How brave are you?

March 2, 2016 10:22 PM

Coming soon to a Los Angeles skyscraper near you: a 45 foot long glass slide, a thousand feet in the air. How brave are you?
posted by Chocolate Pickle (45 comments total)

Nope! Nope nope nope!

But, I will offer an open invitation to any MeFites who want to go slide, I will go up with you and take your picture.
posted by Lyn Never at 10:25 PM on March 2, 2016 [2 favorites]

What a missed opportunity. They could have made a >1000-foot-long glass slide winding all the way down the building.
posted by a car full of lions at 10:33 PM on March 2, 2016 [32 favorites]

I want to see the video when the first person with a diamond ring goes down it and smacks the back of their hand against the outside wall when they go around that corner.
posted by Snowflake at 10:52 PM on March 2, 2016 [2 favorites]

(Nope ^ nope) * nope.

Of course, shit like this terrifies me when I worry about basic half-assed engineering and maintenance nowadays.
posted by Samizdata at 10:59 PM on March 2, 2016 [2 favorites]

GoPro footage will do me kthxbai
posted by GallonOfAlan at 11:08 PM on March 2, 2016

Heck yeah!
posted by Celsius1414 at 11:10 PM on March 2, 2016 [3 favorites]

Actually it's a trip -- I had assumed the US Bank building had an observation deck all these years, but discovered a year or two ago it did not. But they have big plans.
posted by Celsius1414 at 11:11 PM on March 2, 2016

If you think sliding down that would be exciting, imagine what it was like for the guys who built it!
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 11:20 PM on March 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

It's 45 feet long, but only goes from the 80th to the 79th floor... which makes not too impressive looking a slope, so this cat could probably make it from the bottom to the top. I think it'd feel more like leisurely floating in open space than falling, but then, I'll probably never get there - 40+ years living in one part of L.A. or another and I never checked out the city's tallest building(s).
posted by oneswellfoop at 11:40 PM on March 2, 2016 [2 favorites]

Assuming a floor is 10 feet, that's a miserable 12.5° incline, or 22% grade. That's not a slide, that's a mild slope. Eight bucks? Hard pass.
posted by Rhomboid at 11:49 PM on March 2, 2016 [10 favorites]

I mean, there are streets in San Francisco steeper than that.
posted by Rhomboid at 11:53 PM on March 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

Nothing ever goes wrong with glass supporting weight.
posted by user92371 at 12:10 AM on March 3, 2016 [1 favorite]

Why? Who gets a stupid idea like that and who doesn't take it down?
posted by mumimor at 12:14 AM on March 3, 2016

There are streets in Los Angeles steeper than that!
posted by queensissy at 12:15 AM on March 3, 2016 [3 favorites]

I hope they build a bathroom with a glass floor at the top and that when you flush the toilet it automatically drops you down the slide.
posted by Joey Michaels at 12:42 AM on March 3, 2016 [3 favorites]

How long til a high rise hotel creates a glass bottomed room hanging outside?
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 1:53 AM on March 3, 2016 [1 favorite]

"Partaking in the experience only requires the guts to do it, and $8."

So it's just like investing in bank stocks then, including the long scary slide.
posted by chavenet at 2:02 AM on March 3, 2016 [1 favorite]

I hope it's self-cleaning.

Also, that is the most iPad unfriendly webpage I've visited so far.
posted by bonobothegreat at 2:21 AM on March 3, 2016

I'm sure nothing could possibly go wrong
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 2:25 AM on March 3, 2016 [2 favorites]

I'm sure it'll be fun with a thrilling view straight down for the first few days. And, a year later, a cloudy white-green view after being buffed by thousands of butts in jeans with riveted pockets.
posted by ardgedee at 2:28 AM on March 3, 2016 [3 favorites]

I am slightly weirded out that the 3d rendering favours the presence of the person taking a photo rather than of the person sliding. This does not fill me with confidence re: engineering priorities.
posted by freya_lamb at 2:44 AM on March 3, 2016 [4 favorites]

LA mefite meetup? Hit me up y'all. (I think I still owe some of you cookies from this winter, too.)
posted by moonlight on vermont at 2:49 AM on March 3, 2016 [4 favorites]

I would do this in a heartbeat, but $33? Pass.
posted by es_de_bah at 3:15 AM on March 3, 2016

What happens to it during an earthquake?
posted by postel's law at 4:19 AM on March 3, 2016 [1 favorite]

Sure, it sounds fun, but then you consider the inevitability of a thin coat of urine on all its surfaces.
posted by Pope Guilty at 4:29 AM on March 3, 2016

Just looking at that thing gives me an unpleasant tickling sensation in my lower belly. To say that there's no way in hell I'm going near it is an understatement; there's no way in hell or heaven I'm going near it.
posted by Mooski at 5:01 AM on March 3, 2016 [1 favorite]

The idea that a tourist trap vetted by a million corporate lawyers could be scary is bizarre.
posted by sonascope at 5:11 AM on March 3, 2016 [4 favorites]

Sure, it sounds fun, but then you consider the inevitability of a thin coat of urine on all its surfaces.

You could say the same about any building ever built.
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:26 AM on March 3, 2016

Agree that the slope of it sounds boring, and $33 is too much. I'd do it for $5 and a faster slide.
posted by Night_owl at 5:27 AM on March 3, 2016

I'd love to go, but I have an appointment with a Neolithic dentist.
posted by Splunge at 5:43 AM on March 3, 2016 [1 favorite]

Is this a thing with US Bank? There's an event to rappel down the US Bank Plaza towers in Minneapolis. Somehow I can see spending the $1200 to rappel down but not the $8 to slide.
posted by Clinging to the Wreckage at 5:51 AM on March 3, 2016

The rappel event is done in several cities. In my hometown it was $1500 to go down the skyscraper that was formerly the HQ of the daily newspaper. (Can you imagine? A newspaper taking up a skyscraper? The past is a different world.)
posted by Monochrome at 6:48 AM on March 3, 2016 [1 favorite]

I was totally up for this until "That's IT?"

I'm still up for it, but really now, that's IT?
posted by Capt. Renault at 6:57 AM on March 3, 2016 [3 favorites]

Sure, it sounds fun, but then you consider the inevitability of a thin coat of urine on all its surfaces.


If only it were just urine.
posted by louche mustachio at 7:36 AM on March 3, 2016 [1 favorite]

So, presumably, the janitor has to go in there with Windex and clean off the fingerprints (and bodily fluids). That's why it's $8 bucks a ride. He or she will get way above union scale.
posted by beagle at 7:42 AM on March 3, 2016

For $10 I'll throw you off my roof...
posted by judson at 7:43 AM on March 3, 2016 [2 favorites]

This AND a post on prehistoric dentistry within 24 hours of each other. Metafilter, I'm gonna need you to slow it down now.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 7:55 AM on March 3, 2016 [2 favorites]

NOPENOPENOPENOPENOPE.
posted by NoxAeternum at 8:30 AM on March 3, 2016

Came for the Nopes and the Hell Yeahs, wasn't disappointed.

(I'm Team Nope, FWIW.)
posted by seyirci at 9:42 AM on March 3, 2016

They worked really hard to come up with something both boring and terrifying at the same time. They should have done something more like this.
posted by TedW at 10:57 AM on March 3, 2016

Yes, and while we're at it, the roller coaster should run between multiple buildings so that there are interesting sections suspended far above the street below. Not merely wound around the top of a single building, but looping and stretching between at least two.
posted by aramaic at 11:22 AM on March 3, 2016

My eight-year-old would probably do this. He was just on a gymnastics team trip a couple of weeks ago and the hotel they stayed at had a water slide that went through a shark tank. That was exciting but this might be even better.

My almost-15-year-old wouldn't even want to know that a thing like this existed.
posted by not that girl at 11:47 AM on March 3, 2016

TEAM YEAH all the way !!
posted by seawallrunner at 1:31 PM on March 3, 2016

US Bank Tower, filled with financial firms? Perfect spot for you to feel like the ground has disappeared from beneath you. Just go in and do business with somebody if you can't be bothered with the slide.
posted by turbid dahlia at 3:09 PM on March 3, 2016 [1 favorite]

Man, no matter what it is, someone will find something wrong with it. "There's a glass slide out the side of a skyscraper!" "Yeah, but it'll get all scratched up and probably smell bad."

I'm way more miffed about the $25 fee to go on the observation deck than I am about the $8 to go on the slide. In terms of fun-per-dollar, that seems really backwards to me. Although I guess it probably works out much better in terms of fun-per-minute.
posted by teponaztli at 10:11 PM on March 3, 2016