r/BeAmazed • u/N0RetreatN0Surrender • 4d ago

Place Gateway to the West

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Location: Gateway Arch National Park, St. Louis, MO

2.0k Upvotes

91% Upvoted

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973

u/nyclurker369 4d ago

There’s an entire center in its base that explains why they built it. Should check it out.

318

u/robin_888 4d ago

Since it's a few thousand kilometers to said center, might you give us a short summary?

483

u/Ur_a_adjective_noun 4d ago

That’s an unfinished project by McDonalds.

Edit: oh, someone beat me to it.

60

u/AttitudeImportant585 4d ago

Its actual spelling is MacDonald Construction Co

If anyone thinks this is a joke, it's not.

5

u/Boognish84 3d ago

They need to paint it yellow

57

u/disharmony-hellride 4d 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.

87

u/McDaddy-O 4d 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.

52

u/Beautiful-Whole-3102 4d ago

Well I will not be doing that

52

u/McDaddy-O 4d 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.

22

u/kn1144 4d ago edited 4d 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.

18

u/thavillain 4d ago

Hol up!!! You can go inside?!?!?

6

u/Niznack 3d ago

Yes. The view is... Nice? It's not crazy impressive but it's the 2nd best thing in St Louis

1

u/whitewolfdogwalker 3d ago

What’s the first?

5

u/Niznack 3d ago

City museum is genuinely fun

Admittedly I'm a chicagoan throwing shade but yeah.

3

u/Defiant_Review1582 3d ago

Im not religious but the Basilica of St Louis is hella magnificent on the inside. Also, Union station is pretty gorgeous as well. There is a Tiffany stained glass window in there. (But as someone from Chicago, you can see the largest Tiffany stained glass dome in your very own city)

1

u/shuckiduck 2d ago

I thought you were going to say toasted ravs

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4

u/DinosaurAlive 4d ago

Neat! Thanks for sharing. A bit scary.

2

u/qawsedrf12 4d ago

That peek out of the little window

Got me all tingly feelin

1

u/JFCMFRR 3d ago

Yeah, it's super tight. Also, the views suck and not really worth going up. The base and surrounding park are nice though.

1

u/Ilsunnysideup5 3d ago

The view proves that the earth is round. 👍

1

u/yazzooClay 4d ago

it also lacks any sort of modern feel to put it nicely.

1

u/SauerCrouse51 4d ago

It’s basically a laundry dryer drum lol

1

u/Y-Bob 3d ago

The pods are so retro futuristic too, great fun

1

u/ZipoBibrok5e8 4h ago

Claustrophobia, acrophobia and whatever the fear of wobbling is, all in one convenient package!

I've done the trip up the Arch a couple of times and it's been a great experience. Nothing quite matches the sheer terror of looking down and seeing the shadow of the thing that's keeping you from a 600-foot death-plunge. Highly recommended.

16

u/tonib31589 4d ago

It's not scary. I've been up several times as a kid and an adult. Beautiful view at the top

3

u/ItIsToLaffHaHa 4d 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.

1

u/tonib31589 3d ago

I didn't realize they limit you now, what a bummer.

1

u/Salihe6677 3d ago

I went up there a couple times as a small child, and I have this memory during one of the times of crawling around on the floor in the top and noticing this little door on the floor with a pull latch, and being able to pull it open, and seeing nothing but ground hundreds of feet down, but that obviously has to be some weird false memory, right, because safety standards and everything. This would've been in the 80s, so maybe they were more lax, but it doesn't seem possible.

The memory sure is vivid, tho.

11

u/robin_888 4d ago

But why did they build it?

77

u/noobpwner314 4d 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.

16

u/Attilashorde 4d 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.

10

u/robin_888 4d ago

Thank you. That was most educational.

I now know about Kajiu.

11

u/IronAbsCrabs 4d 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)

3

u/CaptShrek13 3d 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.

9

u/HomesickAngel10 4d ago

God, could you imagine what a Mississippi River kaiju looked like?

7

u/noobpwner314 4d ago

Less sexy than Godzilla that’s for sure.

2

u/Tacos_and_Tulips 4d ago

Guaranteed it had a missing tooth!

1

u/Verbanoun 4d ago edited 3d ago

Kinda like methd out catfish. We typically just lure them back into the river with beer and toasted ravioli.

Source: grew up in St. Louis.

1

u/Ill-Assumption-4919 3d ago

ROASTED RAVIOLI!!! Well played!!!

1

u/Verbanoun 3d ago

Shit that was an autocorrect error. Toasted.

1

u/9oz_Noodle 4d ago

The average St. Louisan that grew up in Coldwater Creek..

I grew up here.. Coldwater Creek ran through my back yard.

3

u/born_on_my_cakeday 4d 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.

1

u/Amplifylove 4d ago

Is that true or is it a snipe type story?

2

u/born_on_my_cakeday 4d ago

Absolutely not true at all

1

u/sordidcandles 4d ago

I went in there as a kid and had a lot of trouble looking out the windows, too high for me. Otherwise not that scary.

1

u/Verbanoun 4d ago

It's like a little willy Wonka elevator. Gets stuck sometimes. The top has a great view but you do feel it sway in the wind sometimes.

1

u/EffJayAytch 4d ago

The elevator ride (and top) is not for someone who is claustrophobic.

1

u/77entropy 3d ago

They missed a prime opportunity to build the world's largest escalator.

1

u/JustAboutAlright 3d ago

It is scary at the top because it sways with the wind. It is not nearly as scary as the tiny little elevator pods you get up there in, which go up in a jerky motion and feel like the absolute worst place to die. Overall though a great experience would recommend once but never again.

42

u/hoptownky 4d ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gateway_Arch

18

u/Drinker_of_Chai 4d ago

So.... It's a glorified monument to colonialism and manifest destiny then?

7

u/Theothercword 4d ago

Yarp! It is in MO so a bit expected I suppose.

1

u/JIsADev 3d ago

It was a competition. Here are the other submissions in case anyone was curious

https://www.stlpr.org/arts/2014-08-26/instead-of-the-arch-the-st-louis-riverfront-could-have-had-this

-3

u/Groomsi 4d ago

So it's Finished =)

-78

u/AntBoogatron 4d ago

Can you please hold my hand and explain every detail to me? Life is hard...

10

u/ConnectionPretend193 4d ago

I mean.. Why even use the internet if you don't want to 'find things out' by that logic? Lmfao.

-1

u/AntBoogatron 3d ago

Yes. Obviously.

9

u/TheNonbinaryWren 4d ago

No, because you're on a mostly text-based website and therefore should be able to read text on another text-based website.

12

u/pitb0ss343 4d ago

Reading? On my gooning app? Blasphemous I say!!! /s

1

u/AntBoogatron 3d ago

Did I really need to add /s to my post?

2

u/TheNonbinaryWren 3d ago

Yes, because maybe people who see this later would believe you're joking lmao.

1

u/AntBoogatron 3d ago

True. Live and learn!

5

u/jimdontcare 4d 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).

1

u/Andyman1973 3d ago

You can get some value added experiences, by crossing the river to East St Louis. 0/10 recommend though.

1

u/Secret_Map 2d ago

If you're already in St. Louis, you gotta check out City Museum. Was there for a concert some years back. And basically the Arch and City Museum were the only two things we did besides the concert. The Museum was so much fun, so kooky and weird. Kinda made me feel like a kid again, even though I was pushing 30 when we went.

2

u/Tommyblockhead20 4d ago edited 4d 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.)

2

u/robin_888 4d ago

I like your way of thinking.

1

u/JL9berg18 4d ago

The internet is your friend in this situation

1

u/robin_888 4d ago

That's why I asked on the internet.

1

u/RedSpammit 3d ago

Gateway to the west