Uncle John's Great Big Bathroom Reader (40 page)

(1) Physical —
Olivia Newton-John

(2) Eye Of The Tiger —
Survivor

(3) I Love Rock N’Roll
—Joan Jett & The Blackhearts

(4) Centerfold
—J. Geils Band

(5) Ebony And Ivory —
Paul McCartney & Stevie Wonder

(6) Don’t You Want Me
—Human League

(7) Hurts So Good —
John Cougar

(8) Jack And Diane —
John Cougar

(9) Abracadabra
—Steve Miller Band

(10) Hard To Say I’m Sorry
—Chicago

1983

(1) Every Breath You Take
—Police

(2) Billie Jean —
Michael Jackson

(3) Down Under —Men At
Work

(4) Flashdance...What A Feeling
—Irene Cara

(5) Beat It —
Michael Jackson

(6) Total Eclipse Of The Heart
—Bonnie Tyler

(7) Maneater
—Daryl Hall & John Oates

(8) Maniac —
Michael Sembello

(9) Baby Come To Me
—Patti Austin with James Ingram

(10) Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This) —
Eurythmics

Part V of the World’s Tallest Buildings is the story of a skyscraper that’s still regarded by many as the most beautiful building ever built. (For Part IV, see
page 206
.)

T
OP THIS

By the late 1920s, the Woolworth Building had held the title of “world’s tallest building” for more than a decade. But its reign clearly wouldn’t last much longer—skyscrapers were going up all over Manhattan, and many of their owners publicly aspired to be the new record-holder.

However, no one knew who would actually pull it off—it was a “rule” in this building competition that the heights of prospective skyscrapers be kept secret to prevent rival architects from planning even taller structures.

One man who was determined to own the world’s tallest building was Walter P. Chrysler, a former machinist’s apprentice who had worked his way up to vice president at General Motors—and then left to head his own successful auto company.

For years Chrysler had wanted to build a skyscraper. But it wasn’t until he took a trip to France that he finally decided how tall it should be. “Something that I had seen in Paris kept coming back to me,” he later explained. “I said to the architects, ‘make this building higher than the Eiffel Tower.’”

GETTING OFF THE GROUND

Chrysler’s architect, William Van Alen, knew that two former partners of his, H. Craig Severance and Yasuo Matsui, were designing a building for the Bank of Manhattan at 40 Wall St. He didn’t know how high it was going to be, and they weren’t about to tell him. So Van Alen announced that the Chrysler Building would be 925 feet tall, expecting them to make their design just tall enough to beat it. He was right—as it neared completion it became clear that 40 Wall Street was going to be 927 feet tall, a scant two feet higher than the Chrysler Building’s announced height.

MAKING A POINT

Now Van Alen knew what number to beat, and he had an idea about how to do it.

In its original plans, the 71-story Chrysler Building was topped by a hollow 142-foot art-deco dome. Van Alen used it as a sort of Trojan Horse. While construction went on as planned
outside
, a new construction crew was operating in secret inside the dome, building a 123-foot high spire.

Just as 40 Wall St. was nearing completion, Van Alen had the workers lift the spire up through the hole in the top of the dome and bolt it into place. The spire pushed the Chrysler Building’s height to 1,048 feet, making it the first building to pass the 1,000 foot mark—as well as the tallest building in the world. It was also the first building to be built taller than the Eiffel Tower, just as Walter Chrysler had asked.

HIGH WATER MARK

The Chrysler building is considered by many to be the most beautiful skyscraper ever built, the pinnacle of art deco architectural design. Van Alen incorporated numerous automotive themes into the building’s exterior. At each corner of the base of the tower at the 31st floor, he placed a gargoyle in the form of a winged helmet of Mercury—the symbol on Chrysler’s radiator caps at the time. And on the 61st story he added eagle’s-head gargoyles that were modeled after the hood ornament on the 1929 Chrysler Plymouth.

One architectural historian describes the building as “the skyscraper of skyscrapers. It is perhaps the sort of building one might dream in a primitive dream....Its silvery tower kindles the imagination of those who believe there is some life and glory in urban existence. The Chrysler Building remains one of the most appealing and aweinspiring of the skyscrapers. It has few equals anywhere.”

The Chrysler Building’s beauty has endured for decades, but its status as the world’s tallest building only lasted a year. Even as it was opening for business, the construction of the Empire State Building was already underway.

Part VI of the World’s Tallest Buildings is on
page 301
.

There’s something almost mystical about the Titanic. There are so many bizarre coincidences associated with it, you’d think it was an episode of
The Twilight Zone.

T
HE TITAN/TITANIC

In 1898, a short novel called
The Wreck of the Titan or Futility
, by Morgan Robertson, was published in the U.S. It told the story of the maiden voyage of an “unsinkable” luxury liner called the
Titan.
Robertson described the boat in great detail.

The
Titan
, he wrote, was 800 feet long, weighed 75,000 tons, had three propellers and 24 lifeboats, and was packed with rich passengers. Cruising at 25 knots, the
Titan’s
hull was ripped apart when it hit an iceberg in April. Most of the passengers were lost because there weren’t enough life boats. Robertson apparently claimed he’d written his book with the help of an “astral writing partner.”

Eerie Coincidence:
Fourteen years later, the real-life
Titanic
took off on its maiden voyage. Like the fictional
Titan
, it was considered the largest and safest ship afloat. It was 882.5 feet long, weighed 66,000 tons, had three propellers and 22 life boats, and carried a full load of rich passengers. Late at night on April 14, 1912, sailing at 23 knots, the
Titanic
ran into an iceberg which tore a hole in its hull and upended the ship. At least 1,513 people drowned because there weren’t enough lifeboats.

THE TITANIAN/TITANIC

In 1935, a “tramp steamer” was heading from England to Canada. On watch was a 23-year-old seaman named William Reeves. It was April, the month when the
Titanic
hit an iceberg and went down. As the
Reader’s Digest Book of Amazing Facts
tells it:

Young Reeves brooded deeply on this. His watch was due to end at midnight. This, he knew, was the time the Titanic had hit the iceberg. Then, as now, the sea had been calm. These thoughts swelled
and took shape as omens...as he stood his lonely watch....He was scared to shout an alarm, fearing hs shipmates’ ridicule. But he was also scared not to.

Eerie Coincidence:
All of a sudden, Reeves recalled the exact date of the
Titanic
accident—April 14, 1912—the day he had been born. That was enough to get him to act.

He shouted out a danger warning, and the helmsman rang the signal: engines full astern. The ship churned to a halt—just yards from a huge iceberg that towered menacingly out of the night.

More deadly icebergs crowded in around the tramp steamer, and it took nine days for icebreakers from Newfoundland to smash a way clear.

The name of the ship Reeves saved from a similar fate to the
Titanic’s?
The
Titanian.

THE LUCKLESS TOWERS

Talk about coincidences! BRI member Andrew M. Borrok (hope we got that right—the fax is hard to read) submitted the following excerpt just as Uncle John was writing this piece. Obviously we
had
to include it. Thanks!

The stoker on the
Titanic
was named Frank Lucks Towers. Charles Pelegrino writes in his book,
Her Name, Titanic:

Though he would survive this night (
Titanic
) without injury, his troubles were just beginning. In two years he’d be aboard the
Empress of Ireland
when it collided with another ship, opening up a hole in the
Empress
’ side. (Note: it was the worst peacetime maritime disaster—over 2000 lost.) It would be an usually hot night, and all the portholes would be open as she rolled onto her side in the St. Lawrence River. In minutes she would be gone—yet miraculously, Frank Towers was going to survive—virtually alone. He’d take his next job aboard the
Lusitania
, (sunk by German U-boats in 1915) and would be heard to shout “Now what!” when the torpedo struck. He’d swim to a lifeboat, vowing every stroke of the way to take up farming.

His story was destined to inspire a young writer to script a teleplay entitled
Lone Survivor.
The teleplay was so well received that it paved the way for a series. The writer’s name was Rod Serling and the series became
The Twilight Zone.

In our last
Bathroom Reader
(the
Giant 10th Anniversary
edition), we ran a piece on urban legends. Since then, we’ve come across so many more good ones that we just had to include them. Remember the rule of thumb: if a story sounds true, but also seems too “perfect” to be true, it’s probably an urban legend.

T
HE STORY:
Two speeding semi trucks crash head on in a heavy fog. The drivers survive, but the two trucks are too smashed together to separate, so the towing company tows them to the junkyard in one piece. A few weeks later, junkyard workers notice a terrible smell coming from the wreck. They pry the cars apart...and discover a Volkswagen beetle with four passengers crushed flat in between the two trucks.

THE TRUTH:
Urban legends featuring small cars smashed by big vehicles are so numerous that they’re practically a category by themselves. What keeps them alive is the general fear of meeting a similar fate.

THE STORY:
Rock Hudson and Jim Nabors (TV’s
Gomer Pyle
) were married in a secret Hollywood ceremony.

THE TRUTH:
According to Rock Hudson biographer Sara Davidson, Hudson and Nabors barely knew one another. Davidson says she believes the rumors were started “by some gay guys who as a joke sent out invitations to the wedding of Nabors and Hudson.” The invitations were mistakenly taken seriously, and the rumors became so pervasive that Nabors and Hudson “made a point of not being seen together at Hollywood events.”

THE STORY:
In a South African hospital, a number of patients have died mysteriously while convalescing in a particular bed. The hospital investigated...and discovered that the cleaning lady had been inadvertently killing a patient every time she polished the floor.

HOW IT SPREAD:
On the Internet, in 1996. The e-mail was supposedly taken from a June 1996
Cape Times
article headlined “Cleaner Polishes Off Patients.” The story follows:

“It seems that every Friday morning a cleaner would enter the ward, remove the plug that powered the patient’s life support system, plug her floor polisher into the vacant socket, then go about her business. When she had finished her chores, she would plug the life support machine back in and leave, unaware that the patient was now dead. She could not, after all, hear the screams and eventual death rattle over the whirring of her polisher.

“We are sorry, and have sent a strong letter to the cleaner in question. Further, the Free State Health and Welfare Department is arranging for an electrician to fit an extra socket, so there should be no repetition of this incident. The enquiry is now closed.”

THE TRUTH:
Rumors of death-by-cleaning-lady incidents floated around South Africa for years before reporters at a South African newspaper named
Die Volksblad
decided, in 1996, to see if there was any truth to them. They ran an article asking relatives of any of the victims to come forward. No one did...but another South African paper picked up the story—and finally the
Cape Times
mistakenly ran the story as an actual occurrence, rather than a regional newspaper’s attempt to track down an urban legend.