I have had two teachers tell me that because of superstitions companies often times do not build “13th” floors in large towers/buildings. Is this really true? I lived on the 12th floor of a building and knew plenty of guys up on the 13th floor, so is this just a regional thing or are they just pulling our legs.
I have been in a few buildings that lacked a 13th floor, when i asked my parents why (I was a child) they gave me this explanation. For the most part though buildings do have 13th floors…So i vote for rarely to ocasionsally.
I’ve been in plenty of hotels that skipped 13 when numbering their floors. My mother used to work in a 13-storey building, but the elevator only went to the 12th floor. To get to the top floor (conference room), you had to take the stairs from the 12th.
Hen, yeah, because lord knows you don’t want to drive away the Triskaidekaphobia crowd. They have such a large impact on the market. :rolleyes:
There are people like that, and they spend money, although they are not as numerous as they used to be. Many older buildings do not have a thirteenth floor.
I’ve read that this sort of thing is a big deal in some parts of Asia, due to the way numbers are represented with Chinese characters, leading to all kinds of “good” and “bad” numbers.
The Hong Kong builing I used to live in was missing floors 4, 13, 14, 24 and 34.
Yep. There’s plenty of even fairly modern office buildings in Chicago which lack a 13th floor. (Well, not literally, of course. There still is a 13th floor, it’s just labelled as the 14th. But that’s bloody obvious, in’t it?)
My apartment building (old) doesn’t have 13. My office building, built just a few years ago, doesn’t have it either.
My apartment building doesn’t have a 13th floor, either.
But that’s probably because it’s only five floors high.
Commercial buildings usually have a 13th floor. The Empire State Building, for instance, has one (there’s an office available in 1310, if you’re interested).
Hotels and apartment buildings often avoid it. While an business might be happy to be on the 13th floor, a hotel guest or renter might decide not to stay there, so it’s better to skip it.
However, there are probably counterexamples to both.
In Edmonton I have seen Office with a13th floor and with out a 13th flor. Same thing foor apartments, some have it some don’t.
Is 4 bad mojo?
Even as a kid, I thought this was pretty dumb. Just because you don’t call it the 13th floor doesn’t mean it isn’t the 13th floor. You’d have to skip the number and leave the floor empty for this to work.
“Four” in Japanese, and I think also Chinese, is pronounced “shi,” which is also the word for death, which is also why you don’t give four of anything to someone of Chinese or Japanese origin (I don’t know if this holds true for other Asian cultures, please correct me if I’m wrong). A lot of times the Japanese use the character “yon” instead of four.
The building I grew up in had no 13th floor. I don’t know if this made the people on the 14th floor feel any better though.
At this moment I’m in a 32-story high-rise built in 1920s. I’m on the 13th floor, but we call it Suite 1300! Yes, it’s true that a lot of buildings do all they can to avoid putting tenants on the 13th floor. The last building I worked in also had 32 floors and the 13th floor was a storage floor for old furniture and miscellaneous office stuff. The elevator button does not work for that floor. One time I rode up the elevator with a maintenance person and he used his key to stop on that floor and I had a chance to take a peek at the mysterious floor. I almost expected to see something like the “special” floor in “The After Hours” episode of Twilight Zone. :eek:
Not only do many hotels not have 13th floors, some do not have rooms with 13 in the number itself (ie room numbers go from 212 to 214.)
Silliness, without a doubt, but when dollars in the bank are at stake, why risk anything.
So please come hither and tell us what the character “yon” means, besides its use as “four”.
My company’s headquarters “don’t have” a 13th floor. It always surprises me when I pass the 12th floor in the elevator and clearly only go up one more floor before arriving at the 14th. And yeah, it’s always struck me as stupid.
Of the five tallest buildings in the United States, four of them have floors numbered 13.