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Pittsburgh does have 15. Detroit does have a seriously impressive 32 above that height, so I guess consider me humbled there. St. Louis has 13 so a little over. Baltimore appeared to tie it with 12? Per my count, at least.
I still wouldn't fully throw away my theory of potentially being Top 10 in the US in pre-war though, at least at though lower end (with Detroit likely trailing maybe Chicago-and maybe not even Chicago on that), and New York. New Orleans was far and away the largest city in the south at the time and had 10. Louisville was 2nd by city limits population (in the south) and comes up with 5. Atlanta only with 3, one of which was the capitol. Looking out west, even Los Angeles which was almost certainly the biggest at that point, only had 8 by then. So, pending a check of some of the other leading cities, I'd say that probably holds true, at least stateside, and outside of the US and Canada (and maybe UK and a couple commonwealths-pre war highrise construction was highly unusual).
Edit: I guess I should add/you asked: I used Wikipedia at first, but then I used Emporis. I will say that Cleveland has 15 total buildings listed that were above 200 feet, but only 12 officially classfied as high rise buildings, which was the number I gave initially (3 were churches). I didn't necessarily take those out when counting for some of the other cities, either.
Chicago has well over a 100 prewar highrises of 200 ft+. I stopped counting at 120 on Emporis. It's got whole neighborhoods (like the Gold Coast) filled with pre-war residential highrises, not to mention its stock of prewar office buildings in the Loop.
Cleveland might squeak into the top 10 in the US, but just barely (and tied with Baltimore).
Cities ahead of Cleveland, per Emporis (counting highrises and what Emporis classifies as "buildings with towers", but not counting churches):
NY - too many to count
Chicago -- too many to count
Philadelphia - 61
SF - 35
Detroit - 30
Pittsburgh - 27
St Louis - 18
Kansas City - 16
Cincinnati - 13
There may be others that I didn't look at.
To be fair, 12 prewar highrises of 200ft+ is not all that impressive for Cleveland considering it was the 6th largest city in the country in 1940.
Chicago has well over a 100 prewar highrises of 200 ft+. I stopped counting at 120 on Emporis. It's got whole neighborhoods (like the Gold Coast) filled with pre-war residential highrises, not to mention its stock of prewar office buildings in the Loop.
Cleveland might squeak into the top 10 in the US, but just barely (and tied with Baltimore).
Cities ahead of Cleveland, per Emporis (counting highrises and what Emporis classifies as "buildings with towers", but not counting churches):
NY - too many to count
Chicago -- too many to count
Philadelphia - 61
SF - 35
Detroit - 30
Pittsburgh - 27
St Louis - 18
Kansas City - 16
Cincinnati - 13
There may be others that I didn't look at.
To be fair, 12 prewar highrises of 200ft+ is not all that impressive for Cleveland considering it was the 6th largest city in the country in 1940.
Decided to go further down the rabbit hole.
I crossed referenced SkyscrapePage, SkyscraperCenter & Emporis to find the buildings built by city before 1940 that are still standing.
NYC - 626+
Chicago - 148+
Philly - 55
SF - 31
Detroit - 31
Pittsburgh - 26 or 27
St. Louis - 16
Baltimore - 15 (includes the Shot Tower & Washington Monument)
KC - 14 (includes Liberty Memorial Complex)
MSP - 13 (Minneapolis 8)(St. Paul 5)
Cincinnati - 12 or 13
Cleveland - 12
LA - 10
New Orleans - 10
Boston - 8
Every other city is more or less irrelevant in the context of this particular comparison
Cleveland's downtown may not lead in highrise girth, but it still is one of the highrise kings in terms of sheer height, esp in the Midwest. Key Tower, at 947ft, is the tallest between Philly and Chicago. This is nothing new for Cleveland, as Terminal Tower (709ft) held a 44-year reign as the tallest highrise outside of NYC (1930 to 1964) until Boston's Prudential Center edged it out.
They just don't make things like this anymore. Legacy cities all have similar things. I just know St. Louis best. And, I hope these do come out as inks for you all.
I didn't realize Baltimore had that many miles, for it's subway/light rail system. Interesting to learn. Do you or any other posters know, where Pittsburgh stands in regard for how many miles were constructed of track for its T light rail system?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Fly Dragon
St. Louis gets my vote because of the Gateway arch.
While I love the Gateway Arch, I have always wished St. Louis had a more substantial skyline myself. This is something, St. Louis has always lagged in. I know there's a smaller 2nd skyline in Clayton, but still this slightly bothers me. Even as little as the addition of one or 2 new high rises(i.e. something like the high rise that has the offices for Great American Insurance Group in Cincinnati, and yes they did buy the naming rights for the Reds' ballpark), would do wonders for the StL skyline.
Don't get me wrong, I do love the classic architecture St Louis has such as Union Station. Which has had several different hotels, the current one IIRC is a Hilton Doubletree.
I didn't realize Baltimore had that many miles, for it's subway/light rail system. Interesting to learn. Do you or any other posters know, where Pittsburgh stands in regard for how many miles were constructed of track for its T light rail system?
I think Pittsburgh's T has about 28 miles currently. This is on 2 lines. It does have a third line that runs through the hilly south hills hoods, and it is still usable, but I think it's only currently used when one of the other lines track is down. so if you included that third line it's about 10 more miles, would be about 38 total miles when they use it all. I think. they are talking about bring that line back up permanently, but not sure where that stands.
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