Originally published at: Atlas Obscura's list of the world's weird and wonderful water towers | Boing Boing
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No love for South Carolina’s “Peachoid”?
There was a whole storyline about it in a House of Cards episode.
The Cochituate Standpipe in Boston, although not a working water tower for at least a century. Some residents don’t even know what it is.
Not really all that weird, but I love the architecture.
I found this one quite intriguing:
or the giant catsup bottle in Collinsville, IL?
Barcelona has quite a lot of modernist-era water towers and they are gorgeous brickwork works of art
Poble Sec
Eixample
Tibidabo
One of my favourites is in Lüneburg.
This doesn’t look like much, these days (as seen on Google Maps - I haven’t been this way in many years)
It’s next to the airport in Grand Prairie, TX. Back in the 1980s, this was painted red-and-white (in horizontal layers; not in a checkerboard pattern that one might otherwise see near an airport). At night, lights around its “equator” flashed in a rotating pattern, as though the lights were spinning around its perimeter. The effect was like a big flying saucer.
Further up that same highway, closer to DFW Airport, was another water tower that had a similar spinning effect, but faster (and the reservoir wasn’t painted red-and-white).
Owner of that website has been photographing Finnish water towers since 2005.
These kinds of really common water towers I had a fascination with when I was a kid. On family trips I would always marvel at them, since we didn’t have any near my hometown.
ATAB (All Towers Are Beautiful)
(Old water tower for the Isabel II Channel, now converted to exposition center)
Our city has one of these. It’s a mostly beloved local icon. It reminds me of a friendly War of the Worlds invader.
That’s a nice photo too.
It’s a crime that the Leaning Tower of Niles wasn’t in this list.
I am so sad The World’s Most Phallic Building didn’t make the list.
AKA - Tower of Power, or more commonly The Brick Dick
Also of note to water tower enthusiasts, the Compton Hill reservoir and tower in St. Louis.
The tower is open for visits several times a year, but alas, I’ve never made it.
Edit: better photo
So I went out and bought me a leisure suit
I jingle my change but I’m still kinda cute
Got a job doing radio promo
And none of the jocks can even tell I’m a homo
Eventually me and a friend
Sorta drifted along into S&M
I can take about an hour on the tower of power
As long as I get a little golden shower
My name is Bobby Brown, watch me now I’m going down
Was Zappa homophobic? He ridiculed a lot of people in his lyrics.