The AFU and Urban Legend Archive
AFU
AFU, Inc.
 one afu plaza caq




From: dennyzen@delphi.com
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Questions and Answers about One AFU Plaza
Date: Fri, 30 Sep 94 11:07:28 -0500

                         AFU Properties Inc
                A Wholly-Owned Subsidiary of AFU Inc
                 One AFU Plaza, 13th Floor, Upper
                      New York, NY 10000-00001

September 30, 1994

Dear Prospective Tennant:

Thank you ever so much for your inquiry as to the current availability of leasable space at One AFU Plaza, the World's Tallest Top-Down-Built Skyscraper. Before we get into the subject of lease rates, terms and conditions, etc, I'd like to answer some of the more commonly-asked questions (CAQ) about our famous structure.

Q: WHO WERE THE ARCHITECTS?

The architects of One AFU Plaza are Floyd Lloyd Wright and Isadore Wong of the firm of Wright and Wong, AIA, of London, Ontario and Paris, Texas.

Floyd is the one with the beard and Isadore is the Asian fellow, for those of who who have trouble telling Wright from Wong.

Although Izzy Wong is a very competent architect, Floyd Wright (a distant relation to Frank Lloyd) is exceptionally brilliant. It is said even among their competitors that two Wongs won't make a Wright.

Q: WHY ARE THE FLOORS NOT NUMBERED CONSECUTIVELY?

Consecutive floor numbering is an old architectural hack which is rapidly dying out, sort of like Cobol programming. In the old architecture, if for some reason the building owners wanted to change the floors around after completion of construction, it was almost impossible to do.

Under the new scheme of architecture, the floors can be arranged in any order, and a separate list of "pointers to floors" is housed in a dormitory on premise. These pointers come to work every morning and arrange themselves in order by floor number. In order to find out where your floor is that day, you ask the pointer who occupies that position in the pointer line and he or she will give you directions.

>From time to time one of these pointers will "dereference"
(i.e. die) on the job. If you ask him or her for directions you will get a null response. Please do not follow null directions, as it will cause the core of the building to dump into a heap somewhere in China.

Q: WHY DOES EACH FLOOR SEEM TO HAVE DIFFERENT DIMENSIONS?

During the period of construction, one of the junior draughtsmen, Alfonso "Inky" Dumm, ran a small sports book out of his cube at Wright and Wong. (At the time time some people thought it was Wong. We now know that it was Dumm at the time, but not actually Wong.)

Inky Dumm took to writing his bookings on the main blueprints for the building. Over time, these numbers obscured the dimensions on the prints. The building contractor often had to use "best guess" when laying out floors, but on the other hand did make a handsome profit on the World Series that year.

Q: WHY IS THERE NO 56TH FLOOR?

There *is* a 56th floor but, because on the morning it was poured (overstressed concrete treated with Prozac) the Vegas line on the Hotspurs versus Leeds United was three-to-one, the 56th floor is only three feet high. It is rented out to low overhead businesses.

Q: IS IT INTENTIONAL THAT THE PORCELINE PLUMBING FIXTURES

IN THE HALLS LOOK LIKE URINALS WHILST CONVERSELY THE PORCELINE PLUMBING FIXTURES IN THE MEN'S ROOMS LOOK LIKE DRINKING FOUNTAINS?

This depends entirely on what you mean by "intentional". If by "intentional" you mean "as the result of a plan or intention arising out of goal-directed behavior" then the whole building fails to qualify. If by "intentional" you mean whether or not it fits into God's Grand Design for the Universe then we remind you that THIS IS AMERICA, PAL, WE DON'T HAVE NO STATE RELIGION HERE, although North Carolina does.

We think this is a sexist question and we won't answer it, although we will point out that many people who come to work at One AFU Plaza soon thereafter stop drinking lemonade.

Q: WHERE DO I SIGN?

Currently One AFU Plaza is fully leased for the coming year. We do have a few openings left for floor pointers, however, if you'd like a cot in the dormitory. If so, please squash a large insect on your forehead like this: 
                       /VVVVV\
                      /       \             squash
                     (    *<---)---------insect here
                      \ 0   0 /
                       <  w  >
                       |/ - \|
                        \___/

and report for duty this coming Monday at 7:00am.


Any proceeds (net proceeds from merchandise sales) from TAFKAC solely benefit The Chuck Reed Fund.

Copyright Information

http://tafkac.org/