SEATTLE – Engineers at the famed Space Needle have announced a major upgrade to the iconic observation tower: They are going to make it lean, just like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. They presented today a conceptual rendering of the design at the top of the tower.  

The famed Tower of Pisa, the campanile of the cathedral in the Tuscan city of Pisa, has a renowned lean, which began in the 12^th Century as the ground underneath failed to support the weight of the 183-foot-tall tower and has been maintained as a tourist attraction. City officials estimate that as many as 2 million people visit Pisa every year with the express purpose of seeing the Leaning Tower in person.

Slightly more than 2.6 million people attended the 1962 World’s Fair, for which Seattle’s Space Needle was built. Seattle city officials are chasing similar numbers of visitors to the new Leaning Space Needle, as it has been dubbed.

Space Needle Chairman Jeff Wright chimed in with his support. “I’d love to see the numbers go up,” he said. “At present, we have about 1 million people visiting our famous tower each year. I’d love to double that or even triple it, and I believe that introducing a lean is just the way to achieve that goal.”

Wright dismissed concerns about the logistical challenge of creating the lean, saying that his new team of engineers was more than capable of moving around the 5,600 tons of concrete poured into the tower’s foundation to stabilize it when it was built. “We’ll achieve the lean,” Wright said. “You can count on it. And I’ll be the first to take in the new view.”

A handful of participants had to leave the tower feeling sick after seeing the large rendering hung on the interior wall of the observatory deck.