As Good As Being There

West Edmonton Mall - Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

West Edmonton Mall first opened its doors to the public on September 15, 1981 and is located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. West Edmonton Mall is North America's largest shopping mall and one of Western Canada's major tourist attractions.

West Edmonton Mall is the most popular tourist attraction in the province of Alberta. Located in a suburban part of the city, West Edmonton Mall has a gross area of 500,000 m² (5.3 million ft²) and it cost CDN $1.2 billion to build. More than 800 stores and services are located on the two main floors, including 110 eating establishments.

Galaxyland (home to the world's tallest interior roller coaster) is an amusement park located near the centre of the mall; World Waterpark and WEM's Adventure Golf are located in the west end; and Ice Palace is directly in the centre. The mall has more than 23,500 employees. There are large parking areas which together have more than 20,000 parking spaces, making it the world's largest parking lot. The mall is often called "the eighth wonder of the world" by international travel writers and receives 22 million visits per year.

Did you know: Permission from the City of Edmonton was recently granted for an expansion. This will include additional retail space, a facility for sports, trade shows and conventions, a 12-story office building, and a 600 unit apartment building, along with more parking.

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CN Tower - Toronto, Ontario, Canada

At 553.33 metres (1,815.39 feet), the Canadian National Tower is the tallest tower and freestanding structure in the world. It is located in the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada and is considered the signature icon of the city. The CN Tower attracts over 2 million visitors yearly. Until 2003 it was the world's tallest, when Moscow's tower got reconstructed after a fire, getting a longer antenna.

Built in 1976 by Canadian National Railway (CN) to demonstrate the strength of Canadian industry, the tower was originally designed as a radio and television transmitting antenna. However, CN soon found it was far more lucrative as a tourist attraction than a transmission tower. With over a million tourists climbing the tower each year it has yet to have an unprofitable year. The construction costs were repaid in fifteen years.

At 342 m is the Glass Floor and Outdoor Observation Deck, at 346 m are Horizons Cafe and the Indoor Observation Deck, and at 351 m is the 360 Restaurant, which rotates once every 72 minutes. The restaurant has a minimum purchase requirement and a vast menu. These three decks are collectively the Sky Pod.

In 1995, the CN Tower was declared one of the modern Seven Wonders of the World by the American Society of Civil Engineers. It also belongs to the World Federation of Great Towers. The following year, the Guinness Book of World Records officially changed the CN Tower's classification to "World's Tallest Building and Free-Standing Structure".

Did you know: On July 23, 1999 Ashrita Furman became the fastest person to go up the CN Tower using a Pogo stick.

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Watergate Hotel - Washington, DC

The Watergate Hotel is a luxury hotel in Washington, DC best known for being the site of the robbery that led to the Watergate scandal and the resignation of President Richard Nixon. It is located at 2650 Virginia Avenue Northwest in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood overlooking the Potomac River, adjacent to the Kennedy Center and the embassy of Saudi Arabia.

The Watergate was developed by the Italian firm Societa Generale Immobiliare, which purchased the plot of land on the defunct Chesapeake and Ohio Canal in the early 1960s. The last lock, which diverted water from the Potomac River into the Tidal Basin at flood tide, was known as the "water gate."  The hotel features 250 guest rooms and 144 suites. It is part of a mixed use complex opened in 1967. 

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Union Station - Washington, DC

Station is the grand ceremonial train station designed to be the entrance to Washington, DC when it opened in 1907.

It is one of the busiest and best-known places in of Washington DC, visited by 20 million people each year. The terminal is served by Amtrak, commuter railroads, and the Washington Metro transit system.

The station reopened in its present form in 1988 with shops and an AMC movie theater occupying the original building, with a large food court on the lower level, and a new Amtrak terminal at the back. In 1994, the passenger concourse was renamed to honor retired Amtrak president W. Gram Clayton Jr. of Roanoke, Virginia, who served for 11 years, from 1982 until 1993.

Today Union Station is again one of Washington's busiest and best-known places, visited by 20 million people each year. The terminal is located at the southern end of the Northeast Corridor, an electrified rail line extending north through major cities to Boston, Massachusetts.

Amtrak owns and maintains the building and its main headquarters are located here.

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Empire State Building - New York, NY

The Empire State Building, a 102-story building in New York City built in 1930. The tower takes its name from the nickname of New York State.  The Empire State Building is the tallest building in New York, and was the tallest building in the world for many years. It is currently the 2nd tallest building in the United States (see the 50 Tallest buildings in the U.S. list).

The building rises to 1,250 feet or 381 m at the 102nd floor. A broadcasting tower added in the 1950's brings the total height to 1,455 feet or 443.5 m. 

A public observatory at the top of the building offers impressive views of the city, and is a popular tourist destination. Floodlights illuminate the top of the building at night, in colors chosen to match seasonal and other events; they were red, white, and blue for several months after the destruction of the World Trade Center, then reverted to marking holidays.

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World Trade Center (ground Zero) - New York, NY

The twin towers and 7 World Trade Center collapsed in a terrorist attack on 9/11/2001, when two commercial jetliners were deliberately crashed into the twin towers. For details on this terrorist attack, see September 11, 2001 attacks; for details of the towers' collapse, see Collapse of the World Trade Center. For details of the tenants at the time of the attack, see One World Trade Center tenants and Two World Trade Center tenants. As of February 2005, a total of 2,749 death certificates related to the WTC attacks had been filed. All but 13 persons died on September 11; of the 13 persons who were injured on September 11 and died subsequently, three persons died in other states, one each in Massachusetts, Missouri, and New Jersey. Of these 2,749 decedents, 2,117 (77%) were males and 632 (23%) were females. Remains of 1,588 of the 2,749 people who died at the World Trade Center, or 58%, were identified on the basis of recovered physical remains. The median age for these decedents was 39 years (range: 2--85 years); the median age was 38 years for females (range: 2--81 years) and 39 years for males (range: 3--85 years). Three persons were aged <5 years, and three were aged >80 years.

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