# 13th floor **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 4, 2004, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/13th-floor/267426 "2004-10-04T05:37:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2004, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/13th-floor/267426/21 "2004-10-04T19:01:45Z")
I spent the first seven years of my life living in a house with the street number “1300”. Later, we moved to a town where one third of the phone numbers were in the 666 exchange. This may explain a few things. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![partlycloudy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/partlycloudy/32/3114_2.png) [@partlycloudy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/partlycloudy)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2004, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/13th-floor/267426/22 "2004-10-04T19:09:23Z")
If I remember correctly from my training at Disney, none of the hotels at the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando have a 13th floor… except of course, the Tower of Terror at MGM. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![wisernow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/13edae/32.png) [@wisernow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wisernow)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2004, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/13th-floor/267426/23 "2004-10-04T19:15:18Z")
I live on the 14th floor which is actually the 13th floor. It is sort of funny watching the floor number display inside the elevator when it changes from 12 to 14. ---
**Author:** ![tremorviolet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e47774/32.png) [@tremorviolet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tremorviolet)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2004, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/13th-floor/267426/24 "2004-10-04T19:31:18Z")
> [@rjk](#): > > So please come hither and tell us what the character “yon” means, besides its use as “four”. It also means four. Japanese can be confusing because most kanji have a native Japanese pronunciation and a Chinese pronunciation. In this case, the native Japanese pronunciation is preferred over the Chinese pronunciation because of the death reference. Same for seven. It can be “shichi” but “nana” is often used to avoid the “shi”… ---
**Author:** ![kath94](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/67e7ee/32.png) [@kath94](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kath94)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2004, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/13th-floor/267426/25 "2004-10-04T20:05:28Z")
[QUOTE=Sunspace] I spent the first seven years of my life living in a house with the street number “1300”. I grew up in a house numbered 11331. My parents enjoyed telling the story that friends had given them the shiny brass house numbers to identify it, because they (the friends) owned apartments and never numbered one as “13” because nobody wanted to live in apartment #13. Free house numbers for us! On a visit to Hong Kong several years ago I noticed that my hotel didn’t have a 4th floor, but it _did_ have a 13th floor. Silly superstitions! Given the opportunity, I love to freak people out by walking under ladders and opening umbrellas indoors. (tee hee!) ---
**Author:** ![Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de053/32.png) [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackknifed_Juggernaut)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2004, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/13th-floor/267426/26 "2004-10-04T20:14:04Z")
I work on the 13th Floor of a 14 floor building. I once asked why the building has a 13th floor when most don’t. The answer I got was that older buildings have 13th floors because people back then weren’t as superstituous as we are today. I was a little surprised by that answer. ---
**Author:** ![TellMeI\_mNotCrazy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tellmei_mnotcrazy/32/3419_2.png) [@TellMeI\_mNotCrazy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TellMeI_mNotCrazy)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2004, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/13th-floor/267426/27 "2004-10-04T20:41:04Z")
I’ve seen several buildings that skip the 13th floor; I just always find it slightly amusing. And my John Mayer \*Room for Squares \* CD doesn’t have a 13th track, which I never realized until I happened to be looking at the player when it switched from 12 to 13 for a split second before switching again to 14. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2004, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/13th-floor/267426/28 "2004-10-04T20:43:40Z")
An earlier thread on the subject: [The 13th floor: Ooh, I’m sooo scared!](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=61478) ---
**Author:** ![pool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pool/32/4152_2.png) [@pool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pool)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2004, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/13th-floor/267426/29 "2004-10-04T20:49:19Z")
I know with the exception of animals being slaughtered most of the stuff in the FACES OF DEATH movies were fake, but I remember this one scene where supposedly a guy bungee jumped off a building that was missing the thirteenth floor so he had too much slack or something and went splat on the ground, prob wasn’t real but still an interesting premise. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![D\_Odds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/d_odds/32/2882_2.png) [@D\_Odds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Odds)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2004, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/13th-floor/267426/30 "2004-10-04T21:13:53Z")
The World Financial Center, in downtown NY, has no 13th floor. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2004, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/13th-floor/267426/31 "2004-10-05T05:36:28Z")
> [@aaslatten](#): > > 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. Many buildings actually do this! They don’t really leave the 13th floor empty, but it is a non-public floor. They use it as a location for required mechanical stuff, like water storage tanks, heating & cooling machinery, air ducts & blowers, etc. Always seemed a bit odd to me: this floor is so unlucky that we can’t put any people here; instead we’ll use if for the blowers that supply air to the people on all the lower floors. Right. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2004, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/13th-floor/267426/32 "2004-10-05T05:59:25Z")
You can cater to the superstitions of others without subscribing to those superstitions yourself. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2004, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/13th-floor/267426/33 "2004-10-05T06:18:36Z")
> [@D\_Odds](#): > > The World Financial Center, in downtown NY, has no 13th floor. Somebody better tell the [The New York Board of Trade](http://www.nfa.futures.org/aboutnfa/board.asp) that. ---
**Author:** ![Duderdude2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/cdc98d/32.png) [@Duderdude2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duderdude2)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2004, 7:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/13th-floor/267426/34 "2004-10-05T07:21:36Z")
> [@LoganDear](#): > > If I remember correctly from my training at Disney, none of the hotels at the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando have a 13th floor… except of course, the Tower of Terror at MGM. 🙂 Tower of Terror to my mind as well, but you actually travel up to the 12th floor. How is that, you may ask, as the ride is known for its 13 story drop? You start in the basement. ---
**Author:** ![Duderdude2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/cdc98d/32.png) [@Duderdude2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duderdude2)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2004, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/13th-floor/267426/35 "2004-10-05T07:22:38Z")
\*Tower of Terror **came** to my mind as well, but you actually travel up to the 12th floor. How is that, you may ask, as the ride is known for its 13 story drop? You start in the basement. ---
**Author:** ![citrus\_x\_paradisi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6f9a4e/32.png) [@citrus\_x\_paradisi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/citrus_x_paradisi)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2004, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/13th-floor/267426/36 "2004-10-05T11:33:43Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > 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. Are you sure this is based on superstition? It just seems to me like an easy way to keep conferences private, when necessary. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Odds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/d_odds/32/2882_2.png) [@D\_Odds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Odds)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2004, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/13th-floor/267426/37 "2004-10-05T15:38:09Z")
> [@Walloon](#): > > Somebody better tell the [The New York Board of Trade](http://www.nfa.futures.org/aboutnfa/board.asp) that. [Downtown NYC Map](http://www.nycvisit.com/content/index.cfm?pagePkey=983) Your post had me perplexed. I work in Two World Financial Center, on the 15th floor, so I’m pretty familiar with this building. I’ve also often been to Once World Financial Center, which likewise has no 13th floor. I noted first that the building addressed was not a numbered WFC address, but rather a street address. I’m not familiar with that building (despite passing it often), so I went to a downtown map. You might have to squint, but you can see the 4 WFC buildings. I know two of them don’t have 13th floors. **One North End Avenue** is right at the north edge of the WFC Plaza. I should have been clearer. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2004, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/13th-floor/267426/38 "2004-10-05T16:28:13Z")
It’s actually pretty common. I’ve also been on airplanes that did not have a row 13. ---
**Author:** ![Cliffy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/59ef9b/32.png) [@Cliffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cliffy)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2004, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/13th-floor/267426/39 "2004-10-05T17:14:17Z")
> [@aaslatten](#): > > Just because you don’t call it the 13th floor doesn’t mean it isn’t the 13th floor. This was a plot point in the old Max Headroom TV show with Matt Frewer – the characters thought they worked in a building with no 13th floor, but actually the 13th floor was a secret lab. You’d think people would notice that there were twice as many stairs to go up one story from floor 12 as from floor 11 or 25, but I guess people in the future ain’t that smart. –Cliffy [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/13th-floor/267426.md?page=1)