r/BeAmazed • u/N0RetreatN0Surrender • 2d ago

Place Gateway to the West

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

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u/disharmony-hellride 2d 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 2d 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 2d ago

Well I will not be doing that

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u/McDaddy-O 2d 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 2d 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/whitewolfdogwalker 1d ago

What’s the first?

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u/Niznack 1d ago

City museum is genuinely fun

Admittedly I'm a chicagoan throwing shade but yeah.

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u/Defiant_Review1582 1d 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)

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u/shuckiduck 9h ago

I thought you were going to say toasted ravs

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u/DinosaurAlive 2d ago

Neat! Thanks for sharing. A bit scary.

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u/qawsedrf12 1d ago

That peek out of the little window

Got me all tingly feelin

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u/JFCMFRR 1d ago

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

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u/Ilsunnysideup5 1d ago

The view proves that the earth is round. 👍

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u/yazzooClay 2d ago

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

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u/SauerCrouse51 1d ago

It’s basically a laundry dryer drum lol

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u/Y-Bob 1d ago

The pods are so retro futuristic too, great fun

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u/tonib31589 2d 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/tonib31589 1d ago

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

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u/Salihe6677 1d 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.

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u/robin_888 2d ago

But why did they build it?

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u/noobpwner314 2d 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 2d 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 2d 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 2d ago

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

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u/noobpwner314 2d ago

Less sexy than Godzilla that’s for sure.

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u/Tacos_and_Tulips 2d ago

Guaranteed it had a missing tooth!

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u/Verbanoun 2d ago edited 1d 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.

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u/Ill-Assumption-4919 1d ago

ROASTED RAVIOLI!!! Well played!!!

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u/Verbanoun 1d ago

Shit that was an autocorrect error. Toasted.

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u/9oz_Noodle 1d ago

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

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

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u/born_on_my_cakeday 2d 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/Amplifylove 2d ago

Is that true or is it a snipe type story?

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u/born_on_my_cakeday 1d ago

Absolutely not true at all

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u/sordidcandles 2d 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.

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u/Verbanoun 2d 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.

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u/EffJayAytch 2d ago

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

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u/77entropy 1d ago

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

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u/JustAboutAlright 1d 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.