Straha
Banned
POD: 1960
Frank Lloyd Wright's design for a mile high building is chosen for a new structure to be built in Chicago. Technological limitations are a concern but this is the America that just got embarrassed by a nation of peasants beatign them into space. It is only fitting that they rise to the challenge of building the tallest building on the planet. The selection method used is interesting and will eventually lead to a major scandal. Chicago the city is into the building for a considerable sum of money (although a cunning accountant might notice that money flows into the Half Mile accounts and then back out into pockets which are difficult to trace but as the IRS shows in 1982, not difficult enough).
Six years later, the first tenants move in. The building is plagued with the usual problems of a FLW building. It's pretty but ill suited to human use, especially since some of the innovations FLW foresaw (atomic elevators) never came to pass. It never attracts the number of tenants it needs to be solvent and by 1970, the holding company is bankrupt. The city of Chicago finds itself owning a huge white elephant which it can not rent out and close inspection shows can not be torn down without risking serious damage to a large section of Chicago. What to do with it?
The Gatreaux case had shown a persistant tendency in Chicago publis housing to reserve the good public housing for whites (often non-priority whites) while the waiting lists of priority cases were largely black. This class action suit was settled in favour of the claiments in 1969. Now the city of Chicago had the largest building in history available to solve at once the entire poor black housing problem of the city. The Mile High could contain up to 125,000 people (with suitable retrofitting) and by 1975, it did. The vast majority were black and all were poor.
Some people pointed out that the problems of the projects would only exist in larger form in the Mile High. These objections were overcome by the ingenious use of local bigots, who were of the opinion that they didn't want an eight of a million blacks looking down on them. Through cunning use of air time, the people responsible for what was to become the tallest slum in the world linked in the public mind opposition to the Mile High Housign Project and anti-black bigotry and it became difficult to criticize the Project without being labelled racist.
Of course the retrofitting was done on the cheap and the social problems of the Projects were indeed more pronounced in the Mile High. Indeed, because FLW buildings are actively hostile to human occupation, the rate of mental and social problems in the Project were even higher than outside, although this was generally blamed on the occupants rather than the building.
Maintainance was always a problem in the building. Unlike shorter buildings, the upper levels had to have elevators to be habitable. Some of the criminal elements interfered with maintainance, leading to the formation of the first Shock Maintainance Squads, combining the tactics of standard maintainance men with those of the SWAT teams then becoming common in the USA. The standard of life in the Mile High was never great and by the end of its life in 1980 many floors could only be described as post-apocalyptic. It almost beggars belief that matter could have declined as quickly as they did in the 1970s but the evidence is before us.
In 1979, Arthur McDuffie was beaten a police officers at a routine traffic stop, dying four days later. In 1980 when the police involed were cleared, blacks in Miami rioted feeling that there could be no justice for blacks. Although some small sympathy riots occured elsewhere, in most places they were too small to be of consequence. In the Mile High, on the other hand, a small number of people could hold the exits without much trouble and so one morning in 1980 Chicago woke to find one eighth of a million of its citizens being held hostage by sixteen members of an offshoot of the Black Panthers calling itself the Leopards. Investigation would later show that the "Leopards" had split off under the urging of an FBI undercover agent hoping to cause them to commit some act for which they could be arrested. He got his wish, although by that time his body was rotting in a dumpster. The Leopards were heavily armed and claimed to have explosives (packages were shown to a negotiator). Probes showed that the roof was guarded by a surprising well-armed and trained set of Leopards who were quite capable of repelling attempts to take the roof. Their demands, however, could not be met and they all settled down to a long seige.
The Seige of the Mile High lasted for two weeks. At the end fatalities from lack of water and air-conditioning may have reached as high as 5% of the building but that became moot because on the fourteenth day a fire started on the eleventh floor. How it started is not known. Although tear gas had been used earlier that day, no cannisters were used above the first floor because that's where most of the Leopards were. Because firefighter could not get by the ground floor Leopards an assault was authorised but it took a vital ninety minutes to retake the first floors and by then the fire was well established. The counter terrorist actions of cutting the power and water also disabled the internal fire fighting equipment and the CFD never had a hope of containing the fire after the first hour. Over the next twelve hours one hundred and twenty thousand people burned to death in front of the city and thanks to television, in front of America. Of the the eighth of a million
people in the Mile High, only four hundred escaped, all from below the the fire.
Pictures of the Chicago police gunning down victims of the fire as they fled the building were seen coast to coast. Apparently the police were under the impression that all of the blacks were Leopards, although this can not be confirmed because twelve hours after the fire started the entire building collapsed, apparently because the steel girders had weakened in the fire. Because the collapse was not a planned demolition job, debris came down over a considerable portion of the city, with fragments killing people up to 400 meters away. Most of the FBI, CFD and CPD people on the scene were killed, as well as many civilians, including the mayor. Investigation appears
to show substandard steel was used in the construction of the Mile High, which may have contributed to the collapse.
(Thoughts as to the social and legal repercussions?)
Frank Lloyd Wright's design for a mile high building is chosen for a new structure to be built in Chicago. Technological limitations are a concern but this is the America that just got embarrassed by a nation of peasants beatign them into space. It is only fitting that they rise to the challenge of building the tallest building on the planet. The selection method used is interesting and will eventually lead to a major scandal. Chicago the city is into the building for a considerable sum of money (although a cunning accountant might notice that money flows into the Half Mile accounts and then back out into pockets which are difficult to trace but as the IRS shows in 1982, not difficult enough).
Six years later, the first tenants move in. The building is plagued with the usual problems of a FLW building. It's pretty but ill suited to human use, especially since some of the innovations FLW foresaw (atomic elevators) never came to pass. It never attracts the number of tenants it needs to be solvent and by 1970, the holding company is bankrupt. The city of Chicago finds itself owning a huge white elephant which it can not rent out and close inspection shows can not be torn down without risking serious damage to a large section of Chicago. What to do with it?
The Gatreaux case had shown a persistant tendency in Chicago publis housing to reserve the good public housing for whites (often non-priority whites) while the waiting lists of priority cases were largely black. This class action suit was settled in favour of the claiments in 1969. Now the city of Chicago had the largest building in history available to solve at once the entire poor black housing problem of the city. The Mile High could contain up to 125,000 people (with suitable retrofitting) and by 1975, it did. The vast majority were black and all were poor.
Some people pointed out that the problems of the projects would only exist in larger form in the Mile High. These objections were overcome by the ingenious use of local bigots, who were of the opinion that they didn't want an eight of a million blacks looking down on them. Through cunning use of air time, the people responsible for what was to become the tallest slum in the world linked in the public mind opposition to the Mile High Housign Project and anti-black bigotry and it became difficult to criticize the Project without being labelled racist.
Of course the retrofitting was done on the cheap and the social problems of the Projects were indeed more pronounced in the Mile High. Indeed, because FLW buildings are actively hostile to human occupation, the rate of mental and social problems in the Project were even higher than outside, although this was generally blamed on the occupants rather than the building.
Maintainance was always a problem in the building. Unlike shorter buildings, the upper levels had to have elevators to be habitable. Some of the criminal elements interfered with maintainance, leading to the formation of the first Shock Maintainance Squads, combining the tactics of standard maintainance men with those of the SWAT teams then becoming common in the USA. The standard of life in the Mile High was never great and by the end of its life in 1980 many floors could only be described as post-apocalyptic. It almost beggars belief that matter could have declined as quickly as they did in the 1970s but the evidence is before us.
In 1979, Arthur McDuffie was beaten a police officers at a routine traffic stop, dying four days later. In 1980 when the police involed were cleared, blacks in Miami rioted feeling that there could be no justice for blacks. Although some small sympathy riots occured elsewhere, in most places they were too small to be of consequence. In the Mile High, on the other hand, a small number of people could hold the exits without much trouble and so one morning in 1980 Chicago woke to find one eighth of a million of its citizens being held hostage by sixteen members of an offshoot of the Black Panthers calling itself the Leopards. Investigation would later show that the "Leopards" had split off under the urging of an FBI undercover agent hoping to cause them to commit some act for which they could be arrested. He got his wish, although by that time his body was rotting in a dumpster. The Leopards were heavily armed and claimed to have explosives (packages were shown to a negotiator). Probes showed that the roof was guarded by a surprising well-armed and trained set of Leopards who were quite capable of repelling attempts to take the roof. Their demands, however, could not be met and they all settled down to a long seige.
The Seige of the Mile High lasted for two weeks. At the end fatalities from lack of water and air-conditioning may have reached as high as 5% of the building but that became moot because on the fourteenth day a fire started on the eleventh floor. How it started is not known. Although tear gas had been used earlier that day, no cannisters were used above the first floor because that's where most of the Leopards were. Because firefighter could not get by the ground floor Leopards an assault was authorised but it took a vital ninety minutes to retake the first floors and by then the fire was well established. The counter terrorist actions of cutting the power and water also disabled the internal fire fighting equipment and the CFD never had a hope of containing the fire after the first hour. Over the next twelve hours one hundred and twenty thousand people burned to death in front of the city and thanks to television, in front of America. Of the the eighth of a million
people in the Mile High, only four hundred escaped, all from below the the fire.
Pictures of the Chicago police gunning down victims of the fire as they fled the building were seen coast to coast. Apparently the police were under the impression that all of the blacks were Leopards, although this can not be confirmed because twelve hours after the fire started the entire building collapsed, apparently because the steel girders had weakened in the fire. Because the collapse was not a planned demolition job, debris came down over a considerable portion of the city, with fragments killing people up to 400 meters away. Most of the FBI, CFD and CPD people on the scene were killed, as well as many civilians, including the mayor. Investigation appears
to show substandard steel was used in the construction of the Mile High, which may have contributed to the collapse.
(Thoughts as to the social and legal repercussions?)
