I’ve always noticed that many buildings don’t have a 13th floor, presumably because of the eeevil reputation of that number, but where and when did that tradition start, and is it still practiced today? Were there any consequences of adding a floor between 12 and 14 in the olden days?
Hotels probably got a ton of complaints from superstitious guests who refused to occupy the 13th floor, so they stopped doing it. Same with hospitals, which would likely scare the crap out of a superstitious person with a horrible injury or illness.
Me, 13 is my lucky number, so I’m kind of bummed that I never get to stay in a hotel with that floor. I’m very glad though…the building I’m in now is only 2 floors, but it’s building 2113, and I’m in room 13xx.
Jman
It’s nothing more than lame supestition.
High rises in Singapore often don’t have a 4th floor for the same reason. Four is unlucky in Chinese culture because the word for “four” sounds like the word for “death” in (IIRC) Mandarin.
Eight is a “good number” because “eight” and “prosperity” sound alike. You’d see some funny address schemes in Malaysia sometimes: 80, 82, 84, 88A, 88B, 88C, etc.
Haj
There’s been at least one earlier discussion of this. We didn’t exactly settle the matter, but there was at least some light shed on the subject.
I was born on the thirteenth hour of the thirteenth day of the thirteenth month… Brrrrr! Lousy Smarch weather!* Well at least it was the 13th day of a spring month so I consider it a lucky number.
A curiosity in my company’s new building is an elevator button to nowhere. The floors are segregated with public access floors 6-13 rented out to other tenants. those floors have their own elevators that go to those floors and the lobby. We have exclusive use of 14-20 plus our parking on 2-5. Our elevators don’t have stops on 6-13 (the shafts don’t even have doors on those levels) but for some reason they included a 13th floor button in each car. Someone needs to write a twilight zone episode around that.
*Apologies to The Simpsons
Well, if you got the scratch, and want to visit Seattle the Westin Hotel in downtown Seattle has a 13th floor. Two of them actually, one in each tower.
Due to the law of conservation of floor numbers, there is no 6th, 7th. 8th, or 9th floors.
Don’t ask me why, I was just a guest there.
Those people on the 14th floor. They know what floor they’re really on…
Did the World Trade Center towers have 13th floors?
I can’t fully confirm that the thirteenth floor was actually numbered 13, but with a Google search I did locate an article that makes references to a thirteenth floor in the WTC.