“…[13,15,29,30,38,42] With respect to stepwise reactions, 1 has been prepared by the Stephens-Castro-mediated coupling of a di-ethynylcuprate and 1,2-diiodobenzene [46] and substituted [12]DBAs via Sonogashira-Hagihara coupling of a diiodo-triaryl precursor and acetylene gas as well as from substituted di-and tetrahalo-tolane and diethynylbenzene precursors. [15,47,48] Intramolecular ring-closing strategies include the Wittig methodology employed by Staab et al, [49,50] as well as Sonogashira-Hagihara coupling, [21,51] ethyne metathesis [13,16] and aldehyde coupling approaches. [14,17] During part of our studies on the generation of dehydrotriaryl [12]annulene-based coordination polymers, which necessitated the synthesis of the symmetric dehydrotripyrido [12]annulene 4 (Scheme 1), [52] we also required samples of the asymmetric dehydrotriaryl [12]annulenes 2 and 3 incorporating one and two pyridyl rings respectively (Scheme 1).…”