No, initial concepts usually look BETTER than what actually gets built. It's will be even CHEESIER in real life.

And I've already addressed the Eiffel Tower thing more than once.

We need a monument to our future and not our to past.

And this is not our city council. It's a crackpot homeschooled lawmaker hairbrained idea.

Imagine doing some base jumping or bungy jumping from it. How cool would that be? I agree JWil, lets see what they come up with before rendering a judgement.

What does that mean? My kids are home schooled.

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Oklahoma City - The surprise your family has been looking for.

WTF? A monument to our future? Are you Walt Disney trying to build Epcot? What the hell do you suggest for a "monument to the future" anyway?

I get tired of Oklahomans shunning some great parts of our history (oil, western heritage) because they're embarrassed of it. WHY? I swear, Oklahomans have the biggest inferiority complex in the world when it comes to this stuff. PEOPLE THINK THIS ABOUT OKLAHOMA ANYWAY... why not embrace it?

Thanks for that.

Welcome.

I just get tired of people trying to minimize history. Oil was a big part of our state's past and I'm sure there's a cool and stylish way to get this done.

In any event, I'd just love to have an insanely-tall observation tower in OKC. That'd rock.

I'm with you JWil. I love the idea of a tall observation tower fashioned from the likes of an oil derrick. And I have no doubt that if it gets done, and most likely will not, it would not be the god awful montrosity many who post here claim it would be. It cracks me up that so many who live here wish we could be like Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Austin and all the others cities that are so 'progressive'. All I can say is: MOVE THERE. Good luck finding a home that you can afford in any of those cities except for maybe Austin. Oklahoma City is in Oklahoma and will always be. Our heritage is oil, horses, cowpokes and injuns. Things are 'progressing' here, but maybe not at the rate some would like. I meet people almost everyday in my furniture store who have recently moved here. The majority of them are from California, the east coast, and from up north. I always make a point to ask them how they are liking their new life in Oklahoma. The eight years I have been in business I can only recall one person who totally hated it here. He was a young man in the Air Force and had just arrived here in the middle of August during a 100+ degree spell and was from Colorado. Anyhoo, transplants tell me how great our housing market is, how almost everything is less expensive here, how easy it is to get around town, how much better our schools are, and most of all, how unbelievably friendly us dang Okies are! Go figure. Yeah, we got some real bonehead elected officials like that Kern person and others, but I've seen some real wackos from the other side of the spectrum who run these 'progressive' places, so it pretty much evens out when you play give and take. And with that my friends, I'm taking Oklahoma

Bring on Big Gush!

Why are we even talking about this? Thankfully, it will never get built outside of Frontier City and Kansas will always have a one-up on us with their "Worlds largest Prairie Dog."

Average American:

"Oh, you're from Oklahoma? Don't they have a huge oil thingy there?"

And that's different from reality how?

I've literally heard this thrice before...

"Oh, you're from Oklahoma? Do you guys really live in teepees and ride on horses to get around?"

My point: No matter what we do, Oklahoma will ALWAYS be associated with oil, farming and cowboys and indians/western heritage.

Even if the giant derrick never happens Oklahoma would be thought of as above.

So lets blow the stereotype up to cliche proportions...

I guess I don't know what I want. I hate the constant cowboy and Indian stuff. I don't want to ignore it but I also don't want to make it front and center every single time. Having said that, I came up with the oil tower idea along with Patrick and Mr. Anderson. Personally, I just want a tall observation tower and I don't really care what it looks like. I think an observation platform spanning the river would be cool.

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Oklahoma City - The surprise your family has been looking for.

Oh, I love remembering how we were used to graze cattle, I love that part of history, don't forget being a cow super highway. Then we give it to indians, then we take it back. haha, does that make us indian givers? You're right, I do love this part of our heritage. [insert more sarcasm]

I don't know if it has anything to do with anything, but a GIANT, and I mean GIANT (it took one semi to bring one section) construction crane is currently being assembled on Main street between Walker, and Hudson.

Maybe it is a prototype to spark interest.

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Oklahoma City - The surprise your family has been looking for.

Work on the Devon Tower? Or fixing Myriad Gardens...

I don't think they will be reaching over the buildings on the south side of main to get to the Myriad Gardens.

Here is a picture of the crane as of 9pm Friday night.

Yeah I was wondering about that crane myself...

This is NOT our city leaders. It's the idea of a junior legislator that's not even from OKC. You heard anything about this from our city leaders? No, because it's almost as silly as that "world's largest domed stadium" thing.

Maybe that crane is there to lift/replace an air conditioning unit, such as the ones on the roof of that building nearby.

Do you know that, or are you just being a sarcastic a** as usual?

I agree Bornhere. The first think that came to mind when I saw the picture was that it was to replace an air conditioner (no sarcasm). Those roof top unit weight several tons.

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Oklahoma City - The surprise your family has been looking for.

It probably is, but it just seems that size of crane is a little excessive for an A/C unit, but I have discovered it must be something of that nature, it has now been here 2 saturdays in a row.

It probably is, but it just seems that size of crane is a little excessive for an A/C unit, but I have discovered it must be something of that nature, it has now been here 2 saturdays in a row.

The building on the far right is the old Harbour Longmire building, which is nine or ten stories. I don't know if it has air conditioning units on its roof, but if it does, I think you'd need a crane about that height to replace them.

I know it's bad forum etiquette, but I didn't read every post in the last 8 pages before posting my thoughts....sorry.

Regarding the Energy Tower, I say a big, fat, emphatic NO. To an iconic structure that would bring tourism, I say a big, fat, emphatic YES.

Explanation: I have long thought that building an iconic structure would be a great way to put Oklahoma on the map, but an oil derrick? Are you kidding me? ANYTHING that looks like "a big version of something real" REEKS of bad design. Have you ever heard of the longaberger basket building? You should look it up, because that's what this reminds me of.

People will LAUGH at Oklahoma for building a ginormous version of an oil derrick that spurts water. To be quite blunt, I think it is a bad design idea, and would look stupid.

I would, however support building an iconic structure that doesn't resemble some "thing."

I think Oklahoma has a great history; but why does it seem that every time we decide to do ANYTHING, we always seem to bring up this morbid fascination we have with our land-run/oil/homesteader history? It's a great history, but it doesn't have to permeate itself into every aspect of our design of things. You can embrace a past without constantly paying homage to it in every project you do.

While I can't speak for the person you quoted, I agree to a monument to the future and not to the past. By that, I mean, (and I've said this time and time again to people I know and work with; so much so it has practically become my mantra), Oklahoma needs to stop being the "(Insert cool thing of some other place here) of the prairie," or "______ of the plains." We need to stop copying other stuff (i.e. let's build an Eiffel-tower-esque thing but make it Oklahoman) and creating "copycats of the Plains." Instead, we should be focusing on breaking out and establishing Oklahoma as its OWN city that can even be ...<gasp!> modern.

Suggestions? A tower-pedestrian footbridge-combo over the Oklahoma river designed by Santiago Calatrava (google him). He is extremely well-known, and would design something ORIGINAL (not a copy for us to claim), something NOT CHEESY (unlike this oil thing), and something ICONIC (his works already attract tons of tourism and architectural acclaim).