Toronto, Canada: the CN Tower is the most celebrated landmark. This amazing structure is one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World.
Would it be a surprise that the World's Longest Metal Staircase leads up to the World's Highest Wine Cellar? Man's ingenuity should never surprise. Both of these Guinness Book of Records oddities are part of Toronto's CN Tower, the structure classified as one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World by the American Society of Civil Engineers.
The CN Tower rises more than 1800 feet on Toronto's lakefront, an unwavering guardian spear piercing Toronto's skyline. In its shadow, hardly a couple of blocks away, is the Skydome, another engineering marvel and home of the Toronto Blue Jays. With two million visitors annually, most years the CN Tower outdraws the Blue Jays.
In the same general part of Toronto is the Air Canada Center, new home of the NHL Toronto Maple Leafs and the NBA Toronto Raptors. Apart from sports venues, say, to arts, is the largest permanent Henry Moore sculpture collection in the world. The CN Tower outdraws all of these too.
The Tower's claim to fame lies on its overall height as a free standing structure. While it does have a function as a national radio and television transmission facility, it isn't an office tower like New York's World Trade Center or Chicago's Sears Tower. On average, only about 500 to 600 people work in the CN Tower, compared to thousands in the other two. The Tower is primarily a tourist attraction and, for that, one might say, purpose-built and spectacularly successful.
Whether a visitor arrives in Toronto by air, boat, car or train, the sentinel CN Tower is the first visible landmark to signify journey's end. From that moment it is a magnet, a must-see, preferably on a clear day.
Back in 1976 when the Tower opened, the Concourse level was a bland walk-through to the elevators. It could have been any office building. The only ground level attraction was a moat of sorts where visitors could rent paddle boats. Now, however, it's much livelier. Here is located a large duty-free shop, an excellent moderately priced restaurant, a cinema, and an arcade that for lights and sounds has all of the glitz of Las Vegas but none of the gambling. This is where visitors pause to catch their breath. On to the elevators.
The glass walled elevator seems to rise in silent leisurely manner. Yet, with Canada's largest city unfolding and its horizon lengthening outside the glass, may come the thought that it's very fast, swiftly ascending the 113 storeys to the first big stop, the Lookout Level.
Here at the Lookout Level, or Look-down, as many do, the floor is partly glass, fortunately strong enough to walk over. A little higher is one of Toronto's premier restaurants, the 360, so-called because it revolves every 72 minutes, maybe quicker after visitors have had an opportunity to sample its 400-plus item wine list, considered by "Wine Spectator" magazine as among the most outstanding in the world.
On a clear day to the south, the northern New York State shoreline is visible across Lake Ontario. On the other three sides is the cityscape, a downtown forest of office towers, which includes one of the last designs by famed architect, Mies Van Der Rohe, the Toronto-Dominion Center.
Upward from the Lookout Level is the CN Tower's Sky Pod, as close to the pinnacle as a visitor can rise. Engineering magic compensates the sway of the building on windy days but the Pod still stirs awe and definitely isn't for a visitor with even a trace of vertigo.
A year before it opened, the Tower was acclaimed by the Guinness Book of Records. In 1997, new management undertook a major upgrading program with the objective of increasing its entertainment potential. The work has reaped deserved reward. As for the record of being the world's tallest structure, this seems to depend on whom you ask.
Do flagpoles and radio antennas count? Does it really matter? Each year a major Toronto charity holds a charity run up the CN Tower's metal stairs. Ask participants at the end of that run. They'll tell you that even if it isn't the world's tallest structure, it feels like it is, and without doubt it has the most stairs. To be added, the runners are permitted to return to the ground by elevator.
