NIU’s Holmes Student Center, the Sears Tower and the Empire State Building all have something in common – they don’t have a 13th floor.

Why the number 13? Why not six, or 14 or some other obscure number?

The Otis elevator company said that 90 percent of all skyscrapers and big hotels have no 13th floor according to www.brownielocks.com.

For all you triskaidekaphobics – people who are afraid of the number 13 – the student center is safe.

It is considered bad luck for a building to have a 13th floor, said Scott Morris, supervisor of the audio visual department. A lot of the buildings as of the late ’60s started to omit the 13th floor from their plans, Morris said.

“If there is a 13th floor in the student center, it is well hidden because I have never seen it,” Morris said.

Most buildings won’t have them, but some new ones are starting to add them, said Chris Riddle, assistant manager of the student center hotel. The 13th floor, which is actually the 14th floor, is used for guest rooms in the hotel.

“It makes the building seem bigger,” Riddle said. “I know if I was staying at a hotel, I would not want to stay on the 13th floor.”

There are eight other buildings on campus that have a 13th floor. Stevenson and Grant Towers all have 13, but the elevator only goes to 12. To get to the 13th floor, you have to go to the 12th and walk up two flights of stairs to the 13th floor penthouse, said Mike Saari, associate director of the physical plant .

The reason that the elevator does not go up that high is because there is a lot of high voltage equipment as well as the elevator equipment on the 13th floor, so students really do not have a reason to go up there, Saari said.H Italians omit the number 13 from their national lottery.