Top O’ the Strip also serves as a reminder of how tourism shapes and is shaped by the built
environment. Observation towers once fulfilled a genuine need, offering perspectives otherwise unavailable in low-rise coastal areas. As development changed the skyline, that need diminished. The tower’s rise and fall illustrate the delicate balance between innovation and obsolescence in tourist economies, where success often depends on being new, visible, and distinctive, yet sustainability requires adaptation to changing circumstances.In a broader sense, the story of Top O’ the Strip reflects Florida’s ongoing relationship with spectacle. The state has long relied on visual impact to attract visitors, whether through natural beauty, architectural novelty, or themed environments. Observation towers distilled this impulse into its purest form: the promise that seeing more, from higher up, would enhance understanding and enjoyment. While the physical structure is gone, the idea persists in modern attractions that continue to emphasize views, panoramas, and immersive observation.
Today, interest in lost attractions like Top O’ the Strip has grown among historians, preservationists, and enthusiasts of roadside Americana. These individuals seek to document and remember places that shaped the experience of travel in earlier decades. Through photographs, oral histories, and written accounts, the tower’s legacy endures, offering insight into a period when tourism was defined by experimentation and optimism rather than scale alone. shutdown123