activity Losses covers rentals.
• IRS: Residential Rental Property is the IRS’ guide to preparing your 2007 return if you own a vacation or rental home.
• Financial Web: A few investment real estate tax tips.
• Motley Fool: Trump Your Taxes With Real Estate.
• Field Guide to 1031 Exchanges by the National Association of Realtors looks in depth at the rule that investors to defer capital gains taxes on the exchange of like-kind properties.
• Financial Web: Taxes and Your Investment Real Estate.
• Smart Money: Taxes when you sell your home.
• Federal Real Estate Tax Rules for Property Owners.