Structures Trivia

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In the 1920s, the heyday of amusement parks, there were over 2,000 parks throughout the United States. Today, there are less than 500, and few have attractions that are over 95 years old. Built in 1902, the Leap-The-Dips roller coaster in Pennsylvania was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in March of 1991 and was given National Landmark status in June of 1996.

In the action thriller Enemy of the State (1998) starring Will Smith, the exploding building in the movie was, in fact, the late Dr Pepper plant in Baltimore.

In the city of Washington D.C., no building may be built taller than the Washington Monument.

In the early 1950s, Denver architect Temple H. Buell, often called the "Father of the Mall," conceived and built one of the first shopping malls in the United States: the Cherry Creek Mall

In the nation's quest to keep things new, Japan's traditional shrine at Ise is torn down every twenty years. It is rebuilt so that it will always remain always in the same condition.

In the original architectural design, the French Cathedral of Chartes had six spires. (It was built with two spires).

It has been a papal tradition since 1857 to visit the Roman statue of the immaculate Mary on December 8th and crown it with a garland of flowers. Following this act by the Pope, the faithful then place flowers at the base of the column in homage to Jesus' mother. Designed by Luigi Poletti and located in Rome's Spanish Square, the structure is an ancient Roman column topped by a statue of Mary, in honor of her Immaculate Conception. Pope John Paul II was the first to pay homage.

The world's largest art gallery is the Winter Palace and Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia. Visitors would have to walk 15 miles to see the 322 galleries which house nearly 3 million works of art.

The World's Largest Catsup Bottle stands proudly next to Route 159, just south of downtown Collinsville, Illinois. This unique, 170-foot-tall water tower was built in 1949 by W.E. Caldwell Company for the G.S. Suppiger catsup bottling plant. In 1995, due largely to the efforts of the Catsup Bottle Preservation Group, this piece of local history was saved from demolition and beautifully restored to its original appearance.

The Hoover Dam was built to last 2,000 years. The concrete in it will not even be fully cured for another 500 years.

The world's largest coffee pot is located in Davidson, Saskatchewan. It measures 24 feet (7.3 meters) tall, is made of sheet metal, and could hold 150,000 8-ounce cups of coffee.

The 1,340-foot-long wall that gave New York's Wall Street its name was only 12 feet tall. It was erected in 1653 by Dutch colonists to protect against their enemies.

The huge marble dome on top of the State Capitol of Rhode Island was the first of its kind in the United States.

The world's largest Gothic cathedral is in New York City. It is the Cathedral of St. John the Divine on Amsterdam Avenue and 112th Street. The cathedral measures 601 feet long, 146 feet wide, and has a transept measuring 320 feet from end to end.

The 8,000-ton cooling system of Bank One Ballpark in Phoenix is the equivalent of air conditioning for more than 2,500 typical Arizona homes.

The Jif plant in Lexington, Kentucky, is reportedly the largest peanut butter factory in the world.

The Abbey of Gethsemani was founded by a group of forty-five Trappist monks who left their flourishing order in western France, and settling in Kentucky on December 21, 1848. The abbey is now the site for the manufacturing of world-famous fruitcake, cheese, and fudge.

The Jumbotron scoreboard at the SkyDome in Toronto, Ontario, measures 33 feet by 115 feet and has 420,000 light bulbs, the largest scoreboard in the world. Home of the Toronto Blue Jays, the SkyDome has a 348-room hotel located in center field. Seventy of those rooms have views of the field. The apex of the retracted dome is 310 feet, making it the tallest in Major League baseball. The SkyDome opened in 1989.

The world's longest suspension bridge opened to traffic on April 5, 1998. The 3,911-meter (12,831-foot) Akashi Kaikyo Bridge is 580 meters (1,900 feet) longer than the Humber Bridge in England, the previous record holder.

The alteration of the architectural appearance of a city by the construction of skyscrapers and high-rise buildings is known as "Manhattanization." The term refers to the New York borough Manhattan.