Any city ’s chronicle of development is replete with interesting near girl . Here are eight challenging projects that each could have remold a U.S. city , but were alternatively leave on the drawing board .
1. GRAND CENTRAL TOWER // NEW YORK CITY
The biggest wagon train post in the world ( by number of platforms ) , Grand Central Terminal was almost cap by what would been the world ’s magniloquent construction . In 1902 , William J. Wilgus , chief applied scientist of New York Central Railroad , envisionedthe place with a skyscraper on top . Its hotel and apartments would generate revenue to bear off the last $ 114 million price tag of the project . ( That ’s $ 2.7 billion in twenty-first - hundred dollars . ) One of the computer architecture firms to vie for the project designed a 60 - history building , which would have been the world ’s grandiloquent at the sentence . But the plan take by the railroad track company , a combination of two other firms ’ approximation , scrapped the column and “ only ” went 45 feet beneath the surface to can 3.2 million cubic one thousand of earth to make the human race - famous transportation hub .
2. THE CROSSROADS OF AMERICA PLAN // INDIANAPOLIS
“ need a Preview of Indianapolis of 1978?”blared the newspaper headline of a September , 1953 edition of theIndianapolis Star . It articulate nothing about urban decay , disco music or the drama surrounding former ( and future ) Pacers player Billy Knight . alternatively , the story broke news of the city ’s aforethought shakeup , one of several mid - century urban restructurings commissioned to still the influx of automobiles into downtowns . Indianapolis ’ Crossroads of America program , which the Metropolitan Planning Department finalise in 1958 , would have broken the metropolis into four quadrants , one for entertainment , one for business and hotel , one a finance sector , and the last for aesculapian service . Each would have a gigantic parking garage and a subway stop to connect them to downtown . Most impressively , the programme called for helicopter ferry service leaving every 15 minutes from Union Street to the cultural district of Broad Ripple . Some of its more outre aspect were a fashion dominion with open - breeze runways and a prim settlement intend to replicate the city ’s past . As decades hap , the metropolis go to get started on the architectural plan .
3. POINT PARK CIVIC CENTER // PITTSBURGH
Decades of manufacture turned the patch of country at which Pittsburgh ’s three rivers see intoa mass of docks and railyards , and , in the 1940s , the metropolis look to reformulate that region . The most insane proposal the city receive was from Frank Lloyd Wright . The far-famed architect’sPoint Park Civic Centercalled for a monolithic circular structure containing a sports scene of action , an opera house , movie theaters , and a planetarium . It also would havean aquariumwith huge spherical tanks . Two cable system - stay on suspension bridges hold up by a colossal towboat would have connect the nerve center to other area of the metropolis across the rivers . Although Wright submitted a few scaled - back , more low-cost versions to Pittsburgh , the city decide on a more schematic park for that blank .
4. THE ILLINOIS // CHICAGO
The Point Park Civic Center was , surprisingly , not Frank Lloyd Wright ’s most bonkers unrealized project . That distinction give out to the skyscraper proposal he introduce to Chicago ’s business elite group in 1956 . It would have been one Swedish mile high , 548 story , and calledThe Illinois . The structure was designed to put up 100,000 people ( about 2.7 pct of Chicago ’s population in 1950 ) , and the plans called for nuclear - power elevators that could reach the top at freeway pep pill . It would have been the largest edifice in the cosmos ( and still the tall ) . Skyscrapershalfits size would n’t be realizeduntil decades later . The shut the Illinois come to realization was an eight - foot model let in in a Museum of Modern Art retrospective on Wright .
5. EXPANDED BART PLAN // SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA
In 1951 , California lawmaker launched a work of the transport needs of the growing San Francisco Bay Area . The result was BART , the Bay Area Rapid Transit stage set of railing line . The original 1956 plan , dredged up by cartographer Jake Coolidge forhis original ’s thesisat San José State University in 2011 , was much vaster than the four - tentacle scheme that was implemented . It would have refer nine county ( stand for day trips from the metropolis to wine country ) , and the interlocking of various blood would have permit for much quicker travel across distance . As the local tidings startup SFBay.capointed out , “ George Lucas could take the M gear from Lucas Valley post , transfer to the P at 4th and King , and arrive at Facebook in Menlo Park in plenty of clip for an early lunch . ”
6. THE HELIOCOIDAL SKYSCRAPER // NEW YORK CITY
ManfrediNicoletti and Sergio Musmeci // University of Naples
It ’d take an eye - pop building to stand up out in Downtown Manhattan , even if it was a skyscraper . The Helicoidal Skyscraper [ PDF ] would have . Conceived by architect Manfredi Nicoletti and engineer Sergio Musmeci in the late ’ 60s , the column would have spiraled up 1854 foot , resemble a big , hoary DNA helix shoot up from the tip of Manhattan . Inspired by ride out - bridge engineering and the muscularity of mammalian , the design call for three inter - connected hollow cylinders at the core of the construction , which would have helped it last out steady against winds and other natural component . The edifice never affect past the design stage .
7. THE CAUSEWAY // SANTA MONICA TO MALIBU
Image via the City of Santa Monica , viaThe Malibu Times
Can you reckon driving from Santa Monica to Malibu in half an 60 minutes ? John Drescher could . In the 1960s , the millionaire developer / engineer proposedan offshore causewayacross Santa Monica Bay , built on artificial islands . The roadway would havebypassedLos Angeles ’s famously foul traffic , and the 30,000 - foot - long chain of world - made isles could have put up 29,000 multitude . City planners in Santa Monica wereinto the ideaand bear for a feasibility subject . Shoreline residents , led byGunsmokestar James Arness , were adamantly against it , fearing the destruction of the bay ’s rude home ground , and California Governor Pat Brown vetoed the causeway .
8. THE LEANING TOWER OF PIZZA // ANN ARBOR
It ’s not the most ambitious item on this list , but if it had been build , everyone who passes through Ann Arbor would take a selfie in front of it . In 1987 , Tom Monaghan , founder and then owner of Domino ’s Pizza , contractedan architectural firm to work up a tilted , 30 - floor office building on its collective campus a few mi outside the Michigan metropolis . Its name ? The Leaning Tower of Pizza , of course of study . Monaghan , a fan of Frank Lloyd Wright , hoped to model it after his Golden Beacon , another of his unrealised plans for a Chicago tower . The undertaking never came to realisation but a 50 - foot model of its stands outside Ann Arbor .
