Burj Dubai, the world’s tallest building, is set to open to the public on December 2, 2009. This titan of towers is the centerpiece of a 20 billion dollar development project that is bizarrely ambitious and ostentatious even by Dubai standards. Other record-setting features of this enormous undertaking include Dubai Mall (“the world’s largest shopping […]
Sarasota, Florida has finally embraced the 26-foot-high, painted fiberglass sculpture “Unconditional Surrender,” which depicts a sailor enthusiastically planting a smoocherooni (as they called it in liberated villages) on the lips of a loose-limbed nurse on V-J Day in Times Square. After a combative public hearing, city commissioners decided to accept a donation of the $500,000 […]
For an 80-year-old cartoon character, Popeye has some sea legs. At least three towns promote his immortality with statues, but Chester, Illinois, clearly has wind in its sails. Crystal City, Texas, “Spinach Capital of the World,” was the first to erect a Popeye statue in 1937. It deserves credit for that — but it hasn’t […]
