Floor math

According to this article, some big NYC real estate developers are misnumbering their floors in an effort to increase the marketability of their buildings. Basically, they've been numbering by height, rather than actual floors, so if a building is 800 feet, and the average NYC floor is 8 feet, they can claim the building has 100 floors, even though it can actually have less - 70 floors or a decadently high-ceilinged 7 floors.

Mr. Trump is not bashful about his innovation. "A lot of people have copied me," he boasted. He said he was showing restraint when he divided Trump World's height by 10 feet rather than, say, 9 feet. "I could have gone higher than 90 stories," he said, using the term "higher" numerically rather than altitudinally. "I chose 90 because I thought it was a good number."

Final thoughts: 1) if you can't trust the Donald in a business deal, who can you trust? Is there no honest man left in this city? 2) My apartment building avoids this controversy by only having six floors, which are counted 1-6 in the American fashion. How many floors does your building have?

[Jen]: Floor envy and bragging rights are what fueled the drive to make the tallest buildings in the world in Asia.

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May 8, 2003 10:13 AM

Comments [rss]

Lena

My husband bought an apartment in a building that has no 4th floor, no 14th fl., no 24th fl., no 34th fl., didn't notice if there are any forty somthing floors because his apartment is on the 32nd floor which is really the 29th? floor. Anyway I didn't want to move, so it's rented out now.

Jen

I'm not sure how many actual floors there are in my building. There are two elevator banks, one for "Lobby - 17" and one for "Lobby & 17-Penthouse." For all I know, Lobby-17 could be for two floors.

Bec

[link=http://www.skyscrapers.com/re/...]This[/link] is our building. We have about 25 office floors, but there are going to be separate (secret?) elevators for the authors/celebs who live in the condos on the upper levels once the building is completed. I counted about 30 additional floors still under construction.

I so wish I could afford to live in my building.

Hilbert Realty

Jake, I thought your building had F floors. That's the way their labeled anyway. I just assumed it was hexadecimal and you had nine floors below ground. When I own a building, all the floors will be given irrational numbers (e, sqrt3, pi, etc.) to give the impression that there are uncountably many. Or maybe complex numbers (i, 2+3i, 7-5i, etc.) to fire the tennants' imaginations.

Bogg

We have no 2 or 3, since most of the first floor is taken up by a building full of theaters, below.

We also have no thirteen, but that's more a superstition thing than a publicity stunt.

The realtors say we have 40 floors, and we do, roughly: there's a 40th floor and a Penthouse floor (41, it would seem) minus 2, 3, and 13 (down to 38.)

PS: I live here.