Friday, October 25, 2013

Hiking On The Tandy Hills Thinking About Rotating On Top Of Fort Worth's Panther Island Tower

That is the Tandy Tower, also known as the Fort Worth Space Needle, soaring hundreds of feet into a clear blue sky on this final Friday of October.

The Tandy Tower sits atop Mount Tandy, due east of the Tandy Hills Natural Area.

No, there is no rotating restaurant atop the Tandy Tower. For that you'll need to drive about 30 miles east, to Dallas, and take an elevator to the top of Reunion Tower.

I have been at the base of Reunion Tower a time or two but never felt an urge to ride to the top. The only other tower of that type I have been to the top of is Seattle's Space Needle.

The elevator ride to the top of the Space Needle is fun. But, I've always thought it did not seem all that high up, at the observation deck level, with all that much better a view than other elevated locations in the Seattle zone.

The observation level of the Seattle Space Needle has an outside walkway which goes all around the Needle. I don't know if there is an outdoor observation area at the top of Reunion Tower.

I wonder, what with its tendency to copy what has been done elsewhere, why the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle has not added a tall tower to that clouded vision?

It could be called Panther Island Tower.

Tim Love could have a rotating restaurant at the top, giving diners a moving 360 degree view of the wonder that is Panther Island, along with the stunning skyline of beautiful downtown Fort Worth, and the un-needed flood diversion channel and signature bridges which cross it, along with equally stunning views of the Trinity River and the throngs of people who have inner tubing happy hours in that river during the hot days of Summer.

A tall tower could give Fort Worth that iconic type image it currently lacks, that when people see a photo of it, they know it is Fort Worth.

I am sure, now that I have suggested it, J.D. Granger will get right on this Panther Island Tower idea.....

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