Originally published at: Once again, the Millennium Tower is sinking and tilting faster than before | Boing Boing
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I need a fix cause I’m goin down…
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I was going to suggest that whoever’s in charge of that shit show should give the firm that demolished the Deutsche Bank building in NYC after 9/11 a call, sooner rather than later.
But it turns out that The John Galt Company (no, not kidding) was a shell corporation with ties to the Gambino crime family, and had no expertise whatsoever in taking down large buildings.
I can already smell the symbolism, reeking from the future…
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Endless work, and all I can see is an unsafe structure growing more unsafe by the day. It’s at the point where it feels like this thing is coming down one way or another, and all that remains is deciding if they want to bring it down safely, or let it collapse on its own and suffer the destruction and pain that will cause.
Even if they do by some miracle fix it, there will be decades of lawsuits to come over this fiasco, all of which could have been prevented by not cheaping out at the start and building the supports to bedrock. Dumbasses.
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If you don’t already know about it? Check out the Citicorp Center engineering crisis.
Bolts instead of welds, use of a truss safety factor instead of the column safety factor in calculations, an observant engineering student, and suddenly there was the distinct possibility that winds strong enough to knock the brand-new building down would occur once every 16 years on average. Structural repairs started in secret, and only half-completed as Hurricane Ella bore down on the city. Harrowing.
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I remember hearing about some of that, at least in regards to the engineering student who figured out the problem. Harrowing indeed. I’m not a fan of really tall buildings, but I’m also scared of heights, so there may be personal bias involved. 
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If Ronald Hamburger ever decides to seek outside help as a break from making things worse on his own, I am confident he’ll choose the least competent and cheapest firm.
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Maybe sometimes things just have to go away and we have to let them go.
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I say install a giant axle down there at the base and turn it into a carnival ride-themed condo. A pendulum type. You’d have to nail down your belongings, but think of the fun you’ll have.
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There’s a lot of money and big egos and stake in this situation. The building will likely come down, but unless the municipal government takes over the process it will take out other buildings and lives with it.
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I was thinking of something practical, like a space elevator.
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Time for me to draw a circle on the map, centered on the Millennium Tower and with a radius equal to the Tower’s height, to remind me just what part of SF I need to stay the hell away from.
Hmm, but I’m forgetting the domino effect.
I think I’m going to need a bigger circle.
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What are they going to do when it falls over? Because it 100% will.
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Almost 2/3 to where elevators and other things may stop working (40 inches). I’m sure the residents will appreciate that.
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Gravity never sleeps.
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I volunteer at a local fire department, just for admin/IT stuff, and the topic of the Millennium Tower came up. One of the fire safety building inspector engineers, the guys you have to get to sign off on building occupancy, stated that even at the current tilt (I thinks it was 24" at the time) he wouldn’t have approved the fire suppression systems, as it is likely that due to the slope only half the sprinklers would actually achieve full coverage of their area. Now, there may have been beer being consumed at the time, and we don’t have any skyscrapers nearby, but he definitely seemed to be of the opinion that even the current tilt would invalidate the calculations used to position the sprinklers.
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Yell “TIMBER!!!”
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I think you’ll be perfectly safe about half the radius’s length away from the tower in the opposite direction of the lean. The whole thing is probably more of a tear drop shape rather than a circle. Conversely we have seen in countless demolitions and things like 9/11 that the danger from flying debris and carcinogenic dust goes beyond the immediate splash zone.
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That’s actually some really useful information in response to a somewhat tongue-in-cheek comment, so thanks. 
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I mean, don’t stake your life on it…
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