The Low Score Task by Dr. Subtle
November 10th, 2007 12:01 PMI took a picture of the Sutro Tower's Pittsburgh equivalent, the Cathedral of Learning at the University of Pittsburgh. It's 44 stories, about thirty stories taller than any other building in the valley, and just ridiculous. It's a neo-Gothic Art Deco skyscraper built in the late 1920s. It has a few dozen classrooms paid for and in the style of the different ethnic minorities around Pittsburgh- the Irish room, the Hungarian room, the Polish room, etc. And the first floor lobby is a three-floor cathedral-like space.
Also, when you are drunk anywhere in the city it is a great beacon for orienting yourself at 4AM, as the top 6 stories are flood-lit...
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I agree, Spidere. A perfectly legit completion.
A somewhat belated welcome to the game, Connor S-B.
The funny thing about Suttro Tower is that it isn't used as a San Francisco icon anywhere except in this game. I spent a little while looking for postcards or souvenirs featuring the tower, hoping to find a photo which could be taken. They simply don't exist. Coit tower, golden gate bridge, Alcatraz, and in smaller quantities stuff like the transamerica pyramid and cliff house all exist, but the tower is hard to find.
Thats part of why i love it so much. It is a ubiquitous part of the SF resident's landscape, but not of the SF tourist's... Everyone who's ever been to SF can have a snowglobe of the golden gate bridge, coit tower, cable car, transamerica building, etc, etc.
But what makes SF unique isn't in any snowglobe...
(but maybe it should be...)
... is that it isn't well publicized either. It overshadows most of Carnegie Mellon, but wasn't in a single publicity photo. When I first got to the city, I was impressed with downtown, but I expected tall buildings there. The cathedral, however, was a much more "wtf is that? its awesome!" moment.
I know that Pitt uses it on some of their iconography, but no, it doesn't get much love...
I actually ran across a lovely old post card in a vintage shop in Maryland with the Cathedral of Learning as the central image. I was overpriced, sadly, and remained in the shop. Well chosen, sir.
Points for being the first to submit this interpretation of the task, and for taking purdy photos.
Perhaps I shall go out and take photos of the beautiful industrial monoliths of London's landscape, like the Battersea Power Station, or the Oxo Tower...
And maybe I'll go out and photograph Yarmouth's landmarks;
The atlantis tower, The weird chip guy and of course the pier.
I tend to agree with people about the existence of parasutros in other cities. (though my take on this task will probably involve literal pictures of the real sutro tower, taken from minnesota).
Most cities DO have things which are not on the tourist list like this --everyone I've talked to who goes to San Francisco is completely baffled when I ask about Sutro Tower. "It's 900 feet high! It looks like a wireframe Barad-dur! The first time I saw it was at night and it stopped me in my tracks! It sings to me!! I can see the future where the radio waves are silenced and our children play in its shade, when we hang paper lanterns about its base, when we climb it ritually, hand in hand with fireworks in our teeth!" At this point they hang up.
This is why I have been privately ambivalent about the spoon-bridge MN0 logo (I guess I'm now becoming public about it). The spoon bridge is awesome. i love the sculpture garden. But it's not quite the perfect thing. IDS tower is also a FAIL. Foshay Tower has a wonderful je ne sais quoi, especially because the guy who built it was too crazy by half. But too easy. Plus it's being turned into a luxury hotel. The grain belt sign? Awesome but too commercial (the Back of the grain belt sign?) Not to mention leaving out St. Paul.
Perhaps the best case I would like to put forward are the "chess piece towers" throughout the city, in particular the witches hat in prospect park which is the most well known and stands very close to the line between the two cities. But there's the knight down in tangletown, and the rook over behind the Walker/groveland area, and the one over by Highland Park in St Paul (I forget the way my friend broke down the chess connection on these towers, actually. I suppose the Witches Hat is the queen).
In any case, I am in full agreement that identifying and promoting parasutros is very worthwhile and I don't think creating a "Low Score Task B" would be necessary if people can accept things like this.
HOWEVER, I am an announced fundamentalist when it comes to the High Score Task. Sutro. Only. That's my opinion. Because of how hard it is. Because it's the inspiration. Because of the conditions and dramatic changes which would have to happen to make it possible (see "silent tower lantern festival picnic" earlier in this comment). Those changes would be so fun to affect First in San Francisco.
Oh. Aaand... vote.
For my money the coolest landmark in the twin cities isn't well known among tourists... but a lot of locals don't know about it either. Drive along I-94 just east of the river. In the vicinity of Fairview Avenue, you will pass under a bridge which is known to its fans as the Bridge to Dimension Zed. You've probably seen it before, without noticing just what a surreal feature of our city it is.
It's an almost ordinary bridge over the highway. I say almost because most bridges connect one place to another place; this one does not. Most bridges are passable if you aren't a matchbox car; this one is not.
The north (IIRC) end sprouts out of a grassy hill. No, we don't know why that hill needed a bridge into it. Going south along the bridge you almost immediately come to a railway bridge that goes right over the Bridge to Dimension Zed - and when I say right over, I mean there's on the order of two feet of clearance, maybe a bit less. The rest of the Bridge to Dimension Zed has handrails, like it's intended as a footbridge or something.
And then the south end of the bridge disappears into a concrete wall.
in my home, sf0 is referred to as 's.f. zed' or 'the zed' or 'zed game' or other similar things. this was coined by laddie the nek.
could it be that the bridge contains a secret portal to sutro mountain???
you don't mean this little guy do you? isn't that just a pedestrian bridge?
He's referring to this. I think it's the same.
Now I'm even more proud of my selection of logo for الق٠.
| Sutro Tower | Cairo tower |
| Tallest structure in San Francisco | Tallest structure in Cairo |
| Hardly ever publicized | Hardly ever publicized |
| Controversial ("This is undoubtedly one of the worst structures, visually, I have an opportunity to view." -Diane Feinstein) | Controversial (An Islamic group in 1990 declared a fatwa against the Cairo Tower. They also claimed that the 187-meter tall structure seemed like a phallic symbol and might excite women.) |
Think long and hard before you designate a [city]0 symbol.
LeviTater, that link is truly impressive and awesome. We must commence to work out some Zedimensional tasking, stat. I still don't think it's...what?...iconic?...tall?..."somethingish enough" to be a candidate for a parasutro, but I think it's awesome.
Okay, I may be obsessing here, but Loki (reading waaay back into the comments here), I'm positive that there are other businesses/organizations that use Sutro in their logos... I've racked my brain and google to find them, but I can only come up with one:
On another note, I cannot find, as you say, any commercial postcards bearing our lovely tower's image. I think it's project that needs undertaking, and I just might do it.
... because I actually originally mistook sf0's logo for the SFStation Logo, a sticker of which is on some random notebook of mine.
...that really, each city has its own Sutro equivalent, and that the spirit of the task can be well completed by taking a picture of that building. I definitely considered taking a picture of the capitol building for mine, and accept this as a valid interpretation of the task. Also, the Cathedral of Learning is beautiful and definitely the right building for PittsburghØ. There's a great view from the roof, too. :)