CN Tower dethroned by Dubai building.
Although London Ontario is now home base, and I love it dearly, I did grow up in Toronto and will always be a Toronto boy at heart. So, it is with a heavy heart that I have to announce that the CN Tower's time has come. It is no longer the world's tallest building.For years, Torontonians have known that the tower's claim to fame was at risk, as planned towers around the world threatened to break its 30-year-old record.
Finally on Wednesday, a structure under construction in the Arabian Desert succeeded in passing the Toronto tower's 553.33-metre height.
Burj Dubai — a glitzy hotel, residential and commercial building being built in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, for a price tag of $4.1 billion US — will be more than 150 stories tall when it reaches its final height of 800 metres.
CN Tower officials said little about the record-breaking structure.
"When the time comes and the building is complete, we will congratulate the Burj Dubai project on their unique achievement," officials wrote in an e-mail.
On the streets of Toronto, residents mourned the end of an era. "We had a lot of pride when we did it," said Paul Mitchell, a steelworker who secured the antenna atop the tower on its completion in 1976. "It was a lot of fun."
But he added that he was surprised the tower held its record for 30 years. "That was quite a feat." Guinness World Records had recognized the CN Tower as the world's tallest free-standing structure and the world's tallest building.
Click on the image below and see the new contenders for the title.
Labels: burj dubai, cn tower, petronas towers, tallest buildings
posted by Allan W Janssen | 9:45 a.m.
2 Comments:
That comment from officials that they will congratulate the Burj Dubai developers really burns me.
So, CN Tower officials like to congratulate indentured servitude? Deplorable working conditions? Rampant safety violations and around 40 construction worker deaths a year?
Please, let me write a "congratulations" to the builders of Burj Dubai:
"We would like to point out that the CN Tower still stands as the tallest structure built by a free society who values human life."
The response by the CN Tower officials is a joke. They have been dethroned and will not acknowledge this until the Burj Dubai is complete. Until then, they choose to market the CN Tower as the "Tallest Building in the World". Talk about deception all in the name of commerce.
By the time the Burj Dubai is complete and over 250 metres taller than the CN Tower, the CN Tower's congratulations will ring as a hollow joke. This would be like Gordie Howe not congratulating Wayne Gretzky on breaking his career goals record until Gtetzky retired. Fess up CN Tower, you're beat.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home