November 25, 2025 • 9 mins
Sometimes you have to build up to a curious situation. And sometimes, the curiosity arrives when it all comes tumbling down.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
(00:36):
When it opened, it was enormous. The Higatt Regency Hotel
opened in downtown Kansas City in July of nineteen eighty.
It's forty five stories tall and has seven hundred and
fifty rooms. One year in the history of the hotel,
on July seventeenth of nineteen eighty one, fifteen hundred patrons
attended a monthly dance party at the hotel. They filled
(00:58):
the large lobby, including these suspended walkways that stretched across
the atrium from the second, third, and fourth floors. Suddenly,
everyone on the walkways heard a loud snap from above,
and then they were falling. Time slowed, and all sound
seemed to disappear as the fourth floor walkway, with hundreds
(01:19):
of people on it, came loose from its steel suspension
rods and crashed onto the second floor walkway below it.
That walkway immediately fell as well, with both of them
plumbing to the lobby below. Dozens of people were instantly
killed by the collapse of the walkways. Most were completely crushed,
but some were cut in half or had limbs severed.
(01:41):
Loose electric wires swung across the lobby, and a broken
water line from the fourth floor sprayed water down onto
the catastrophe below. For those people trapped beneath the rubble,
there was now a risk of drowning as water began
to pool beneath them. Someone called nine to one one
and soon emergency workers arrived outside, but they didn't have
(02:01):
easy access to the lobby. The whole front of the
building was blocked by the collapse. They had to call
in heavy construction equipment and begin cutting away the debris.
It was like a horror movie, as behind each removed
piece of debris was the shocking sight of dozens of
horribly mangled bodies. Once emergency workers could get inside, they
(02:23):
had to quickly usher out everyone who could walk, and
then they started triage. In the end, one hundred and
fourteen people died. The walkways had collapsed due to a
fatal engineering flaw. As I mentioned, these were suspension walkways,
meaning that they were hanging from the ceiling by steel rods.
A last minute changed, though, had made this design extremely unsafe. Originally,
(02:47):
each walkway was supposed to carry its own weight on
a set of their own metal fasteners to those steel rods,
but the builders thought that it would be too difficult
to build metal rods that would be long enough to
reach all of them, so instead of each walkway supporting
its own weight, only the top one ended up being
supported by the rods connected to the ceiling. The bottom one, though, well,
(03:08):
that was supported by the walkway above it, which put
a lot more weight on those fasteners than intended. All
it took was one hundred patrons to send it crashing down,
and just as terrifying, the standards were so lax at
the engineering firm. That's as different people moved on and
off the project, there was no clear paperwork trail of
design changes or review of those changes. The engineers, the builders,
(03:32):
the owners, and the city inspectors all had an opportunity
to catch this flaw, but none of them did. The
engineering firm was found most liable. They lost their license
and were sued for one hundred million dollars by various parties.
The disaster also led to improve safety standards across the
country and is now standard freshman course material for any
(03:54):
engineering student. It shows how engineers are just as responsible
for public safety as any firefighter, police officer, or doctor.
So if you're a curious listener, engineering might just be
the profession for you. It's a job that requires constant curiosity,
always checking and rechecking, running the math, running it again,
(04:14):
being vigilant for any mistakes. Engineers may not be on
the front lines or thrust into emergency situations, but they
make decisions every day that are still a matter of
life and death. Washington, d C. Is often referred to
(04:42):
as the Halls of Power. That's an easy enough metaphor
to understand too. The decisions that governed the United States
all get made within the hallways of Washington and its
surrounding buildings. Like many capitals across the world, it's expected
that this is where power lives in America, which is
why it's so puzzling with official government buildings are absolutely
(05:02):
falling apart from neglect. Well, I'd like to tell you
about one building in particular that was once referenced as
the ugliest building in the world in spite of it
holding immense importance to the US federal government. That would
be the J. Edgar Hoover Building on Pennsylvania Avenue, six
and a half blocks away from the White House. It's
an imposing concrete structure with enormous square columns and walls
(05:27):
of bland inset windows. Designed by the Chicago based architecture
firm Murphy and Associates. It's the platonic ideal of brutalism,
and it served as the FBI headquarters for the last
fifty years, and for at least half of that time
the FBI has been trying desperately to get out of it.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has been a pillar of
(05:48):
American law enforcement ever since its founding in nineteen oh eight.
There's a self made mythos to its existence that they're
the elite, stalwart defenders of the American Constitution from terrors
and foreign influence, and of course that mythos is hard
to square with the really decrepit office building. It was
originally designed with a pedestrian observation deck that people could
(06:11):
use to survey the surrounding buildings. Of course, when the
building first opened in nineteen seventy five. The observation deck
was immediately closed for security concerns and has remained closed
for the last half century. For much of the nineteen seventies,
the building was a public iore. J Edgar Hoover himself,
the FBI director who gave the building its name, was
(06:32):
privately disgusted with the design, referring to the building as
a monstrosity. He would die three years before it opened. Now,
as hideous as it is to much of the general public,
the design of the Hoover Building has a very specific
aim to project strength and intimidation. Its namesake was a
famous and controversial figure for bringing a tough guy attitude
(06:54):
to the Justice Department, cracking down on civil rights figures
as much as those suspected of terrorism. The unadorned concrete
facade of the building is a relic of the days
when the FBI wanted to be seen as America's secret police,
a poignant irony since it was under construction during the
Nixon years and opened a year after the president resigned
(07:14):
in disgrace because of the Watergate scandal. Starting in the
early two thousands, the J. Edgar Hoover Building was more
than an iceore, it was also a safety hazard. Regular
inspections of the building determined that the plumbing was out
of date, the fire alarms and smoke detectors were in
dire need of replacement, and the elevators and air conditioning
units were reaching the end of their life cycle. What's more,
(07:37):
the concrete that made up the walls themselves was starting
to crumble. It got so bad that they had to
install a layer of netting outside the building to protect
pedestrians from falling chunks of concrete. For over the last
decade now, the US government has been fielding petitions to
either renovate the building or relocate the FBI headquarters altogether.
(07:59):
The Great Recession of the late two thousands forced the
FBI to put any plans on hold, as the cost
of renovating the building could climb as high as a
billion dollars at that point, not money that the government
had to spare. Throughout the early twenty tens, the US
government fielded proposals from private sector companies on developing a
new headquarters for the FBI. None of these proposals wound
(08:21):
up moving forward. A time of this recording, there has
been no effective progress on moving the FBI from the
decaying concrete shell of a building. The amount of red
tape and money required to make that move probably makes
it unlikely to happen anytime soon. So if you're ever
worried that you're being spied on by government spooks at work,
consider that maybe they're just their window shopping looking for
(08:45):
a new office. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour
of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts,
or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast
dot com. This show was created by me Aaron Mankey
in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award
(09:07):
winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series,
and television show, and you can learn all about it
over at Theworldoflore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.
Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
(00:36):
When it opened, it was enormous. The Higatt Regency Hotel
opened in downtown Kansas City in July of nineteen eighty.
It's forty five stories tall and has seven hundred and
fifty rooms. One year in the history of the hotel,
on July seventeenth of nineteen eighty one, fifteen hundred patrons
attended a monthly dance party at the hotel. They filled
(00:58):
the large lobby, including these suspended walkways that stretched across
the atrium from the second, third, and fourth floors. Suddenly,
everyone on the walkways heard a loud snap from above,
and then they were falling. Time slowed, and all sound
seemed to disappear as the fourth floor walkway, with hundreds
(01:19):
of people on it, came loose from its steel suspension
rods and crashed onto the second floor walkway below it.
That walkway immediately fell as well, with both of them
plumbing to the lobby below. Dozens of people were instantly
killed by the collapse of the walkways. Most were completely crushed,
but some were cut in half or had limbs severed.
(01:41):
Loose electric wires swung across the lobby, and a broken
water line from the fourth floor sprayed water down onto
the catastrophe below. For those people trapped beneath the rubble,
there was now a risk of drowning as water began
to pool beneath them. Someone called nine to one one
and soon emergency workers arrived outside, but they didn't have
(02:01):
easy access to the lobby. The whole front of the
building was blocked by the collapse. They had to call
in heavy construction equipment and begin cutting away the debris.
It was like a horror movie, as behind each removed
piece of debris was the shocking sight of dozens of
horribly mangled bodies. Once emergency workers could get inside, they
(02:23):
had to quickly usher out everyone who could walk, and
then they started triage. In the end, one hundred and
fourteen people died. The walkways had collapsed due to a
fatal engineering flaw. As I mentioned, these were suspension walkways,
meaning that they were hanging from the ceiling by steel rods.
A last minute changed, though, had made this design extremely unsafe. Originally,
(02:47):
each walkway was supposed to carry its own weight on
a set of their own metal fasteners to those steel rods,
but the builders thought that it would be too difficult
to build metal rods that would be long enough to
reach all of them, so instead of each walkway supporting
its own weight, only the top one ended up being
supported by the rods connected to the ceiling. The bottom one, though, well,
(03:08):
that was supported by the walkway above it, which put
a lot more weight on those fasteners than intended. All
it took was one hundred patrons to send it crashing down,
and just as terrifying, the standards were so lax at
the engineering firm. That's as different people moved on and
off the project, there was no clear paperwork trail of
design changes or review of those changes. The engineers, the builders,
(03:32):
the owners, and the city inspectors all had an opportunity
to catch this flaw, but none of them did. The
engineering firm was found most liable. They lost their license
and were sued for one hundred million dollars by various parties.
The disaster also led to improve safety standards across the
country and is now standard freshman course material for any
(03:54):
engineering student. It shows how engineers are just as responsible
for public safety as any firefighter, police officer, or doctor.
So if you're a curious listener, engineering might just be
the profession for you. It's a job that requires constant curiosity,
always checking and rechecking, running the math, running it again,
(04:14):
being vigilant for any mistakes. Engineers may not be on
the front lines or thrust into emergency situations, but they
make decisions every day that are still a matter of
life and death. Washington, d C. Is often referred to
(04:42):
as the Halls of Power. That's an easy enough metaphor
to understand too. The decisions that governed the United States
all get made within the hallways of Washington and its
surrounding buildings. Like many capitals across the world, it's expected
that this is where power lives in America, which is
why it's so puzzling with official government buildings are absolutely
(05:02):
falling apart from neglect. Well, I'd like to tell you
about one building in particular that was once referenced as
the ugliest building in the world in spite of it
holding immense importance to the US federal government. That would
be the J. Edgar Hoover Building on Pennsylvania Avenue, six
and a half blocks away from the White House. It's
an imposing concrete structure with enormous square columns and walls
(05:27):
of bland inset windows. Designed by the Chicago based architecture
firm Murphy and Associates. It's the platonic ideal of brutalism,
and it served as the FBI headquarters for the last
fifty years, and for at least half of that time
the FBI has been trying desperately to get out of it.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has been a pillar of
(05:48):
American law enforcement ever since its founding in nineteen oh eight.
There's a self made mythos to its existence that they're
the elite, stalwart defenders of the American Constitution from terrors
and foreign influence, and of course that mythos is hard
to square with the really decrepit office building. It was
originally designed with a pedestrian observation deck that people could
(06:11):
use to survey the surrounding buildings. Of course, when the
building first opened in nineteen seventy five. The observation deck
was immediately closed for security concerns and has remained closed
for the last half century. For much of the nineteen seventies,
the building was a public iore. J Edgar Hoover himself,
the FBI director who gave the building its name, was
(06:32):
privately disgusted with the design, referring to the building as
a monstrosity. He would die three years before it opened. Now,
as hideous as it is to much of the general public,
the design of the Hoover Building has a very specific
aim to project strength and intimidation. Its namesake was a
famous and controversial figure for bringing a tough guy attitude
(06:54):
to the Justice Department, cracking down on civil rights figures
as much as those suspected of terrorism. The unadorned concrete
facade of the building is a relic of the days
when the FBI wanted to be seen as America's secret police,
a poignant irony since it was under construction during the
Nixon years and opened a year after the president resigned
(07:14):
in disgrace because of the Watergate scandal. Starting in the
early two thousands, the J. Edgar Hoover Building was more
than an iceore, it was also a safety hazard. Regular
inspections of the building determined that the plumbing was out
of date, the fire alarms and smoke detectors were in
dire need of replacement, and the elevators and air conditioning
units were reaching the end of their life cycle. What's more,
(07:37):
the concrete that made up the walls themselves was starting
to crumble. It got so bad that they had to
install a layer of netting outside the building to protect
pedestrians from falling chunks of concrete. For over the last
decade now, the US government has been fielding petitions to
either renovate the building or relocate the FBI headquarters altogether.
(07:59):
The Great Recession of the late two thousands forced the
FBI to put any plans on hold, as the cost
of renovating the building could climb as high as a
billion dollars at that point, not money that the government
had to spare. Throughout the early twenty tens, the US
government fielded proposals from private sector companies on developing a
new headquarters for the FBI. None of these proposals wound
(08:21):
up moving forward. A time of this recording, there has
been no effective progress on moving the FBI from the
decaying concrete shell of a building. The amount of red
tape and money required to make that move probably makes
it unlikely to happen anytime soon. So if you're ever
worried that you're being spied on by government spooks at work,
consider that maybe they're just their window shopping looking for
(08:45):
a new office. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour
of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts,
or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast
dot com. This show was created by me Aaron Mankey
in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award
(09:07):
winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series,
and television show, and you can learn all about it
over at Theworldoflore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.
Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities News
Host
Aaron Mahnke
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