Detroit already has a big fist sculpture in town. I want to build one 100x its size on the Detroit side of the river and an identical one on the Canada side. They will be hooked up to gears, and on major holidays, celebrations, etc, they will swing over the river and fist bump.
It's remarkable how mad I find myself getting when I remember that Troy almost single-handedly nixed the idea of the M-1 coming north to within a mile or two of my house.
You know how there are sushi restaurants with conveyor belts of food going past? If the restaurant is revolving quickly enough, you could just have roller conveyors for the food to arrive at your table by the magic of centrifugal force. Can't see any potential flaws with that.
It's by far the biggest structure for at least five miles in any direction (as in I'm pretty sure no other building in the city is above 5 stories). Nothing near it is over 3 stories tall so it's visible from almost anywhere along that road.
Fort Worth, Texas is planning a boondoggle called panther island. They're trying to use flood prevention money to make a touristy island downtown in the middle of the Trinity River called Panther Island.
Why Panther Island you ask? Well it turns out that Fort Worth has two nicknames. One, Cowtown, makes sense while the other, Panther City, does not. The Panther City nickname comes from a really stupid story so I think we need a better one. Let's build a giant-ass Panther statue on Panther Island. When people ask why is Fort Worth nicknamed Panther City, we can just point to the gaudy statue instead of telling a dumb story.
Wait back up to the part where the city wants to use flood prevention money to build an island. I'm just a humble chemical engineer but that feels, uh, not right
So it's because the planning is really two parts, the Panther Island and then Flood Plain control. Panther island is a local/regional economic thing that is dependent on the flood control by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. So you have a lot of cooks in the kitchen and arguments of what is really needed/good ideas and what is straight grift. But the end of it is Fort Worth has now built three bridges over currently dry land. https://www.star-telegram.com/news/local/fort-worth/article252852913.html
I have one point of disagreement. The Panther City nickname story is hilarious because its a story of town rivalries and leaning way too far into a joke.
It's great because Fort Worth has so many animals it names things after. You have the obvious cow/bull names for Cowtown, frog/toad related names for TCU, and then Panther/Cat/Kat names for Panther City.
I was ready to chalk up this as a simple gimmick article until you suggested the Colossus of Rhodes astride the Ohio and suddenly I've never wanted something more in my entire life
Jacksonville would like to build an aircraft carrier large enough to play football on the deck (safely, I guess, since money is no longer an issue). The added benefit is that being seaworthy allows the team to play one of their 'home' games in London, the Bahamas, Rio, wherever the heck Shad Khan wants to drop anchor. Either that or a pair of jorts large enough to cover TIAA Bank field. On a nice day we can simply unzip and "retract" the dome.
Truth be told, I'd probably buy up a bunch of the abandoned or dying amusement parks or race tracks around the country.
Scott, in a carnival barker hat: Well, I've sold architectural boondoggles to Lebanon, OH, Nashville and Alliance, Nebraska and by gum, I've put them on the map!
Why do I feel like this newsletter came from someone asking you what you wish you could build and telling you no one would ever pay for it?
I love the Colossus Over the Ohio idea, though the financial burden would probably fall on Kentucky since they could claim everything except the right foor
I imagine it could be an extraterritorial enclave outside of local jurisdictions, something like the UN Headquarters, or one of those towns within the Korean DMZ.
You could pay for a replacement for the Brent Spence Bridge (the crumbling double-decker bridge that carries both I-71 and I-75 across the Ohio River from Cincinnati to Covington) with just the admission fees and a 10% cut of the Skyline Chili sales.
And now it has these creepy as hell drapes over 90% of it while they paint over all the rust and have it reduced to two lanes each way, so it's even worse.
A lot of San Francisco's favorite institutions were originally built for various World's Fairs: the de Young museum, the Palace of Fine Arts, a bandshell and parts of Golden Gate Park. But our statues are somewhat lackluster. That is, until we use these funds to erect a replica of Norton I, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico, astride the Bay Bridge that he was first to proclaim ought to be built. He will be tall enough to topple the Salesforce Tower, as is right and just.
This was of course very funny but it made me think we need an actual transformer statue staring at the climbing wall at the national whitewater center outside Charlotte. https://whitewater.org/activity/deep-water-solo/
100 foot, 1980s style red and blue Optimus Prime just staring at you — not necessarily threateningly but with what you know is going to be crushing disappointment if you fall.
A MASSIVE Calvin and Hobbes statue in a field outside of Chagrin Falls, OH (home of Bill Watterson.) We're talking over 1000 ft tall (it'd be the tallest structure in the state)
I think a series of monuments to regional foods that can be visited by people from out of town, who can pay to shoot said monuments with (water soluble animal friendly) paintballs to show their absolute disdain for the local foods. Imagine, for example, the caravans of people between the Carolinas and Texas to vote by shot over the merits of pork barbecue versus whatever shoeleather it is that they sell in Texas.
We need more tourist attractions like Worlds Largest Hair Ball or State's Largest Collection of Matchbooks. Just sprinkle those billions around and flood the interstates & backroads with oddities.
Build back Bolder, you say? No.
Build Back Boulder.
With 1 billion dollars I will construct the world's largest replica of a small boulder the size of a large boulder.
This is the bouldest proposal yet. I love it.
Detroit already has a big fist sculpture in town. I want to build one 100x its size on the Detroit side of the river and an identical one on the Canada side. They will be hooked up to gears, and on major holidays, celebrations, etc, they will swing over the river and fist bump.
My wife just had a great idea: build all of these with material from melted down confederate monuments
A more aggressive version of Mario Irarrázabal's hand sculptures in Uruguay and Chile: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Mano_de_Punta_del_Este
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mano_del_Desierto
Here at Lanley Industries, we celebrate your vision.
Detroit took to this idea so well it built two monorails, that don't touch each other.
Me? I'd build a statue of Iggy Pop shirtless and bleeding in Ypsilanti, to match the water tower.
It's remarkable how mad I find myself getting when I remember that Troy almost single-handedly nixed the idea of the M-1 coming north to within a mile or two of my house.
MORE. REVOLVING. ROOFTOP. RESTAURANTS.
FASTER. REVOLVING. ROOFTOP. RESTAURANTS!
You know how there are sushi restaurants with conveyor belts of food going past? If the restaurant is revolving quickly enough, you could just have roller conveyors for the food to arrive at your table by the magic of centrifugal force. Can't see any potential flaws with that.
Scott, are you familiar with the Cuyahoga Falls tower that was supposed to have a restaurant on top? https://localwiki.org/summit-county/Humbard%27s_Tower#:~:text=Humbard's%20Tower%20in%20Cuyahoga%20Falls,where%20the%20show%20was%20filmed.
This is a better picture of it for context: https://i2.wp.com/architecturalafterlife.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Rexs-Erection.jpg?fit=801%2C1200&ssl=1
Majestically pointless. 10/10.
Holy crap, it was built by a televangelist?
It's by far the biggest structure for at least five miles in any direction (as in I'm pretty sure no other building in the city is above 5 stories). Nothing near it is over 3 stories tall so it's visible from almost anywhere along that road.
careful what you ask for, this could just be the new business model for Denny's.
I think it's pretty clear Memphis needs a second pyramid.
Hear me out: Memphis Sphinx (it can be a Costco)
i think the traditionally accepted number of pyramids in a set is 3
Fort Worth, Texas is planning a boondoggle called panther island. They're trying to use flood prevention money to make a touristy island downtown in the middle of the Trinity River called Panther Island.
Why Panther Island you ask? Well it turns out that Fort Worth has two nicknames. One, Cowtown, makes sense while the other, Panther City, does not. The Panther City nickname comes from a really stupid story so I think we need a better one. Let's build a giant-ass Panther statue on Panther Island. When people ask why is Fort Worth nicknamed Panther City, we can just point to the gaudy statue instead of telling a dumb story.
PANTHER ISLAND. This is both a civic attraction and a mid-aughts Fox reality show.
NEXT WEEK ON PANTHER ISLAND:
Take me down to the Panther City, where we choose to live cuz Dallas is shitty
Wait back up to the part where the city wants to use flood prevention money to build an island. I'm just a humble chemical engineer but that feels, uh, not right
So it's because the planning is really two parts, the Panther Island and then Flood Plain control. Panther island is a local/regional economic thing that is dependent on the flood control by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. So you have a lot of cooks in the kitchen and arguments of what is really needed/good ideas and what is straight grift. But the end of it is Fort Worth has now built three bridges over currently dry land. https://www.star-telegram.com/news/local/fort-worth/article252852913.html
I have one point of disagreement. The Panther City nickname story is hilarious because its a story of town rivalries and leaning way too far into a joke.
Having read up on it, I'm now in full support of the nickname. https://www.dallasnews.com/news/curious-texas/2018/06/06/why-is-fort-worth-called-panther-city-curious-texas-investigates-a-regional-rivalry/
It's great because Fort Worth has so many animals it names things after. You have the obvious cow/bull names for Cowtown, frog/toad related names for TCU, and then Panther/Cat/Kat names for Panther City.
I was ready to chalk up this as a simple gimmick article until you suggested the Colossus of Rhodes astride the Ohio and suddenly I've never wanted something more in my entire life
You're never sure if I'm joking or not, but more than that: *I'm* never sure if I'm joking or not. That's the Action Cookbook Experience.
...due to a miscommunication, though, the state ends up erecting the Colossus of James A. Rhodes, former Ohio Governor.
Leading people to ask "Why is there a statue of Harry Caray in Ohio and Kentucky?" https://images.app.goo.gl/BKgWsRGp3LDo6Bzk9
Jacksonville would like to build an aircraft carrier large enough to play football on the deck (safely, I guess, since money is no longer an issue). The added benefit is that being seaworthy allows the team to play one of their 'home' games in London, the Bahamas, Rio, wherever the heck Shad Khan wants to drop anchor. Either that or a pair of jorts large enough to cover TIAA Bank field. On a nice day we can simply unzip and "retract" the dome.
Truth be told, I'd probably buy up a bunch of the abandoned or dying amusement parks or race tracks around the country.
Shad, watching the game from a nautical telescope aboard *~Kismet~*
I'm very much here for the Nelson jokes
Scott, in a carnival barker hat: Well, I've sold architectural boondoggles to Lebanon, OH, Nashville and Alliance, Nebraska and by gum, I've put them on the map!
Why do I feel like this newsletter came from someone asking you what you wish you could build and telling you no one would ever pay for it?
I love the Colossus Over the Ohio idea, though the financial burden would probably fall on Kentucky since they could claim everything except the right foor
I imagine it could be an extraterritorial enclave outside of local jurisdictions, something like the UN Headquarters, or one of those towns within the Korean DMZ.
Tell Joe Manchin it's actually owned by West Virginia due to some downstream rights bullshit, and maybe you've got a path to federal funding.
You could pay for a replacement for the Brent Spence Bridge (the crumbling double-decker bridge that carries both I-71 and I-75 across the Ohio River from Cincinnati to Covington) with just the admission fees and a 10% cut of the Skyline Chili sales.
a very scary bridge lol
oh come on a bridge catches fire ONE TIME
And now it has these creepy as hell drapes over 90% of it while they paint over all the rust and have it reduced to two lanes each way, so it's even worse.
A lot of San Francisco's favorite institutions were originally built for various World's Fairs: the de Young museum, the Palace of Fine Arts, a bandshell and parts of Golden Gate Park. But our statues are somewhat lackluster. That is, until we use these funds to erect a replica of Norton I, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico, astride the Bay Bridge that he was first to proclaim ought to be built. He will be tall enough to topple the Salesforce Tower, as is right and just.
https://twitter.com/bbcsport/status/1423218128134279171?s=21
This was of course very funny but it made me think we need an actual transformer statue staring at the climbing wall at the national whitewater center outside Charlotte. https://whitewater.org/activity/deep-water-solo/
100 foot, 1980s style red and blue Optimus Prime just staring at you — not necessarily threateningly but with what you know is going to be crushing disappointment if you fall.
A MASSIVE Calvin and Hobbes statue in a field outside of Chagrin Falls, OH (home of Bill Watterson.) We're talking over 1000 ft tall (it'd be the tallest structure in the state)
Set aside some habitat for a tiger sanctuary
SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!!!
I think a series of monuments to regional foods that can be visited by people from out of town, who can pay to shoot said monuments with (water soluble animal friendly) paintballs to show their absolute disdain for the local foods. Imagine, for example, the caravans of people between the Carolinas and Texas to vote by shot over the merits of pork barbecue versus whatever shoeleather it is that they sell in Texas.
We need more tourist attractions like Worlds Largest Hair Ball or State's Largest Collection of Matchbooks. Just sprinkle those billions around and flood the interstates & backroads with oddities.