Valley Of The Giants: Empire State Big

August 29, 2011

Two visionary women want to transform a sleepy region of upstate New York into a tourist destination known as “The Valley of the Giants.”

The project is captained by Maria Reidelbach, who built a 13-foot-tall garden gnome in the Rondout Valley in 2006, and Lisa Kellogg, who bills herself as a “success coach.”

The idea is to dot the valley, from Ellenville to Kingston, with over a dozen different big statues that are “unique and meaningful” to each town, according to the project’s web site. A map of the valley shows 14 possible Giants, which include a dinosaur, a cow, a Ukrainian, and lots of half-human fruits and vegetables.

The mad science of massing many giants to multiply their power is already underway in places such as The Enchanted Highway in North Dakota and the Roadside Giants Project in Pennsylvania. Unlike those two, however, The Valley of the Giants intends to populate an entire geographic area, not just a single road.

Reidelbach and Kellogg have reassured nervous residents, telling them that the “giants” won’t be Jolly Green Giant gigantic at all. They’ll be 15 feet high, tops, tastefully designed and painted, and made of respectable concrete, not garish fiberglass. They’ll be enticing for tourists, but still easy to ignore for locals.

Much of the project’s success may hinge on public reaction to its second statue (if you count the gnome as #1), which will be a big cement miner, scheduled to go up in Rosendale in 2012. Conceptual drawings show it to be indeed tastefully rendered, and not so large as to offend the aesthetes.

We hope that the peaceful vibes spread by the valley’s early giants will mute later resistance — when Reidelbach and Kellogg unveil their humongous humanoid pickle and potato.

Sections: Attraction News, Coming Soon, Statues
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Odd, WV: On the USPS Chopping Block

August 14, 2011

The U.S. Postal Service has announced plans to close thousands of post offices that it believes are no longer worth keeping open. The list of possible casualties is buried in the USPS web site (you can study it here). We checked to see if America’s tiniest post office was on the chopping block. Thankfully, it appears to have escaped (maybe it was too small to notice).

However, the post office for Odd, West Virginia, is among the condemned.

Odd is one of many little towns with entertaining names scattered across the country. As attractions, they would be disappointing to visit if they didn’t have something in town emblazoned with the town name — a highway sign or a business — where people can take a photo.

In Odd, that place is the post office.

The USPS has said that its death list is not final. That probably means that the list will only grow longer — but it might also mean that post offices could be spared if their worthiness could be argued. Surely Odd’s post office has value beyond delivering magazines and junk mail. It’s a big reason why travelers visit. Take away the post office, and Odd would be bypassed by those who’d rather see a place with a sign — like Goobertown or Boring.

Send your properly stamped and addressed letters of support to: US Post Office, Odd Rd, Odd, WV 25902

Sections: Attraction News, Closing
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U.K. Loves Reagan. G.W. Bush…Not So Much

August 7, 2011

WorldTourWatch: A statue of Ronald Reagan was unveiled in London, England’s Grosvenor Square on July 4^th.  The US Embassy flanks one side of the square, which also contains tributes to FDR, Ike and the victims of 9/11.

Not far away, the wax figure of George W Bush is displayed at the Madame Tussauds wax museum.

Tussauds is a much more popular destination than Grosvenor Square, and Bush will be seen by many more visitors.  But his perch is not as pleasant as Reagan’s — Bush is in a lineup with the museum’s cadre of controversial leaders.

It’s the guys who aren’t as evil as Hitler, Mugabe or Saddam, who have their own lineup, but who include Gaddafi, Castro and Arafat.

Sections: Statues, WorldTourWatch
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Seven Years Away, Johnstown’s Best Friend Comes Home

August 7, 2011

If Morley’s Dog had a proper name, it washed away along with everything else in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, when a dam burst and destroyed the city in 1889.

The “dog” was a mass-produced metal lawn ornament. It stood in the yard of local businessman James Morley — and was found after the flood in a huge pile of wreckage. Johnstown gradually rebuilt itself, and Morley’s Dog became a symbol of the resilient city, “Johnstown’s Best Friend,” occupying a place of honor in a downtown park. Legends grew around it. Some believed that the statue was of a noble dog that had saved a family from the flood. Others believed that it was a real, petrified dog, fossilized instantaneously under the crush of mud and debris.

Although Morley’s Dog was catastrophe-proof, it couldn’t survive a long, slow century of Pennsylvania winters and people straddling it for souvenir snapshots. “It was gonna fall apart,” said Richard Burkert, president of the Johnstown Area Heritage Association. “No one wanted to wake up one morning a see a photo of Morley’s Dog’s head on the ground.” In 2004 the statue was taken away for preservation (It was replaced in the park by a nearly identical replica, so most tourists didn’t notice).

Seven years passed. The dog was analyzed by metallurgists and probed by restorationists. It was sliced apart, reassembled, patched, sealed, painted in what Johnstown could only guess were its original colors, and given a new tail from an identical statue (the original broke off years ago).

Morley’s Dog is now finally back in Johnstown, on public view (briefly), displayed behind glass in an empty storefront window across from the city’s train station. Purchased from a catalog for under $200, the dog cost $14,000 to fix. “It’s a piece of lawn art from the 1870s,” said Richard, explaining why its repair took so long and cost so much. “I don’t think anyone assumed it would be around in 140 years.”

Where the dog goes next is anyone’s guess: possibly to the Johnstown Area Heritage Discovery Center, possibly to the Johnstown Flood Museum. It’s clear, however, that Morley’s Dog, a tough survivor in 1889, is now too fragile (and valuable) to replace the replica that replaced it in the park.

“He needs,” said Richard, “to be an indoor dog.”

Sections: Attraction News, Statues
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EdgeWalk: High Thrills Or Low Blows?

August 3, 2011

Canada’s newest attraction, the EdgeWalk, tethers visitors to cables and lets them teeter over the edge atop the CN Tower, a quarter-mile high above Toronto.

What prompted Canada to take its tallest building, “Canada’s Wonder of the World,” and turn it into a thrill ride?

It may be the bicentennial of the War of 1812.

America failed to win that war when it failed to conquer Canada. The Canadians are pleased about that, and over the past few years have rolled out several attractions that seem to bolster the idea that Americans are losers. First there was Niagara’s Fury, better than anything on the U.S. side of the Falls. Then there was the Monument to the War of 1812, visually reducing America’s military effort to a toppled toy soldier.

And now this. You want kicks? Canada seems to be saying. Forget the U.S. and its Bridge Walk and Skywalk. EdgeWalk beats them both.

A stroll on EdgeWalk isn’t cheap: $175 Canadian or you-figure-it-out in real money. Participants are screened for drugs, separated from all of their carry-on possessions, zipped into bright colored suits, and released to follow a five-foot-wide ledge around the roof of the CN Tower’s rotating restaurant, 1,168 feet above the pavement. There are no guardrails. The tethers are just long enough to allow thrillseekers to lean out over the void without tumbling to their doom.

EdgeWalk can stand on its own, even without a hidden agenda. There really is no convenient taller place in the Western Hemisphere to dangle tourists from a rope. The USA may just have to swallow its pride and say, “Well done, Canada.” You beat us in 1812 and you beat us in 2011.

Then we’ll bungee jump above EdgeWalk from our Spaceport America rocket ships.

Sections: Attraction News, Canada
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Intelligent Mail Dog Becomes An Intelligent Stamp

July 28, 2011

We’ve long had an affection for Owney the Railway Mail Dog, even though he likely wouldn’t have returned the love.

Stuffed Owney — he’s been dead for 114 years — is a novel presence at the otherwise stamp-centered National Postal Museum in Washington, DC.

Owney was a clever mutt and the unofficial mascot of America’s late 19th century railway postal clerks. He rode the rails and acquired a postal suit of armor made of metal tags from the hundreds of post offices that he visited. But he didn’t always get along with people. When Owney allegedly attacked a mail clerk in Toledo, Ohio, he was shot and became Stuffed Owney. Since 1993 he’s been in a glass case at the Postal Museum.

Early in 2011 it was announced that Owney would be honored on an official U.S. postage stamp. This gave the Postal Museum the motivation to give Owney a makeover. In May, Owney was replaced by “Phony Owney” at the Museum while the real dog’s nose was made more doglike, his eyes softened, his bald spots patched, and his suture scars hidden.

Owney 2.0 was unveiled on July 27, and it was announced that his postal likeness was also a state-of-the-art “Intelligent Stamp.” According to Marty Emery, manager of internet affairs for the Postal Museum, pointing your iPhone camera at any Owney stamp (or waving the stamp in front of your Mac desktop camera) will trigger an “augmented reality experience” where a 3-D Owney pops up on your screen. “He kind of prances around, his tags jingle, he stops and sits and barks,” said Marty.

Unfortunately, Marty is one of the few people on Earth who can make Owney dance right now. The official app that makes this happen is still on review with Apple. Marty said that it should be available in the iTunes store by mid-August (the Postal Museum web site will link to it). PC and Android users wait even longer.

The Intelligent Stamp may quickly go the way of Betamax and the Earth Shoe, but we think tag-bedecked Owney would’ve appreciated its theatrics. Just be thankful that he’s not alive; all those people waving their mobile devices probably would have made him bite.

Sections: Attraction News
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