I had an appointment on the top floor of a 14-story building in NY City Thursday. The elevator buttons read:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 12M, 14.
I’d thought that sort of thing was getting rarer since I don’t see it much in Washington DC office buildings. But this article claims it is very common:
Based on records of buildings with Otis brand elevators, as many as 85 percent of the high rises in the world don’t have a 13th floor, says Dilip Rangnekar, spokesman for the Farmington, CT-based elevator maker.
Interestingly, I first thought the M was for Mezzanine, but Wikipedia points out M is used in elevators in that situation because it is the 13th letter of the alphabet. OK, but if the number 13 really were unlucky, then wouldn’t the 13th letter of the alphabet be unlucky too? And, of course, the 13th floor, by any other name, is still the 13th floor. Such is the logic of the illogical.
The bottom line is that non-science still holds sway with a great many people, as the big story of the weekend makes all too clear.
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Non-science is the norm. I was traveling through North Carolina, Georgia & Alabama last weekend. Church every mile it seems.
Bill Maddox
The fact that 85% of high-rises have no 13th floor is not as indicative as it sounds. What it means is that 85% of high-rise owners worry that as many as X % of prospective tenants worry about having an office or apartment on the 13th floor, where X could be only 5 or 10. When it comes to decisions with economic impacts, people will act very conservatively. So the factoid from Otis is really a statement of what high-rise owners think about the level of 13-phobia out there (which itself could be quite low, in the 5-10% range), not about the actual fraction of people who have the phobia.
A couple of years ago in Dubai, I stayed on the 13th floor of the Burj Al Arab, one of the fanciest hotels I’ve ever seen, and one where loads of foreign tourists congregate. That was a first. Last month in Taipei, I saw many buildings with a floor 13 — and the Chinese are not exactly a-superstitious.
I wonder whether that 85 percent figure reflects the relative concentration of tall buildings in the Occident.
I believe that the number 4 is considered extremely unlucky in Chinese culture…perhaps they act as irrationally with 4 as Westerners do with 13?
http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Superstitions_of_Malaysian_Chinese#Chinese_Superstitions:_Numbers
Its done on homes built in the last 10 years in New Jersey too, skips right from 11 to 15, and while canvassing you’re almost certain you skipped a house somehow!
It is most unlucky of all to ignore numbers and deny science
“I’d thought that sort of thing was getting rarer since I don’t see it much in Washington DC office buildings. ”
You don’t see them because they are not allowed to be built. Nothing in DC in taller than 10 or 11 stories other than the Washington Monument.
The JW Marriott hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue in DC has a 14th floor (and a 15th), and no 13th, for one.
A lot of buildings house their electrical/mechanical systems on the 13th floor. It’s often accessible via a service elevator, although the public elevators skip from 12 to 14.
“A lot of buildings house their electrical/mechanical systems on the 13th floor. It’s often accessible via a service elevator, although the public elevators skip from 12 to 14.”
This statement may be more nonsensical than the “13″ phobia itself.
The 13th floor is often used for mechanicals because city water pressure has dropped to an unacceptable level by this height. Booster pumps on the 13th are needed to go higher.
KLM Airways (the Dutch airline) has no Row 13 on its aircraft …..