‘Ghost Tower’ haunts Bangkok
BANGKOK — The 49-story Bangkok highrise was supposed to feature luxury condos for hundreds of newly affluent Thai families, but it was abandoned unfinished when the Asian financial crisis struck in 1997.
Now called the “Ghost Tower,” it’s a monument to mistakes made and an object of curiosity to a steady stream of visitors.
“Sathorn Unique,” named after the up-andcoming neighborhood next to the Chao Phraya River over which it towers, draws dozens of foreigners daily who come to gawk at the decrepit, stained concrete edifice. It’s a home not to Thai yuppies, but to bats, birds, weeds, trees and a black-and-white spotted cat seen prowling one afternoon on a seventhfloor balcony.
“The only way is up,” reads graffiti scrawled in chalk on the fifth floor landing, an ironic reminder of the building’s aspirational past.
Near the building’s entrance sits a ramshackle homemade spirit shrine. A yellowing poster of Thailand’s late king, clad in royal regalia, is plastered above ashes of spent incense and opened bottles of fruity Red Fanta — the ghosts’ favorite drink, according to watchman Suwaschai Dadaelor.
In the booming ’90s, Bangkok’s skyline was surging skyward and studded with construction cranes.
Architect and property developer Rangsan Torsuwan was flush with cash from selling ornate, high-rise condos along the beach in Pattaya. He drew up blueprints, cleared the land and made millions of dollars preselling the condos.
Then came what Thais call the “Tom Yum Goong” crash — referring to the famous local sour and spicy soup. It started in Thailand when the over-leveraged government unexpectedly devalued the baht. Investors rushed to pull their money out as quickly as they could, setting off a regional financial crisis.
About 500 big construction projects — from shopping malls to elevated railways — came to a screeching halt.
Most later resumed, but not the Ghost Tower. Rangsan was charged in 1993 with attempting to murder the president of Thailand’s Supreme Court, a twisting case that dragged on until he was found guilty 15 years later, then acquitted in 2010. Potential investors stayed well away.
At 607 feet, the structure is among the tallest abandoned skyscrapers in the world, after North Korea’s 105-story Ryugyong Hotel, which has been under construction since 1987.
The property has been mired in a complex lawsuit for years and it appears unlikely anyone will demolish it anytime soon. Inspectors say the reinforced concrete structure is still fundamentally sound despite weathering decades of storms.
For now its only tenants are two 18-story billboards: one advertising Pepsi and the other the iPhone 7.