# Tall buildings without a 13th floor



## urbanjim (Feb 22, 2008)

The designation of a "13th floor" in some tall buildings (particularly hotels) has been purposely omitted due to old superstitions about the number 13. Many people refuse to sleep on a floor with the number 13 (or even in room numbered 13). 

To avoid this problem, the 13th level of some buildings is simply re-named. It may be called 12-A, or the "lounge level" or "terrace level". More often, it's skipped over and called the 14th floor, with all actual levels from 13 and higher misnumbered by one. 

This means that a building with 20 _actual_ levels, but with its 13th floor omitted, will _seem_ to have 21 floors, since the elevators will go to 21. 
Which begs the question: When the number of storys of a building is cited, is this taken into consideration? 

Are there any examples of tall buildings without a 13'th floor?


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## ThatDarnSacramentan (Oct 26, 2008)

The only one I can remember for sure is the Grand Hyatt in San Francisco. But, I vaguely remember that 30 Rock doesn't have a 13th floor.


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## Manila-X (Jul 28, 2005)

Some HK buildings don't have a 13th floor. In fact some buildings here don't have floors that end with a 4 such as 24, 34, etc. The pronounciation of 4 also means death. 

But for the rest


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## _00_deathscar (Mar 16, 2005)

Why is 3 skipped in that one?


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## Manila-X (Jul 28, 2005)

_00_deathscar said:


> Why is 3 skipped in that one?


I have no clue


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## Mruczek (Dec 13, 2008)

Technical / auxilliary floor for staff only? Accessed from another lift perhaps? IIRC some floors in Marriott Warsaw are skipped for that reason (but nothing superstitious; sth like 21, 22).


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## rossie1977 (Jul 17, 2007)

speaking of numbers many hotels in las vegas e.g. mandalay bay, wynn don't have a 4th or 40th floors as the number 4 sounds like death in chinese http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2007/feb/15/for-casinos-chinese-new-year-behind-only-super-bow/


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## ovem (Mar 25, 2007)

lol. this is so silly!  anyway, there's a building in Athens that i know without 13th floor but its not hotel.


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## Taller Better (Aug 27, 2005)

Hmmm.... I think it used to be a fairly common thing, but I am not sure if they still do it. I will have to pay more attention! It is a bit silly when you think about it, isn't it?


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## Xusein (Sep 27, 2005)

My relatives live in a high rise in NYC, and it has no 13th floor, always wondered why.


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## Mr Bricks (May 6, 2005)

I can´t believe how superstitious people are.


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## serendip finder (Jun 17, 2008)

To think about it, it is just superstition.

But i myself would find it unnerving to sleep alone in a hotel room on the 13th floor, let alone in a room 13.


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## JustHorace (Dec 17, 2005)

A lot high-rises in Manila have no 13th floor. I guess it's just standard.


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## jlshyang (May 22, 2005)

WANCH said:


> Some HK buildings don't have a 13th floor. In fact some buildings here don't have floors that end with a 4 such as 24, 34, etc. The pronounciation of 4 also means death.
> 
> But for the rest


Same here in Malaysia. For example, in my apartment they replace the 4th, 14th and 24th floor with 3A, 14A and 24A respectively. 

4 means death in many Chinese dialects.


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## GTR22 (Nov 14, 2007)

^^^ Japanese too. 9 is also bad i think it means suffering.


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## The Chemist (Feb 19, 2003)

GTR22 said:


> ^^^ Japanese too. 9 is also bad i think it means suffering.


In many buildings in China the lack of floors ending in 4 is very common (though I don't understand why most buildings without a 14th, 24th, etc. floor still have a 4th floor). But the number 9 in China is very auspicious - it sounds the same as the word for 'longevity'.


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## Waldenstrom (Dec 13, 2006)

Why not just use letters? Or is there an unlucky letter? :crazy:


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## tollfreak (Jul 23, 2008)

Grand Indonesia Shopping Town in Jakarta has no 4th floor, it is renamed Floor 3A instead. A lot of Chinese-Indonesian owned property in Jakarta also has no 4th or 13th floor, one example is the Aryaduta Suites Apartment in Semanggi.


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## -Corey- (Jul 8, 2005)

Many hotels in Las Vegas dont have a 13th floor, and i heard that some planes dont even have the seat #13 too.


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## qymekkam (Jul 11, 2008)

some airports dont have a 13'th gate like fresno yosemite international airport. they use 12a instead or skipped the number i forgot which one.


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## Waldenstrom (Dec 13, 2006)

why don't we just totally omit number 13 in the numbering system? :lol:


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## Sen (Nov 13, 2004)

the building i am living in doesn't have 4, 13 and 14 floor...


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## OtAkAw (Aug 5, 2004)

13 is just a number. Fear of it is just ridiculous.


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## Chicagoago (Dec 2, 2005)

my old office building in Chicago didn't have a 13. It was built in 1928.


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## Talbot (Jul 13, 2004)

I have seen quite a few towers in Houston without a 13th floor, havent really noticed floors with a 4 though. Guess I will pay more attention to that.


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## Waldenstrom (Dec 13, 2006)

I think only Chinese/some Asian countries don't use the 4 in their buildings.


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## tampasteve (Aug 8, 2007)

The Bank of America building in Tampa, Florida does not have a 13th floor. Neither the elevators or stairwell notes a 13th floor.



Steve


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## hYp (Nov 19, 2005)

Well, in thell, in the end, the 13th floor is still the 13th floor, whether you call it 12A, M or 183, you will die anyway.

hno:

Especially in multi-cultural highrises, like my student dorm with people from at least 30 different countries, you would have to omit an insanely high number of floors.

btw, the number 13 is also considered a lucky number in some cultures, in the ancient Roman empire, it even was a holy symbol.


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## Ayceman (Mar 18, 2009)

Ridiculous superstition. I don't know of any building in Bucharest that skips 13.


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## manila_eye (Aug 12, 2008)

typical building here in the philippines if the owner/builder is non-born again christian.


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## Jim856796 (Jun 1, 2006)

A 13th floor (or any floor omitted from a building's floor numbering system) would technically exist in a skyscraper even if it is given a different number such as 12A or it has been omitted from the numbering system altogether. If I counted the floors of a skyscraper, even in those drawings at skyscraperpage.com, I always leave in the number 13.


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## grapu (Mar 22, 2009)

I'm in Indonesia, an apartment near my dormitory ommited floor 3,4,13,14,23 and 24...


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## Memphis (Nov 26, 2004)

Im a chef at the W Atlanta Midtown...and we do not have a 13th floor in the hotel...nor a 4th....


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## poshbakerloo (Jan 16, 2007)

I'm not sure but I think London's One Canada Square don't have a 13th floor...


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## waccamatt (Mar 7, 2004)

I honestly can't think of any highrise buildings I've been in that have had a 13th floor. It's silly, but it is a tradition - apparently all over the world.


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## dc88 (Aug 6, 2009)

In numerology, the number twelve is considered the number of completeness, as reflected in the twelve months of the year, twelve signs of the zodiac, twelve hours of the clock, twelve tribes of Israel, twelve Apostles of Jesus, twelve gods of Olympus, etc., whereas the number *thirteen *was considered irregular, transgressing this completeness. 

so this superstition started who knows? WHEN PEOPLE Invented Numbers?LOL..


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## Lindemann (Sep 11, 2002)

This is a picture I took in a hotel in Hong Kong, where there are no 4th, 13th, 14th and 24th floors:


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## Innsertnamehere (Jun 8, 2010)

no 13th floor in the sheraton center in toronto... (and everywhere, for that matter)


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## Spookvlieger (Jul 10, 2009)

No superstition with numbers overhere.
4th floor stays 4th floor an 13 number 13.

Myself I wouldn't care if I was in room 13 on, the 13th floor on friday the 13th of 2013 and that while watching on my clock on exactly 13.00 while walking under a ladder because of people painting my walls, and having a black cat that pushed the miror of the wall so it broke while I was opening an umbrella inside that pushes a pack of salt of the table and when looking up seeing an magpie fly by...


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## DanielFigFoz (Mar 10, 2007)

poshbakerloo said:


> I'm not sure but I think London's One Canada Square don't have a 13th floor...


Doesn't it? I don't think that I've seen anything like that in the UK but oh well.


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## Rachmaninov (Aug 5, 2004)

Lindemann said:


> This is a picture I took in a hotel in Hong Kong, where there are no 4th, 13th, 14th and 24th floors:


Quite a lot of buildings in Hong Kong don't have a 13th floor, and as many before has pointed out, they also took the liberty to omit anything that ends with "4". The most notorious example in Hong Kong would probably be 39 Conduit Road, where the developer omitted everything they could and the top floor was the 88th floor while the floor below it was 68th. The building itself was 46 storeys including a 6-storey podium...


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## zaphod (Dec 8, 2005)

I wonder what harm could come from this? What if there was a fire and the fire department had to figure out who was on what floors to rescue them. Imagine the struggle to communicate if there was no 4, 13, 24, etc...

Seems unlucky in and of itself


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## Chicagoago (Dec 2, 2005)

Don't people on the 14th floor just realize they're on the 13th floor?


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## Northsider (Jan 16, 2006)

I can't think of any specific building...but it's _very_ common in Chicago and other US cities to not have 12. My own work building goes from 12 to 14, as did my wife's old apartment building.


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## CNGL (Jun 10, 2010)

On the Princess hotel in Madrid there is no 13th floor.

And it's not about floors, but I remember that in a hotel I stayed near Firenze had no rooms numbered 113 nor 117 (I was on room 116 and the one standing next was the 118). I believe 17 is a bad luck number in Italy.


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## watcher09 (Aug 3, 2009)

Chicagoago said:


> Don't people on the 14th floor just realize they're on the 13th floor?


Exactly what I've been thinking for years. If I would be superstitious, I would not stay on the 14th floor or 12A. They just name a floor without thinking what is a floor's true number. *We cannot escape from the truth that all buildings having at least 13 storeys have 13th floor!* Count them from the ground floor per storey.:nuts:


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## independenciaom (Apr 7, 2011)

=D


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## Century25 (Jun 8, 2009)

Rachmaninov said:


> Quite a lot of buildings in Hong Kong don't have a 13th floor, and as many before has pointed out, they also took the liberty to omit anything that ends with "4". The most notorious example in Hong Kong would probably be 39 Conduit Road, where the developer omitted everything they could and the top floor was the 88th floor while the floor below it was 68th. The building itself was 46 storeys including a 6-storey podium...


Although we once had the temerity to become interplanetary travelers, civilization is firmly shackled to the dark ages. Ignorance pervades the planet from the US to the high tech, maglev SAR of Hong Kong. 

Just think how wonderful this world would be - IF we could break free all the lies perpetuated across the millennia !


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## poshbakerloo (Jan 16, 2007)

My work place doesn't have a 13th floor


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