Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/1801 California Street


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   keep all. There may be some merit to the discussion regarding renaming these articles or redirecting/merging them elsewhere but there is certainly no consensus to delete the material. Shereth 16:03, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

1801 California Street

 * ( [ delete] ) – (View AfD) (View log)

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Five very unremarkable stubs. Reminds me of WP:EVERYTHING. Same info is included in List of tallest buildings in Denver so stubs can be re-created as notability comes in. Potatoswatter (talk) 02:20, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete all Amazingly unremarkable buildings that don't have any info for them besides the fact that they're buildings. Deathawk (talk) 02:42, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Colorado-related deletion discussions.   --  brew  crewer  (yada, yada) 02:40, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Architecture-related deletion discussions.   --  brew  crewer  (yada, yada) 02:41, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Weak Delete all - the only argument to keep is that they are tall. But List of tallest buildings in Denver looks to have that covered --T-rex 03:35, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep all The historically-tallest buildings in a major US city should be considered notable. Even if it turns out these articles can't be expanded (which I doubt is the case), we can still convert these into redirects, so no deletion tools are necessary. Zagalejo^^^ 05:20, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Why does being US matter? Denver is the 26th largest in US, pop 566,974. It's known for high altitude and remote location, not tall structures or overall size. Redirect conversion is not a keep argument, and these are all orphans anyway. Potatoswatter (talk) 14:41, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
 * They weren't orphans. Besides, an article's being an orphan does not preclude turning it into a redirect. (Of course, they don't need to become redirects at this point, thanks to Raime's hard work.) Zagalejo^^^ 04:57, 16 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete The building don't even have names and the articles are one-sentence each! They don't deserve anything more than one line in a telephone book let alone their own full page in an encyclopedia. Halifax Nomad (talk) 07:30, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
 * 1) Many important buildings are known mainly by their addresses. (10 Downing Street?) That's not a valid reason for deletion. 2) Stubs have always been allowed. We have thousands of them. I've added references verifying that each of these buildings was once the tallest in Denver, so each has a legitimate claim to notability. Zagalejo^^^ 08:07, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't think it's fair to compare these buildings to Downing Street, because in essence, that is it's name rather than just a reference point, as can be verified by searching through multiple secondary sources that refer to it as such.  As for the buildings listed up for deletion, if all these buildings were at one time the tallest building in Denver, perhaps one article with all of these buildings listed would better suffice, unless there is more to write about them than just one sentence.  Halifax Nomad (talk) 08:45, 15 June 2008 (UTC)


 * My opinion: For now, delete since they are covered in List of tallest buildings in Denver . If they warrant an individual write-up later, then do it then. Halifax Nomad (talk) 08:50, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep all - These building articles could easily be expanded, particularly 1801 California Street, the second-tallest building in the city that once was home to the brightest lights in the world. The other buildings are also notable, as they all at one time stood as the tallest building in Denver. I will work to expand all of the articles in a few hours. Cheers, Rai • me  13:20, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't understand the reference to "brightest lights in the world"; I can't find any reference to Denver ever having the brightest lights in the world. Even if it did, there is no obvious correlation between the tallest buildings and the brightest lights. By that logic, we would have to have an article about the second-brightest light in Kuala Lumpur, because that city used to have the world's tallest building. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 16:00, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
 * See these pages:, , for clarification. Both of those references are now used in the article, and there is an entire paragraph on the lights. Sorry, but I don't understand the second part of your statement; height doesn't play a factor in this aspect of the building's notability at all, it is just the fact that the building was home to the brightest high-rise lights in the world, visible over 70 miles away, that is notable. What does Kuala Lumpur have to do with anything? Cheers, Rai • me  20:46, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
 * As of when this AfD was posted, there was nothing in the article about 1801 California Street itself having the brightest lights in the world, and I hadn't been able to find anything about the brightest lights in the world being anywhere in Denver. That's why I misinterpreted your phrase "the second-tallest building in the city that once was home to the brightest lights in the world" to mean that the brightest lights in the world had been somewhere in Denver, but not necessarily at this building, and the analogy I constructed based on that was inaccurate. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 02:10, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Right... brightest commercial sign in the world is very different from brightest light. In any case, the source is not WP:RS for that kind of thing. They simply present an anecdote about how it was "stupid bright" and residents complained, so this record-setting, if valid, was short-lived. Potatoswatter (talk) 03:13, 16 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Comment Of course I'm aware these are former tallest buildings in Denver. That is simply a non-notable distinction. Denver has never had a tradition of tall buildings—very few cities do. A series on Denver registered landmarks would make sense. This doesn't. Please read WP:EVERYTHING before participating here. And on the other hand, please don't ask to delete on the basis of little content in the article. That hurts the cause. Potatoswatter (talk) 14:26, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually, the city is home to 190 high-rises, was home to one of the first skyscrapers west of the Mississippi River, the Daniels & Fisher Tower, and currently has the 16th-largest skyline in the US. So, I don't think it is true that "Denver has never had a tradition of tall buildings", and the title of "tallest building in Denver" isn't exactly a "non-notable distinction". I don't think that my argument amounts to WP:EVERYTHING at all; I would never argue that all high-rises in a city should have an article, but ones that formerly stood as the tallest in a very large city that has a history of skyscraper construction (not as large as that of Chicago or New York, but a history nonetheless) do have claims of notability. Cheers, Rai • me  20:46, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Merge: Merge all into a single article. Hellno2 (talk) 14:29, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete and redirect to List of tallest buildings in Denver per nom. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 16:00, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Neutral for now based on the improvement to 1801 California Street. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 02:10, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep, but these articles need infoboxes and properly formatted refs. Cheers.  Trance addict - Tiesto - Above and Beyond 18:39, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment - I have substantially expanded the 1801 California Street article, adding 4 references and an infobox as well. At the very least, this article should not be deleted/merged, as the building is very notable; it is not only the second-tallest building in the city, but also the 101st-tallest building in the United States, the and the subject of reliable secondary sources (see this article, for example). I will now work on improving the other 4 articles. Cheers, Rai • me  20:33, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
 * You've convinced me that this building should stay, but I think the article should be renamed to Qwest Tower, if that indeed really is the building's name and not just a nickname. Halifax Nomad (talk) 20:50, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
 * No, it is a nickname. The building that was formerly officially known as "Qwest Tower" was 555 17th Street. 1801 California is only known locally as Qwest Tower due to its glaring blue Qwest logos. Cheers, Rai • me  21:02, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I am now done with 707 17th Street. It is now also substantially long, is notable due to its distinct "setfront" feature (explained and referenced in the article), and is also the subject of relaible, secondary sources such as this article. Next I will improve 555 17th Street. Cheers, Rai • me  23:22, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Indeed you found lots of facts, but nothing interesting or notable (in the traditional sense of the word, not WP:N which requires nothing more than WP:V). It was tallest in Denver for only two years. Constructed and occupied by a huge company which later went bankrupt. Left largely vacant until the office space was discounted to a major hotel chain. You've proven that this mundane subject can be researched, but is it better to spend your time on such an article or to delete it with no prejudice on a later rewrite? Who will ever care about this information? Should you spend your time and skills trying (apparently) to frustrate me and this process, or helping with WP:REQUEST? Potatoswatter (talk) 03:13, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Frustrating you or this process was not a goal of mine at all, and I am sorry that you feel that way. The facts may be uninteresting to you, but there are readers who do not agree; Leitmanp stated below that the articles "provide notable content", and I suspect that this usage may refer to the traditional sense of the word as well. WP:N may require nothing more than WP:V, but that is the policy used to determine whether a topic should have an article or not, so it should not be disregarded here because you feel that the information provided in the several reliable, independent sources is "uninteresting." The "Wikipedia sense of the word" is all that matters here. I do feel that it is better to spend my time researching and improving articles about topics that I am interested in and do not believe should be deleted. Cheers, Rai • me  03:59, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Why would it be better to delete this? Zagalejo^^^ 05:00, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I think the point of the process is so that it can be frustrated when articles that should be kept are proposed for deletion, and I applaud User:Raime for putting in the time to enhance these stubs. NoDepositNoReturn (talk) 08:02, 16 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep The article says "brightest high-rise signs in the world" (used to be). That is a good reason to keep.  FYW09 (talk) 23:17, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment. Erm.. can you point us in the direction of the policy or guideline that expresses Wikipedia's policy of "brightest high-rise signs in the world"? Rehevkor ✉  00:08, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
 * There may not be an explicit policy that states that the building with the brightest lights in the world is notable, but there is a policy, WP:N, that states that "If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to be notable." Given that the 1801 California Street article has 4 such reliable independent sources, I believe that it meets these criteria. Cheers, Rai • me  02:37, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah. To make this super black and white: WP:EVERYTHING/WP:IINFO say that such a single piece of trivia does NOT result in a whole separate article. That is my whole point. Potatoswatter (talk) 03:13, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
 * WP:EVERYTHING clearly states that "the most basic threshold of inclusion is verifiability, not truth. The verifiability requirement alone would prevent writing about every particle and limit the information that could be included on every person. Moreover, the community has decided not to document every verifiable fact and accordingly has established notability guidelines on what should be kept." These articles are verifiable (citing several reliable sources) and meet the notability guidelines, so I don't see how WP:EVERYTHING is a valid argument for the deletion of these articles. I also don't see how WP:IINFO is a valid argument, given that the articles are in no way one or more of the five things listed there. Cheers, Rai • me  03:59, 16 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Update on article progress: I have now finished improving all of the articles. I believe that 1801 California Street, 707 17th Street, and 555 17th Street are all sufficiently notable. 633 17th Street and 621 17th Street are alo notable, but as the buildings are in the same complex, it would make sense to merge those two articles into one article titled First of Denver Plaza, which is the name of the two-building complex. At present, although several sources are listed for each building, the information is very repetitive. Cheers, Rai • me  02:45, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep all; after the expansions to all the articles by Raime, I feel they are well sourced and provide notable content. Leitmanp (talk | contributions) 03:12, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep all per User:Leitmanp, though I'd like to see infoboxes on each one, and they should probably be renamed to "1801 California Street (Denver building)", etc., to avoid headaches later if there are name-space collisions. That will happen eventually. NoDepositNoReturn (talk) 08:02, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I have added an infobox to each article. And yes, should there be any name-space collisions, I agree that the buildings should be moved (just the addition of a "(Denver)" to the title would be the norm for naming skyscrapers, i.e. Republic Plaza (Denver)), but until then, they are probably fine where they are, as there is no need for such disambiguation at present. Cheers, Rai • me  11:50, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
 * My rationale for suggesting adding the disambiguation now is for pages that might link to these; if the disambiguation happens later, they'll all have to be updated to avoid a disambiguation page. I don't actually expect a lot of pages linking to these articles, so it might not be an issue, but if they were likely to get lots of inbound links, you'd be saving a lot of work by providing a unique page at the start. NoDepositNoReturn (talk) 21:16, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I definitely see your point. But these articles each only link to about five articles each and they aren't likely to get much more than that (probably 20 at most). So, it isn't really much of an issue. If disambiguation is needed in the future, the pages could easily be moved, and the 5 to 20 links could easily be repaired. Cheers, Rai • me  02:20, 17 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep - Arguing for deletion simply because they are stubs is lame. Besides, I looked at some of the articles, and they don't look to be stubs. Someone might have added content between then and now, but regardless, that's what stubs do: they grow into non-stub articles. — D. Wo. 22:24, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep. I find it hard to imagine that a building that was the tallest in a major city for even a brief while is not somewhat notable. Everyking (talk) 23:00, 19 June 2008 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.