MetaFilter posts tagged with towers

Relax in the carefree atmosphere of old English charm...

Joe Beese — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 10:28:28 -0800

In 2000, the British Film Institute voted Fawlty Towers number 1 on its list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes. Perhaps an even greater tribute, numerous real-life lodgings have named themselves after it. Next month, Connie Booth - now a practicing psychotherapist in London - will break a 30 year silence about the show for a televised special. "When you hear the bell, if you'd be so kind as to get out for a few moments..."

Fire towers

Upton O'Good — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 23:43:19 -0800

The fire tower, or fire lookout, was one of the main wildfire-fighting tools of forest services across the world for much of the 20th century. Most are small cabins, alone or placed on 80-foot steel towers; these are then placed on top of peaks, giving them an unobstructed view of the surrounding countryside. (There are some exceptions, of course.) Operators in the towers, equipped with binoculars and firefinders, spent their days searching for smoke or lightning strikes, which would be pinpointed and radioed in for firefighters. (The lookout operators, who staff the towers for a season at a time straight, have a life that is generally pretty solitary and quiet, though sometimes rather intense.) At peak, there were thousands of fire towers across North America; while most of these no longer exist, a few hundred are still active. The FFLA maintains a fairly comprehensive list of most towers, active or historical, in the US, with pictures and notes. In addition, many active lookouts maintain their own pages: Rex Kamstra has a good list. For more contemporary photography, there's also a gallery on Flickr.

There's water in them there tanks...

allkindsoftime — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 09:12:11 -0800

"The business is definitely an art, the men are craftsmen..."(YT) NYC's rooftop water tanks are a unique and often overlooked part of the city. Watch as one goes up (its worth the 10 minutes for the money shot at the end): "New York, is water tanks, yes."(YT) "New York, which has thousands of cylindrical wooden rooftop water tanks with conical roofs, couldn't exist without them." Its the only city with its own section under Wiki's water tower page.

Camouflage cell towers

adzm — Thu, 07 Apr 2005 00:46:01 -0800

Camouflage Cell Towers hidden in trees, buildings, and crosses.

dhartung — Sun, 26 May 2002 09:06:24 -0800

Fighting to Live as the Towers Died : the NYT continues its fine reporting, reconstructing the final moments of temporary survivors on the upper floors, through over 150 e-mail and telephone contacts used to reach friends and relatives (as well as videotapes and recordings of 911 calls and emergency radio bands). Since I briefly worked in the trade center, I have often wondered what this experience must have been like. You may want to take a moment to prepare, and expect to need breaks.

Nick Finck — Mon, 17 Sep 2001 13:20:04 -0800

Filling the Void Phantom Towers, a memorial by Paul Myoda and Julian LaVerdiere. "They imagined two powerful beams rising from a reflecting pool, refilling the void left by the twin towers with incandescence."

Mossy — Wed, 12 Sep 2001 11:49:59 -0800

Design choice for tower helped save lives : via FARK - can you imagine what would have happened had the planes hit the base of the towers?