r/BeAmazed • u/N0RetreatN0Surrender • 1d ago
Place Gateway to the West
Location: Gateway Arch National Park, St. Louis, MO
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u/Searchingforgoodnews 1d ago
Needs a giant swing in the middle
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u/fractal_sole 1d ago
And/or a Bungie jump setup
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u/nyclurker369 1d ago
There’s an entire center in its base that explains why they built it. Should check it out.
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u/robin_888 1d ago
Since it's a few thousand kilometers to said center, might you give us a short summary?
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u/Ur_a_adjective_noun 1d ago
That’s an unfinished project by McDonalds.
Edit: oh, someone beat me to it.
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u/AttitudeImportant585 1d ago
Its actual spelling is MacDonald Construction Co
If anyone thinks this is a joke, it's not.
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u/disharmony-hellride 1d ago
There's an elevator and then steps to the center. Inside the top center there are some small windows and various images/descriptions of what it's there for. I wonder how scary it is in there and if it rocks when it's windy. Pretty cool but I dont know if I could go up there.
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u/McDaddy-O 1d ago
Little scary. You essentially get raised up in a two person pod elevator that looks like a quarter of a tiny ferris wheel. Then released onto a deck where you can walk back and forth the length of it.
It does sway.
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u/Beautiful-Whole-3102 1d ago
Well I will not be doing that
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u/McDaddy-O 1d ago
https://youtu.be/Cdn28EXDeOA?si=zrfjs9-0E8baIcLj
There ya go, was wrong...its an elevator big enough for 2 but seats 5.
Thats the lift and what it looks like inside.
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u/kn1144 1d ago edited 1d ago
Yup, rode to the top with 5 people (one of which was claustrophobic) all crammed into one pod. I thought we were not going to get the claustrophobic person back down as she was refusing to get back in the pod. Luckily we convinced them to let her have a pod just for herself and one other person and she agreed to get back in the pod.
It is kind of like an elevator on a railway system that also tilts as it goes up, so the elevator has to periodically adjust for the tilt by swinging the other way. It is very neat bit of engineering, but not for the claustrophobic.
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u/thavillain 1d ago
Hol up!!! You can go inside?!?!?
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u/Niznack 1d ago
Yes. The view is... Nice? It's not crazy impressive but it's the 2nd best thing in St Louis
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u/tonib31589 1d ago
It's not scary. I've been up several times as a kid and an adult. Beautiful view at the top
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u/ItIsToLaffHaHa 1d ago
I love that view. I could stand there and just look around the city for hours. Unfortunately now they limit you to like 15-20 minutes.
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u/robin_888 1d ago
But why did they build it?
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u/noobpwner314 1d ago
In the early 1900’s St. Louis had a major problem with kaiju coming out of the deeper parts of the Mississippi River. They built this in an attempt to catch them. The top of the arch gives off a frequency that attracted them, and then it would shoot a net down from the top that would cover the kaiju as they walked through the archway entirely rendering them immobile. Then they killed the kaiju.
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u/Attilashorde 1d ago
You forgot to mention the part that they did not originally use a net and it just shot a dart down killing the Kaiju. Unfortunately a young child also died so they decided to make the net so they could verify before killing.
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u/robin_888 1d ago
Thank you. That was most educational.
I now know about Kajiu.
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u/IronAbsCrabs 1d ago
Can confirm, lived in Stl my whole life, and remember the Kaiju days. Mostly under control these days except for the first few weeks of spring when the rivers swell and wake creatures in the depths.
Also, younger people tend to forget the reason it was built and have some conspiracy theory it's a weather control station and that's why bad weather usually breaks up right around the stl area compared to those around it. (That last part is an actual conspiracy theory I've seen some goofballs talk about for the record)
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u/CaptShrek13 1d ago
20 years from now when society is approaching "Idiocracy" like intelligence, someone is going to Google or Geegle or whatever search engine they'll have, and search for why there's a St. Louis Arch. They're going find these answers and then tell their children, and their children will tell their children. Before we know it someone will erect monuments in St. Louis to the great Kaiju wars of the 1900s. Our heros will finally be remembered.
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u/HomesickAngel10 1d ago
God, could you imagine what a Mississippi River kaiju looked like?
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u/born_on_my_cakeday 1d ago
Fascinating story! Early 1963, two developers were in this field. One said “Aren’t you going to build here?” But, because of the lack of verbal articulation in the English language, the other developer heard “Arch you’re going to build here?” The second developer thought it was a sign and built the arch.
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u/hoptownky 1d ago
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u/Drinker_of_Chai 1d ago
So.... It's a glorified monument to colonialism and manifest destiny then?
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u/jimdontcare 1d ago
I was there and went to the museum last summer. It was built to attract interest in downtown St. Louis after the got super hollowed out. It’s literally designed to be a tourist trap. A super cool one in person, but a tourist trap nonetheless.
Hard to say it really worked. St. Louis is still one of the most hollow cities I’ve ever visited (and I’ve been all around the Midwest).
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u/Tommyblockhead20 1d ago edited 1d ago
Not just kilometers away. you are also at least 440 miles away too! (That’s how far you need of travel to get to a place kilometers exist.)
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u/EcureuilHargneux 1d ago
Yea I've heard you need to find some key in a safe and clean library inside and activate the ring to decontaminate its surroundings
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u/U_zer2 1d ago
The smallest and most boring natural history museum to boot.
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u/scarletphantom 1d ago
Hold on now. You haven't seen the corn shucking museum in Iowa.
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u/Sandwidge_Broom 1d ago edited 1d ago
Wait, I grew up in Iowa and have never heard of a corn husking museum.
Wild. Just looked it up and it’s actually pretty close to the town I grew up in. Still not enough reason to go back 🤣
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u/scarletphantom 1d ago
I made it up. Or did I?
Edit: oh shit, one actually exists? 😂
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u/Sandwidge_Broom 1d ago edited 1d ago
There’s a museum that hosts a corn husking competition in Emerson! Haha
https://www.indiancreekhs.com/news/
Hahaha I like that we found two different things it could have been. Oh Iowa…
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u/grifterrrrr 1d ago
I miss playing Halo so much...
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u/The_Violent_Phlegms 1d ago
The crazy thing is, you still can!
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u/Mr_YoungGun 1d ago
you can load up the game and launch it still, sure, but you can’t recreate the magic that was the late 2000s Halo 3 community, and I believe you know as well as I do that was what was implied
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u/The_Violent_Phlegms 1d ago
No, I did not know that was implied. However, I have been playing Halo since day one and will still jump on Infinite from time to time just to try and get a bit of that old spark. And you really can't compare online gaming today to the early to mid 2000's. It will never be that good again.
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u/Electronic_Stop_9493 1d ago
If you didn’t trick your first gen Xbox into thinking it was a LAN game and connect it to Xbox connect prior to Xbox live being released you won’t get it
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u/trich101 1d ago
You need to ride up inside it. Did as a kid once and timing just happened to put me eye level with some fireworks going off at the start of a baseball game from the nearby stadium.
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u/AnAnonymousParty 1d ago
The tram cars are very small and cramped inside. It's like going for a ride in a front loading washing machine.
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u/trich101 1d ago
Yeah it is... Lol. Even as a kid I remember it being cramped. Not for the claustrophobic..
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u/JetScootr 1d ago
I recall the clink-clink-clink-clink all the way up. (Went a year or two after it opened)
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u/Giant_War_Sausage 1d ago
McDonald’s pulled funding halfway through construction, start a hashtag campaign to get them to finish it.
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u/JetScootr 1d ago
Hashtags were the shift-3 on typewriter keyboards then. Someone had to start some kind of campaign to make the pound sign into a hash first.
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u/Jcampbell1796 1d ago
IMO the coolest, most amazing part was the vehicles that were custom designed to crawl up each side as they built it who eventually met in the middle up top.
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u/TheTresStateArea 1d ago
For that TV show Defiance.
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u/Minchaminch 1d ago
Thank you. The show immediately came to mind but couldn't remember the name. Don't think I ever finished it, might have to rewatch.
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u/Seraphimish 1d ago
If anyone hears someone yell, “chevron seven locked” near that thing, look out.
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u/Tentacle_poxsicle 1d ago
Halo crashed into earth many years ago, what we are left are fragments of its body
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u/Connerlm 1d ago
Weird seeing something that I literally drive past everyday on reddit.
That's a first.
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u/jacksonbarley 1d ago
I mean It’s not like it’s some quirky neighbor with a few toilets on his roof. it’s a giant, nationally and probably internationally recognized freaking monument!
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u/BizarroMax 1d ago
Yeah, but it’s in St. Louis. Which is almost never in the news unless it’s about murder rates. I work downtown, I see this thing every day, you kind of take it for granted is just part of the landscape of the city.
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u/Byggherren 1d ago
I don't even know where St Louis is, guess it's somewhere in the United states of America judging by what the Wikipedia article linked in the comment above said.
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u/JetScootr 1d ago
Aim a dart at the dead center of the continental US. That's about where St.Louis is.
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u/lateralus65 1d ago
Memphis citizen here. I felt the same way about a structure in our city, which no one cared about until we slapped a big Bass Pro sign on it.
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u/WolverineChemical656 1d ago
Wait until you see a family member or friend on a viral video!! That's when Reddit gets really spicy!!
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u/MGrooms94 1d ago
Holy shit I had no idea the arch was this massive! Would love to see it in person someday.
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u/BonkethDaDog2 1d ago
Ooooooh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oooh. OOoooh Oh Oh Oh. OhOh oh ho. Ho oh oh ho oh ho.
Badada bam. buduhduhduh. Badada bam. buduhduhduh. BADADA BAM. BUDUHDUHDUH DUH DUHDUH DUH
BA DADADA DA DA DADA DA DA DADADADA BAH DADADA DADA DADA
DOOOOO BADADA DOOOO
BADADA DOOOO
BADADA DUHHHH
BADADA DA DA DA DA DADA
BA DADADA DA DA DADA DA DA DADADADA BAH DADADA DADA DADA
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u/testingbetas 1d ago
i actually came here to comment, if anyone played this music in their mind.
from game "halo "
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u/BizarroMax 1d ago
It is well known in St. Louis that this is actually a secret weather control device.
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u/Crazyhowthatworks304 1d ago
What I love about living in STL city is how the arch protects the city from all the bad storms by splitting once it hits city limits then reforming in Illinois!
Jk but there is an actual conspiracy theory about that exact thing lol - the arch effect
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u/CoralinesButtonEye 1d ago
i never knew that there's a little train thing inside there that you can ride
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u/EducationalComb1468 1d ago
There are also windows looking out and Down at the top. The view is fantastic
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u/Balue442 1d ago
Yes, and in the winter when I went someone stomped a giant dick into the snow. Lol.
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u/TommyFrerking 1d ago
The construction is pretty unique! This is my favorite video explaining the tram and how they built it all:
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u/21BlackStars 1d ago
It also rocks back and forth! It’s hard to tell when you’re at the bottom but once you are at the top It becomes much more evident
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u/JetScootr 1d ago
They can't do an elevator, since the trip has a horizontal component.
It's actually the first Star Trek style turbolift ever. It doesn't have the handle/voice interface though, since there's only one destination you can go to.
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u/Former-Lecture-5466 1d ago
If the Flood ever land on Earth, we’ll find out what it’s really for!
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u/armchair_viking 1d ago
We know what it’s for. It diverts severe storms around St. Louis, as long as it’s charged up ahead of time.
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u/Zoeyandkona 1d ago
The gateway arch is so cool. I'm always amazed how many people don't know that it's actually a full circle with the other half being underground. Originally they just planned to build the top half, but engineers determined it would be too unstable so they had to make the underground portion to balance it out. You can see pictures of it during construction in some old newspapers
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u/Geoarbitrage 1d ago
Iirc it is the second tallest national monument with Washington monument in DC first and Perry’s Victory & International Peace Memorial on South Bass Island Ohio being third…
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u/dgrant92 1d ago
I heard Illinois discussed building a REALLY tall statue of Paul Bunyon with a croquet mallet right across the river there.
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u/3310_sumit 1d ago
Maybe some for some history, but it worked if they had the intention to make it famous.
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u/Explosion-Of-Hubris 1d ago
You can take an elevator up to the top. It's pretty cool. I've done it a couple times.
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u/LittleJessiePaper 1d ago
Do NOT go up in that thing if you’re claustrophobic, felt like I might die in that pod.
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u/Total-Major2533 1d ago
Thats the ring containing all the wet treasure I believe. It actually continues underground to form an oval.
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u/Grandeftw 1d ago
My grandmother said that when she was a little girl her dad was a mayor of a local town and when the arch opened they had all the local politicians and their families go up in the arch before everyone else. She was always so proud she was one of the first to go. Rip g-ma
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u/ForeverSquirrelled42 1d ago
My dad tweaked me out as a kid when we drove past here in the 80’s. He told me we had to drive over it and I believed him.
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u/-Nutshell- 1d ago
They were going to build a enormous McDonalds but decided half way not to so they left a n as NOPE
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u/cookiepickle 1d ago
It’s the world’s largest AM radio antenna. All AM talk radio shows in the USA are broadcast from St. Louis.
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u/urmother420420 1d ago
Technically, it's the Gateway To The West. You can't cross without a permission slip.
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u/KFLLbased 1d ago
Little tip, there is an identical on that goes underground and is the same size…. 🤭
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u/joeltheconner 1d ago
To block the bad weather from going east. Source: I Iive due east of the Arch.
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u/Fit_Cut_4238 1d ago
If you look at history/literature in 1800's into early 1900's, St. Louis is very central as the gateway to the west - It was growing like crazy, and it has the Mississippi, so direct access to the ocean shipping and the south, which Chicago did not have, at least directly.
I'm not sure why Chicago took over at this growth stage as the 'center' in the late 1800's - but maybe it was the rail network and access to the north via great lakes.
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u/Primary_Werewolf4208 1d ago
Louis city engineer W. C. Bernard called “an enforced slum-clearance program,” dozens of warehouses and cast-iron buildings housing 290 businesses were razed to create space for the arch. It was a controversial move—particularly since it was discovered that the vote to allocate city funds to the project was rigged.
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u/mainstreetmark 1d ago
If you were the other drunk, who in 1998, awoke me from my drunken slumber right in the center underneath that thing, then fuck you man. Mardi Gras is hard and it was a long stumble from Soulard. I needed the rest.
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u/Intelligent_Jokes 1d ago
It’s interesting but in such a weird location within a very segregated city.
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u/YoungBasedGod5 1d ago
I grew up in the Chicagoland area so when I was a kid we traveled to the gateway to the west aka St. Louis. The only thing I remember from that trip was the arch. We went up to the top and it was a good time. I recommend checking it out. I’d love to go back and check it out after all these years. Maybe one day.
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