Death on the Dance Floor
Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford
Pushkin Industries
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 25 March 2022
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
With its splendid modern architecture, the Hyatt Regency was the place to be seen in Kansas City in 1981. Beneath space-age walkways, guests drank, laughed and danced... not realizing that the 60 tons of of glass, concrete and steel hanging above their heads was about to come crashing down.
One hundred and fourteen people died. But why? Was it cheap materials? Shoddy construction? Or a tiny error that seemed so insignificant that no one paid it any attention?
For a full list of sources go to timharford.com
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Pushkin |
| 0:20.0 | Friday night at the Hyatt Regency, one of Kansas City's most popular dates since the hotel |
| 0:25.7 | opened just a year earlier. |
| 0:28.5 | There are cues of the lobby bar, the place is buzzing. |
| 0:32.2 | It's the summer of 1981, but the orchestra is belting out the big band sounds of the |
| 0:37.7 | forties and fifties. |
| 0:40.3 | Dance contestants with numbers pinned to their backs are doing the manbo and the East Coast |
| 0:45.0 | swing. |
| 0:46.8 | But while the music is nostalgic, the hotel lobby is distinctly space-age. |
| 0:53.2 | This big and airy, with a glass wall letting in the light, and three walkways, sky walks, |
| 1:00.1 | crossing the space on the second, third and fourth floors. |
| 1:04.3 | They're suspended from the ceiling, so that the lobby itself is unobstructed by columns, |
| 1:10.5 | all the more room for dancing. |
| 1:13.7 | Cindy Paulson briefly looks down from the terrace restaurant to see if she can see her father |
| 1:18.8 | out on the dance floor. |
| 1:20.9 | The restaurant on a large mezzanine overlooking the lobby provides the perfect view. |
| 1:26.5 | But the lobby floor is packed and she can't pick him out of the crowd. |
| 1:31.1 | After a moment she goes back to work. |
| 1:33.4 | Cindy's a college student. |
| 1:35.7 | Her family live in town. |
| 1:37.7 | Being a hostess at the Hyatt is her summer job. |
| 1:42.1 | It's five past seven in the evening. |
... |
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