COUNTRY
CITY
OWNER
FEET
METERS
USA
Philadelphia
rocky film
56
18
The 72 stone steps before the entrance of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, have become known as the “Rocky Steps” as a result of the scene from the film Rocky. Tourists often mimic Rocky’s famous climb, a metaphor for an underdog or an everyman rising to a challenge. A bronze Rocky statue was briefly situated at the top of the steps for the filming of Rocky III. This statue, now located at the bottom right of the steps, is a popular photo opportunity for visitors. The top of the steps offers a commanding view of Eakins Oval, the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, and Philadelphia City Hall.
In 2006, Rocky creator Sylvester Stallone recounted the genesis of the iconic scene: (while filming the 1976 movie) the film crew, bound by a tight budget, identified the steps one night while searching for filming locations around the city. Stallone first thought Rocky should carry his dog Butkus up the steps, but the big bull mastiff proved too heavy for the scene to work. Still, the view from the top of the stairs inspired him to reshoot the scene without the dog. Also in Rocky Balboa, Rocky lifts his dog Punchy when he reaches the top of the steps.
LOCATION
CITY
OWNER
FEET
METERS
USA
New York (bronx)
Joker
85
26
The Joker Stairs, connecting Shakespeare and Anderson Avenues at West 167th Street in The Bronx, near the 167th Street station, are a set of steep stairs that served as one of the filming locations in the 2019 psychological thriller, Joker. India Today notes, “Even though the stairs have been around for years and lead to some of the most famous spots in New York, like the Yankee Stadium, the Bronx Zoo and the New York Botanical Garden, they were never really popular because of their association with crime in the area.”
In the film, the titular Joker is shown walking up these stairs during his daily routine early on. Later, during the film’s climax, he dances down the stairs wearing a bright red suit and clown makeup, as Gary Glitter’s “Rock and Roll Part 2” plays in the background. The stairs have appeared in a promotional poster for the film and become a tourist destination, and both the stairs and the dance have become Internet memes. Many visitors reenact the scene from the film, sometimes in Joker attire, to the point that the stairs have become crowded with sightseers.
Country
CITY
Year
FEET
METERS
United Kingdom
Liverpool
1911
104
32
RMS Titanic was a British passenger liner that sank in the North Atlantic Ocean in 1912 after striking an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York City. Of the estimated 2,224 passengers and crew aboard, more than 1,500 died, making the sinking one of modern history’s deadliest peacetime commercial marine disasters. RMS Titanic was the largest ship afloat at the time she entered service and was the second of three Olympic-class ocean liners operated by the White Star Line. She was built by the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast. Thomas Andrews, chief naval architect of the shipyard at the time, died in the disaster.
Titanic was under the command of Capt. Edward Smith, who also went down with the ship. The ocean liner carried some of the wealthiest people in the world, as well as hundreds of emigrants from Great Britain and Ireland, Scandinavia and elsewhere throughout Europe who were seeking a new life in the United States. The first-class accommodation was designed to be the pinnacle of comfort and luxury, with a gymnasium, swimming pool, libraries, high-class restaurants and opulent cabins.
COUNTRY
CITY
OWNER
FEET
METERS
USA
LOS ANGELES
SPACEX
230
70
Falcon Heavy is the most powerful operational rocket in the world by a factor of two. With the ability to lift into orbit nearly 64 metric tons (141,000 lb)—a mass greater than a 737 jetliner loaded with passengers, crew, luggage and fuel–Falcon Heavy can lift more than twice the payload of the next closest operational vehicle, the Delta IV Heavy, at one-third the cost. Falcon Heavy draws upon the proven heritage and reliability of Falcon 9.
Its first stage is composed of three Falcon 9 nine-engine cores whose 27 Merlin engines together generate more than 5 million pounds of thrust at liftoff, equal to approximately eighteen 747 aircraft. Only the Saturn V moon rocket, last flown in 1973, delivered more payload to orbit. Falcon Heavy was designed from the outset to carry humans into space and restores the possibility of flying missions with crew to the Moon or Mars.
LOCATION
OWNER
FEET
METERS
THE ISLAND
LOST
250
75
A giant statue of the Egyptian goddess Taweret stood in its entirety on the shore of the Island (Lost- TV series). Jacob lived in a chamber in the statue’s pedestal for an unknown amount of time, even after the statue’s near total destruction in 1867 by a storm surge that propelled the Black Rock into the head of the statue, smashing it to pieces. The ship’s impact preserved only the statue’s left calf and foot with its distinctive four toes.
COUNTRY
CITY
Year
FEET
METERS
USA
New York
1776
305
93
The Statue of Liberty (Liberty Enlightening the World; French: La Liberté éclairant le monde) is a colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor in New York, in the United States. The copper statue, a gift from the people of France to the people of the United States, was designed by French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi and its metal framework was built by Gustave Eiffel. The statue was dedicated on October 28, 1886.
The Statue of Liberty is a figure of Libertas, a robed Roman liberty goddess. She holds a torch above her head with her right hand, and in her left hand carries a tabula ansata inscribed in Roman numerals with “JULY IV MDCCLXXVI” (July 4, 1776), the date of the U.S. Declaration of Independence. A broken shackle and chain lie at her feet as she walks forward, commemorating the recent national abolition of slavery. The statue became an icon of freedom and of the United States, and a national park tourism destination. It is a welcoming sight to immigrants arriving from abroad.
COUNTRY
CITY
CITY
FEET
METERS
Ukraine
Pripyat
1977
361
110
The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant (officially the Vladimir Ilyich Lenin Nuclear Power Plant) is a closed nuclear power plant near the abandoned city of Pripyat in northern Ukraine, 14.5 kilometers (9 ml) northwest of the city of Chernobyl.
Reactor No. 4 was the site of the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, and the power plant is now within a large restricted area known as the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. Both the zone and the former power plant are administered by the State Agency of Ukraine on Exclusion Zone Management. The three other reactors remained operational after the accident but were eventually shut down by 2000, although the plant remains in the process of decommissioning as of 2019. Nuclear clean-up is scheduled for completion in 2065.
COUNTRY
CITY
FEET
METERS
EGYPT
PHAROS, ALEXANDRIA
450
137
The Lighthouse of Alexandria, sometimes called the Pharos of Alexandria, was a lighthouse built by the Ptolemaic Kingdom, during the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus (280–247 BC). One of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, for many centuries it was one of the tallest man-made structures in the world.
The lighthouse was severely damaged by three earthquakes between AD 956 and 1323 and became an abandoned ruin. It was the third longest surviving ancient wonder (after the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus and the extant Great Pyramid of Giza), surviving in part until 1480, when the last of its remnant stones were used to build the Citadel of Qaitbay on the site.
COUNTRY
CITY
OWNER
FEET
METERS
USA
Gotham City
DC Comics
603
184
Within the DC Universe, Wayne Tower is the headquarters of Wayne Enterprises. Also called “Old Wayne Tower” and “Wayne Industries Headquarters”; it was built in 1888 by Alan Wayne. After its construction, the tower was the tallest building in Gotham City. Built as a symbol to welcome all of those who enter the city, Wayne Tower has 13 gargoyles or “guardians”, which Alan Wayne insisted they be called, welcome visitors for each of the 13 entry points into the city. The five guardians on the first tier watch the original five gateways into Gotham, the three bridges and two tunnels. Higher up, the seven guardians watch the seven train lines that converge at Union Station below the tower’s base. A 13th guardian was added in 1930 and sits in the middle of the tower. This last one, added by Henry Wayne, watches the airport and cannot be seen by elevator or from the deck.
At the top of the tower is an observation deck which Alan Wayne asserted be open to the public for free every weekend. It has double bonded laminated float glass for windows that are crystal-quality, weatherproof, and unbreakable.
COUNTRY
OWNER
Year
FEET
METERS
Scotland
Ministry of magic
933
700
213
Hogwarts Castle is a large, seven-story high building supported by magic, with a hundred and forty two staircases throughout its many towers and turrets and very deep dungeons. The castle was built in the late Early Middle Ages (c. 993) by a wizard architect and the four most celebrated wizards of the age: Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw and Salazar Slytherin. The castle is the main building of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, regarded as the finest wizarding school in the world.
Hogwarts is built in a valley area — surrounding mountains are part of the landscape — with the fairly large Great Lake to the south of the main building. The huge main oak front doors leading into the Entrance Hall face the west, and open up to sloping lawns. The deep Forbidden Forest extends around to the west of the castle. There are also exterior greenhouses and vegetable patches on the school grounds.
Hogwarts is located in the Scottish Highlands, near the all-wizard village of Hogsmeade and “not far” from Dufftown, in Banffshire, and Achintee, in Lochaber.
COUNTRY
CITY
OWNER
FEET
METERS
USA
NEW YORK
MARVEL
1 130
344
The tower formerly known as Stark Tower and Avengers Tower is a high-rise building complex located in Manhattan, New York City.
Constructed by Tony Stark, the tower was powered by an Arc Reactor that makes it capable of running itself for over a year. The top ten floors were originally all devoted to research and development.
COUNTRY
CITY
OWNER
FEET
METERS
China
Hong kong
Skyscraper
3 500
1 067
The fictional Hong Kong skyscraper The Pearl appeared in the 2018 movie “Skyscraper”. It has 3.500 ft (1,066.8m), 240 stories tall. When it was built, the building would be the tallest building in the world, exceed the Burj Khalifa in Dubai and Jeddah Tower in Jeddah.
Rising 240 stories above Hong Kong, the building features a spherical glass observation deck at the top-that’s where the name The Pearl comes from. Between floors 200 and 230 is a giant wind turbine located within the building, generating its own power and making it a green skyscraper. Adding to its greenness is a giant, 30-story botanical garden located on the 100th floor. There’s also an Olympic- sized swimming pool, gyms, basketball courts, a driving range, a movie theater, and a six story shopping mall – in addition to luxury apartments and hotels.
LOCATION
OWNER
FEET
METERS
MORDOR
THE LORD OF THE RINGS
4 482
1 366
The name Barad-dûr is Sindarin, from barad “tower” and dûr “dark”. It was called Lugbúrz in the Black Speech of Mordor, from lug “tower” and búrz “dark”. The Black Speech (created by Sauron) was one of the languages used in Barad-dûr. The soldiers there used a debased form of the tongue. In The Lord of the Rings “Barad-dûr,” “Lugbúrz,” and “the Dark Tower” are occasionally used as metonyms for Sauron.
In the Second Age, Sauron began to stir again and chose Mordor as a stronghold in which to build his fortress. It was strengthened by the power of the One Ring, which had recently been forged; its foundations would survive as long as the Ring existed. Gandalf described the Ring as being the “…foundation of Barad-dûr…” The Dark Tower is described as being composed of iron, being black and having battlements and gates. In a painting by Tolkien, however, the walls are of mainly grey stone and brick, and battlements, gates and towers are not visible.
COUNTRY
CITY
FEET
METERS
ARGENTINA / CHILE
MENDOZA
15 092
4 600
Mount Seler is a mountain located on the border between Argentina and Chile in the Andes mountain range. The mountain was first climbed by Nando Parrado, a survivor of a nearby plane crash, who made the ascent with the intent of finding civilization. This was also the mountain’s first winter ascent. At the summit, he used lipstick to write “Seler” on a plastic bag, which he stuffed under a rock. Nando named the mountain after his father Seler Parrado, who was his motivation to survive.
Fernando “Nando” Seler Parrado Dolgay (born 9 December 1949) is one of the sixteen Uruguayan survivors of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, which crashed in the Andes mountains on 13 October 1972. After spending two months trapped in the mountains with the other crash survivors, he, along with Roberto Canessa, climbed through the Andes mountains over a 10-day period to find help. His efforts, supported in various ways by the entire group, have been recognized through books and other media.
Roberto Jorge Canessa Urta, M.D., (born 17 January 1953) is one of the 16 survivors of the Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, which crashed in the Andes mountains on 13 October 1972, and a Uruguayan political figure.