Today marks the 50th anniversary of the opening of Tokyo Tower, the tallest man-made structure in Japan. Though foreigners' first impressions of the tower often involve the words "Eiffel" and "rip-off," a person residing in any part of Japan today would likely pick Tokyo Tower as Tokyo's most emblematic landmark. In celebration of this big, red jumble of TV antennae, Chorus, Isolate, Confirm presents: FUN FACTS ABOUT TOKYO TOWER!
FACT! The 333-meter tower's ribbon cutting fell on December 23, 1958 (Showa Year 33). Whether this numeric alliteration was intentional or not is unclear. It had been determined that, for a single tower to serve the TV broadcasting needs of the entire Tokyo area, that tower would have to be at least 380 meters tall. Out of concern over high winds shaking the tower, however, the height of the final design was scaled down.
FACT! A public survey was conducted to collect suggestions for the tower's name. There were a total of 86,260 respondents. Among those, Japan Tower, Peace Tower, Showa Tower, Prince Tower and Space Tower were popular suggestions. For some reason the name Tokyo Tower was selected even though only 223 respondents (0.26%) had so voted.
FACT! The tower's original nighttime lighting scheme consisted entirely of incandescent light bulbs lining the tower's four corners from top to bottom. In 1989 those bulbs were replaced with 176 floodlights surrounding the tower's base. The colors used in this lighting scheme are periodically changed in complement with the season.
FACT! A five-story building called Foot Town lies nestled between the tower's "feet." Foot Town houses an aquarium, a wax museum, a Guinness World Records museum, an optical illusion gallery and a convenience store.
FACT! It costs ¥820 to ride the elevator to the Main Observatory (at a height of 150 meters). To continue from there to the Special Observatory (250 meters), it costs an additional ¥600.
FACT! Being the emblematic structure that it is, Tokyo Tower has been destroyed in various Japanese monster movies, including Mothra (1961), Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster, (1964) Gamera (1965), Godzilla vs. Gigan (1972) and Godzilla vs. Mothra vs. Mecha-Godzilla: Tokyo SOS (2003).