A Chicago Building Is Getting A Reverse Tower Of Terror By Adding In An Elevator That Shoots You Up 82 Stories
Fast Company - Within the next three years, tourists in Chicago will have the chance to go on one crazy ride: A glass platform will launch thrill seekers 82 stories into the air, at speeds of 16.6 feet per second. This isn’t an amusement park attraction, though. It’s a glass elevator that will be installed on the exterior of one of the city’s many notable towers, the Aon Center. When construction of the elevator is finished, it will be the tallest (and fastest!) of its kind in North America, only 70 feet shy of the current world record-holder, the Bailong elevator in Zhangjiajie National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site in China.
Welcome to Chicago where our skyscrapers now double down as amusement parks. If you didn’t get your thrill nut off by standing 100+ stories up on a glass sheet:
Then hopefully an all glass elevator that doubles down as a rocket ship works for you.
I don’t know who should be more pissed off between:
A) Six Flags Great America
or
B) The people that work in that building everyday
On one hand Six Flags is working their ass off trying to get people to take that 1 hour trek up to Gurnee by adding in new tube slides and coasters every year, while downtown Chicago is just straight up stealing their jam. What if Gurnee just decided to make the State’s highest building? You bet your ass Rahm would run out there and threaten to never take his family to Hurricane Harbor ever again if they don’t cease operations on that building.
But, the answer is absolutely the people who work in the building. Could you imagine if your window faced out toward this thing. Every 10 minutes you just see something fire up the window fast as fuck like it’s a damn meteor or something. I’d get Roy Williams vertigo at least 12 times a day if I were them. That’s not even to mention the fact that they’re probably going to have to walk around a Shake Shack line of people waiting to ride it when they’re trying to get back into their office during the day.
Tough breaks all around.
I will say though that if I had to choose one I’d definitely do this ride over the observation deck at the Sears Tower. If that cracked window wasn’t enough to scare your ass straight than you’re a braver person than I am.