Probably Place Ville Marie, the tall cruciform office tower that serves as the hub of the underground city.
Tactically difficult to hit as it would be, since it’s surrounded by taller buildings…
The OKC bombing memorial.
I can’t think of anything that would create more pissed-off Oklahomans, except (God forbid) any act involving a building with children in it.
Now that was a horrible thought.
Corr
Here in Baltimore, I imagine that it would be…The World Trade Tower. Big tall building right on the shore of the Inner Harbor.
Here in Los Angeles, just about any of our tall buildings would cause mass destruction and scar the skyline if targeted. In fact, most of them were evacuated yesterday; my father works in one of the few that weren’t, and his building had incredibly heightened security. However, there are also things like studios and theme parks (also closed yesterday) all over.
I can’t imagine my LA skyline taking such a horrible hit, and I can’t even begin to imagine what New Yorkers must be going through right now. The thought of one or more of our buildings, and their inhabitants, ending up in the street is incomprehensible.
In St. Louis, for psychological/moral reasons, the Arch or the Old Courthouse. (Here’s another pic, showing the Old Courthouse in relation to the Arch. It’s one of the oldest buildings in downtown.)
And while I forget the name of the building, there’s a federal building here, 2nd largest in the country last I heard.
America’s Center would result in tragic numbers of casualites.
Here in my small city, which is almost entirely industrial, the major target would be the chemical plant. Almost everyone in the city and the surrounding areas works there. And if you use proper weapons, you could take out most of the city and the surrounding areas with it.
Also likely targets would be the glass factory and the defense plant. AFG is another major employer and the defense plant appears to be one of those mysterious military-type installations, with all of the barbed-wire fences and gates surrounding it.
jessica
greenville, sc
Well I know that the school I go to is the biggest in the state, but they might miss and hit the cows across the street. Other than that I don’t really know.
Columbia, MO - Jesse Hall/The Columns at the University of Missouri. Jesse’s dome isn’t the highest point in the city, but it’d be something akin to the scene in Independence Day where the whole thing just goes. The Columns are all that remain of our original Academic Building, and just in front of Jesse, so it’d be devastating, at least from a standpoint of morale. If the terrorists went for casualties, however, they could take their pick of any of the clusters of dorms. shudder
There really isn’t a building in Atlanta that symbolizes the business life of the city in the way the WTC did in NYC. When I moved there fifteen years ago, there was a lot of pride in the fact that the Westin Peachtree Plaza Hotel was the tallest hotel in the world (I’m pretty sure it’s since been overtopped). The rest of the skyline is almost all new since then and hasn’t had time to acquire the symbolic value that terrorists seem to look for. Other landmark buildings would include the 191 Peachtree Tower with its twin campaniles on the top, the Georgia-Pacific Building, the Coca-Cola headquarters, and 1 Atlantic Place (aka the IBM Tower). Probably even more important commercially would be the Peachtree Center complex, with something like ten buildings and wide range of important businesses with offices there. Peachtree Center, and several of the other buildings mentioned, would be very difficult to hit with an aircraft attack, since they’re surrounded with other buildings. The Westin, the Coca-Cola Building, or one of the stadiums or the Georgia World Congress Center would be the easiest to hit.
Hmm. A number of candidates. I don’t think we really have a signature piece of architecture in the way New York had the WTC, or Chicago has the Sears Tower.
The US Bancorp Tower? Tallest one in Oregon. IIRC, it’s abou 42 stories or so.
The Wells Fargo Tower? Almost as tall as the Bancorp Tower.
Losing the KOIN tower would be a nasty knock. Not only is the CBS affiliate located there, but it is one of the most architecturally distinctive buildings downtown.
Pioneer Courthouse Square. ::shudder::
The Rose Garden Arena, where the Portland Trail Blazers play.
OMSI.
Also, it should be considered that the blocks in Portland are smaller than the city blocks in New York or Chicago. A direct hit by a fully fueled airliner on any of the skyscrapers in Portland would likely cause massive devastation for blocks around, and take out multiple skyscrapers.
Actyally, I think that the #1 target in L.A. would be one of the huge freeway interchanges. If you’ll recall the shooting spree several years pack where IIRC seven people were shot in their cars, it affected all the residents of the area. I specifically remember one commentator remarking that “the freeways are to LA what the World Trade Center is to New York.” 
I also think that if UCLA were attacked, it would be a major blow.
Um, I think Schadenfreude mentioned a few, but there are some others that should not be overlooked;
As Schadenfreude said, the Columbia Tower might be a likely target, and the buildings in that area are much closer together than the WTC’s were. Flying a jumbo jet into Columbia could also spell disaster the Key Tower, the Bank of America 5th Ave. Plaza, and I-5, all located under 100 meteres away.
Boeing- although I admit that it is a much larger target all together, than the WTC, it is a major center for commerce around here. Taking it out with a single jet liner would be a impossible task but demolishing just one of their large hangers might put a serious dent in their manufacturing capabilities. It was definitely on the former U.S.S.R.'s ICBM target list.
Microsoft - Another industry head here in the PNW.
The bridges around here are essentially the only way into the city. If I-90, 520, and the 1-5 bridge were all incapacitated, it would effectively bring all major traffic into/out of the city to a standstill.
Starbuck’s Headquarters- just to extrapolate on CrankyAsAnOldMan’s sentiment…
Okay, I live in a little town with no tall buildings, targets, and as far as I know, there’s no reason in the world to attack anything here. But for the Bay Area as a whole, I think that the the destruction of either the Golden Gate Bridge or the Transamerica Pyramid would be worst psychological disaster. Especially the bridge. The pyramid is the defining building in San Francisco’s skyline, but it was only built in the '70s. The bridge was completed in 1937 - very few people can remember what the Bay Area was like without it. Its destruction would be an absolute complete disruption to the daily lives of millions of people, but more to the point, it is absolutely the symbol of the Bay Area, and maybe even the west coast of the US. I go across the bridge every time I go to SF, and always anticipate my first glimpse of it, when I go through the Rainbow Tunnel by Sausalito. It’s always beautiful, no matter what time of day, whether it’s sunny and clear or shrouded in fog. When the Bay Bridge was partially destroyed in the '89 quake, that was terrible, but an injury to the Golden Gate would be absolutely devastating to the collective psyche of the 6 million people in the Bay Area.
There’s only really a few targets in Whitehorse.
There’s a hydro dam upstream from a goodly section of downtown, which was cleverly built on a floodplain carved out of clay cliffs. If the dam went, the initial wave would take out downtown and the backwash would potentially take out the suburb directly across from downtown. The hospital is up on a hill high enough to save it, but the bridge across the river would be gone, so access would be tough. Can’t imagine why anyone would do this, though.
The airport might be a strategic target, there were Harriers and other aircraft staged through here during the Gulf War.
The other possibility is the phone exchange/CBC North buildings. They are separate, but built up against one another. That would take out a goodly chunk of communications for northern Canada.
And in Yellowknife, the building where the telco puts its switches for the eastern Arctic and its network operations center would take out the other chunk.
I know I’m not on the North American continent, and it seems everyone else who’s posted is, but …
In Auckland, we have the new Skytower. Tallest thing for miles. But it’s just part of a casino, so the loss would mean little in itself. However, the people …
If there was one building, even if completely empty of people, if it was catastrophcally destroyed, yet would still gouge out the hearts of Aucklanders by its loss – I’d say that would be our War Memorial Museum. It is set in the heart of the city’s Domain, an extinct volcanic crater, yet up on a hill within the crater overlooking the harbour and Rangitoto Island. Every year, on April 25th (Anzac Day), Aucklanders attend the dawn service to honour the memory of the fallen there.
Yes. The loss of that eighty-year old or so romano-style building would set laid-back “who cares?” Auckland into rage.
Everything in Santa Cruz that was worth destroying was leveled in the '89 earthquake. I guess you could destroy downtown again, but we’ve seen it all before. Our university is far to large and spread out to be affected by anything short of carpet bombing or invasion, and anyone going to those measures has surely got something better to do than invade a college full of hippies in the woods.
I guess you could destroy the beach boardwalk, but half the town hates it anyway. Plus, most of the dead would be out of towners, so it wouldn’t really affect the city as much.
Our beaches are pretty near and dear to our hearts, but it is pretty hard to anhilliate a beach. The harbor would make for some good damage, but it isn’t too important to us.
I honestly can’t think of anything worth attacking. The Metro center? Natural Bridges (there is only one bridge left to detroy, but we would miss the butterflys)? The surfing museum?
My best guess would be the farmers’ market. Lots of people, lots of phycological impact. Lots of fresh fruit. Still, pretty lame a place to attack.
Wow, I feel safe (well, I would feel safe if I was in Santa Cruz instead of waiting for my plane back to be able to fly)
God!! What a scary question. But if you really want to piss us off you go after the Arizona or Missouri. Would piss off not just us but the entire nation. But also any of our huge shorefront hotels. But this is the last place I would expect people to attack since most of the potential attackers don’t even know where we are and we are very inaccessible. But still scary.
You know, this was the first thing that I thought of, too. I’d been thinking about that since Oklahoma City.
Seems to me the only thing people in Jacksonville are really passionate about would be the Jaguars (or Jag-Wires, as the locals say), so taking out the stadium would strike at many a heart. However, the two Navy bases would be more logical targets. I work on one of those bases. Keep a happy thought…