Irony Towers - TTLG Forums

Queue on 18/9/2009 at 12:37

This is a little late, but I only just now came across it. From 1976, Felton's and Fowler's - The Best, Worst & Most Unusual:

Quote:

Worst Office Building: The World's worst office building was also, until recently, the tallest - the twin towers of New York City's World Trade Center, 110 stories of steel-and-concrete mediocrity on Manhattan's nether tip. Besides blighting the skyline and affronting the eye, the World Trade Center is also a wretched place to work. "When I approach the building, I just don't want to go in there," says one employee. Says another, "Sometimes I just walk out, intending to get out for an hour for lunch, and can't make myself go back."

The center's horror's are many - inexplicably sealed mail chutes, hopelessly snarled telephone lines, centrally controlled office lighting that can be controlled after hours only by means of a written request submitted at least a day in advance - but the building's denizens reserve a special place in their spleens for the elevators. Plummeting downward so fast that their walls shake audibly, they break down frequently, spilling over with humanity during rush hours. "Sometimes I feel like a lemming - or a salmon swimming upstream," says a New York State employee.

...

Many workers have complained of psychosomatic ailments that are directly traceable to the Center - one Manhattan physician has treated five such patients. Leonard Levin, a staff member of the New York Racing Board, whose office is in the Center, says, "There is one wonderful thing about the World Trade Center. It feels soooooooo good when you get home at night!"

You know, in hindsight, one can find it eerie and prophetic the writer's use of "plummeting" and the "spilling over with humanity", "shaking audibly" -- how the employee described himself as a "lemming". But, what I found more interesting is the utter disgust people felt towards the complex. And now, the buildings themselves have almost become deified since 9/11, and are certainly considered great American symbols. It's as if we can no longer say what ugly and awful buildings they were because a horrible tragedy happened there.

But hasn't that become true lately, that once something is gone, suddenly the downfalls (pardon the pun) are completely forgotten. Take Michael Jackson - crazy kid toucher and blemish on humanity. But, once he died, suddenly he became a saint. People sold their homes so they could pay to get into some cheesy memorial. Hell, people actually killed themselves because they couldn't see living in a world without Michael Jackson. Forget that he was insane and doing stuff that one probable shouldn't, let's praise him cause the little fucker could sing and dance like no tomorrow.

Here's an example from my area. A well known, and much hated, anti-abortion nut was gunned down while camped out in front of the Owosso High School (which he had been doing everyday during late year's school year, despite the principal begging from him to move on, and now was starting the cycle all over again). The guy was an unstable, belligerent prick who got off on traumatizing kids with his pictures of utter horror and shouts of burning in hell. The general consensus was that someone should shoot him.

Well, when someone finally did, suddenly he became a pillar of the community who dedicated himself to fighting for the rights of the unborn, and a great humanitarian who is being memorialized by vigils and protests. Everyone spoke only of the one side of his sign, showing a smiling cherubic baby, and not the other side showing a fetus chopped into chum. My favorite quote in the paper was from his daughter, another obviously stable person, "He is in Heaven now with all the dead babies."

Is it just me being awfully cold, or are people two-faced and insincere when remembering only the "good-side" is suddenly the "in-thing" to do?

This thread is dedicated to the memory of AR Master.

Matthew on 18/9/2009 at 13:01

De mortuis nil nisi bonum.

Namdrol on 18/9/2009 at 13:30

Add John Paul II to your list

(Queue, please provide a link to the form submitted to AR Master asking for permission to start yet another thread)

Kolya on 18/9/2009 at 14:02

Lots of places have bad working conditions and yet if someone decided to fly a few planes into the place the back-pains wouldn't be the worst of it all. What's your point? It's not like the WTC was housing hermaphrodite nazi vampires and we should actually be glad it's gone.

Now dead persons are a different matter altogether. I completely agree on Jackson being a nutcase and frankly I'm beginning to ask myself if times weren't better when Michael still lived to remind everyone what a one-man-freakshow he is.

fett on 18/9/2009 at 15:11

This really galls me about funerals too, and it's the reason I eventually started refusing to do them when I was a pastor. Nevermind that this cockflop beat his kids and cheated on his wife, when he's laying up there in the casket, they all wanted me to say wonderful things about him. What utter bullshit. I realized I didn't need to be doing funerals for people when I was actually glad they were gone. The glee was starting to shine through...

AR Master on 18/9/2009 at 15:36

q thread

Turtle on 18/9/2009 at 15:45

It's not about making them out to look like good people, it's about focusing on the positive memories you have. After they're dead hating them isn't going to do any good, because there's no chance of them changing.

Stitch on 18/9/2009 at 15:49

Quote Posted by Queue

Take Michael Jackson - crazy kid toucher and blemish on humanity.

Alleged child toucher. Not merely alleged: the fact that he's responsible for "Billie Jean."

Anyway, didn't we already go over this sort of thing in his death thread?

Thief13x on 18/9/2009 at 15:51

Quote:

The center's horror's are many - inexplicably sealed mail chutes, hopelessly snarled telephone lines, centrally controlled office lighting that can be controlled after hours only by means of a written request submitted at least a day in advance

OMG, sounds like a damn concentration camp

Oh wait no it doesn't...it sounds like every other office in America.

scarykitties on 18/9/2009 at 16:07

On the other hand, Billy Mays was cool.

It's funny that you mention the WTC. There's a podcast I used to listen to, [url=http://www.theovernightscape.com, The Overnightscape, whose host used to work in the WTC. He discussed what it was like in (http://theovernightscape.com/mp3/The_Overnightscape_0081.mp3) this podcast, if anyone is interested.