Posted on 07/03/2009 3:11:01 PM PDT by raybbr
If you're scared of heights, it may be time to look away now.
Not content with having the tallest building in America, the owners of Sears Tower in Chicago have installed four glass box viewing platforms which stick out of the building 103 floors up.
The balconies are suspended 1,353 feet in the air and jut out four feet from the building's Skydeck.
Designers say the platforms - collectively dubbed The Ledge - have been purposely designed to make visitors feel as they are floating above the city.
The reward is unobstructed views of Chicago from the building's west side and a heart-stopping vista of the street and Chicago River below - for those brave enough to look straight down.
'It's like walking on ice,' visitor Margaret Kemp, from Bishop, California said. 'The first step you take you think "Am I going down?"'
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Okay, that was too much height and openness for me...
F%#% that.
Just looking at those picks gave me the heebie jeebies.
Screw dat.
Do you think it would upset you to do that?
Don’t like it, and that’s just from seeing the pictures.... LOL...
I can barely make it out to the end of the 'Infinity Room' at House on the Rock, though hanging out of helicopters used to be no problem for me, LOL!
Have to keep my eyes closed.
If I was in there with some other folks I’d be like “OK, now, on the count of 3, let’s all jump up and down as hard as we can.” Just to test out how sturdy it really is, you know...
I don’t even want to look at that without ropes, carabiners, and a bombproof belay!
Amazingly, Children have always taken to this kind of thing more than adults. Adults know what can go wrong.
If only the Obama administration was that open and transparent.
..now ya know why some cats will spend hours clinging to a branch in a tree
Okay...couldn’t do that either. My stomach gets queasy just looking at it.
I have a bridge phobia, probably related to the glass-over-large-canyons-and-cities phobia.
If that cute little girl can do it then why not? Actually, you eventually get used to the height. Many summers ago, I had to inspect welds on coulmns, beams and metal deck, which forms the mold for concrete floor pours. I wore a safety harness connected to a steel cable along the perimeter of the structure but that was it. My hard hat and steel-toe boots weren’t going to do a lot for me from the 54th floor. When you’re looking at a weld on the outside corner of a steel column at that height, it can be a bit much.
One of my favorite restaurants ever was Windows on the World, atop the WTC. The food was pretty good, the views spectacular. I remember watching the planes heading into LaGuadia for landing, they would actually be flying BELOW you on final approach. There was one large area by the bar, where the wall was all glass..floor to ceiling..about 20 feet. It was not uncommon to see a group of people all clustered together, about 5 feet from the glass..afraid to get closer. When the nervous crowd got too large, the managers had a very successful technique to solve the problem..they would have one of the busboys line up like a fullback, about 15 feet from the wall...all the staff would loudly countdown from 10..and at 3-2-1..the busboy would run full tilt at the glass..hurl himself at it, and bounce off...then people would wander up to the edge and press their noses against it...it gave the illusion that the building was leaning over slightly..that you could look straight down.
Not for me - the kids seem to like it, though.
That is worse than looking out the airplane window when I’m fortified on valium.
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