I was recently in St. Louis. It’s a big city! 2.8 million in the metro area compared with 340 thousand here in Ann Arbor. The buildings bear that out: the tallest one in Ann Arbor is Tower Plaza at 267 feet (81 m) tall, whereas in third place in St. Louis is the Thomas F. Eagleton United States Courthouse at 557 feet (170 m). I guess the courthouse puts a lot more into each floor, because for all its height advantage it only has two more than the 26-floor Tower Plaza. I don’t mention the tallest because the courthouse was the reason for my visit – I’m an expert witness in a court case involving Freenet.
I learned many things on this trip. Among them were that I should not have wandered around until I found a place for lunch because the city has violence-prone areas. Another was how much one’s life can be destroyed by the legal system before even going to trial: apparently it is common for defendants to be prohibited from leaving a county, using alcohol, or using the Internet without being convicted. Yikes.