Inside the Transamerica Pyramid

I want to go to there.

A 100 foot steel stairway extends, suspended, up the middle of the space at a 60 degree angle, making the steps so steep it feels like climbing a 10 story ladder. [...]

When they finally reached the top of the stairs, the three then had to climb two steel ladders. They went up one at a time, [...] The glass cap at the top of the pyramid is about the size of a cubicle, with the massive airplane warning beacon in the center taking up almost the entire space. (It's the same light that they turn on for holidays.) The three of them could just barely squeeze and crouch in beside it. Brett describes, "The wind would blow and the room would sway, not like an earthquake, but like you were in a tiny glass fort on the top of a massively tall tree." [...] There's a logbook left up there documenting everyone who's ever been all the way to the top, (a very short list), and the three of them added their names proudly to the bottom.

I mention this often, but I strongly object to the fact that the Transamerica Pyramid does not come to an actual point. Talk about taking your eye off the prize. They follow the line of the building up past the topmost "real" floor with this hollow, 100 foot tall placebo atop the building -- but they don't follow it the rest of the way! It stops with a 10 foot platform. They should have kept going -- the top of that building should be sharp enough that you can spear an olive on it. It should be sufficiently architecturally, geometrically honest that it's tip can draw blood.

Speaking of which. From Bloodsucking Fiends by Christopher Moore:

Emperor Norton winked, spun on one heel, and started to lead his troops away, then stopped and turned back. "And, son, don't touch anything with an edge while you're in the building? Scissors, letter openers, anything."

"Why?" Tommy asked.

"It's the shape of the building, a pyramid. They'd rather people not know about it, but they have a full-time employee who just goes around dulling the letter openers."

"You're kidding."

"Safety first," the Emperor said.

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7 Responses:

  1. I'm assuming no one is allowed to climb the stairs...

  2. 10154927079492580 says:

    I'm assuming no one is allowed to climb the stairs...

  3. The Intenet Oracle says:

    Between that stair room and the escalators hanging over five floors of open air at the Westgate, San Francisco sure doesn't lack for places not to be in it's next big quake.

  4. Tim says:

    Do you really want the skyline to be decorated with the impaled remains of seagulls, pigeons, BASE jumpers, urbexers, Alain Robert, Q the winged serpent, etc., and the streets below rained upon by severed parts thereof?

  5. Zip, the What-Is-It? says:

    I've seen the entrance that leads to that space.
    On the top floor, just outside the conference room, in the men's room, there is a ladder up to a locked trap-door.
    Sadly, Zippy the Pinhead was not up there, pressing the button that makes the light blink on and off.

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