The impossible water tower beauty standards
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- Опубликовано: 17 апр 2024
- Water towers: Why, how, where… Why again? Today we dive into why water towers exist and how they’ve changed over the past 150 years. I go ON LOCATION to Volunteer Park and walk up a water tower to better understand what is happening and why this brick building was designed for looks in 1906.
Support my Patreon so I can make more videos like this one! The ranking water tower video will be out tomorrow (Apr 19).
/ kendragaylord
Sources:
Steel Water Towers Associated with South Dakota Water Systems, 1894-1967 from the South Dakota State Historic Preservation
history.sd.gov/preservation/d...
Volunteer Park water tower, 1925 from the Seattle Municipal Archives
www.flickr.com/photos/seattle...
Ryan Gosling Variety Article by Ramin Setoodeh
variety.com/2024/film/feature...
Chicago House Wrecking Company, 1904 from The Catalog Blog
www.thecatalogblog.com/2019/10...
Seattle’s Highest Hills
www.fink.com/bicycling/hills....
Water Tower, Pump, and Power House Designs - 1893 Engineering Record
archive.org/details/cu3192403...
The Fire of 1879 Deadwood, South Dakota
www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=183179
Living New Deal: Water supply sites from the WPA and PWA
livingnewdeal.org/new-deal-ca...
Minnesota Water Towers
www.minnesotawatertowers.com/...
Rochester, MN Ear of Corn Water Tower
www.experiencerochestermn.com...
The World’s Largest Catsup Bottle Fan Club
www.catsupbottle.com/
South Carolina’s Peachoid in Roadside America
www.roadsideamerica.com/story...
Peach economy in Georgia, South Carolina, and California
theconversation.com/peaches-a...
New York City Water Towers: NYC History & Explanation - American Pipe and Tank
blog.americanpipeandtank.com/...
18 million people served by water systems with lead violations in 2015, report says from PBS Newshour
www.pbs.org/newshour/health/1...
Flooding, treatment plant failure leaves Jackson, Mississippi without drinking water from PBS Newshour
www.pbs.org/newshour/show/flo... 
Развлечения
I rank a bunch of water towers (including the ones in Ypsilanti + Florence) on my Patreon: www.patreon.com/kendragaylord
the modern spheroid water towers looks as good as the old ones imo, they have some sort of futuristic frutiger aero vibe to them and act as canvases for the entire town, which in my opinion has its own charm, also those bare-iron towers look cool aswell, also having grown up near ypsilanti i wouldn't call that thing better looking than any modern tower
and its frustrating to hear the more expressive and nicer modern towers referred to as "kitsch", it doesen't feel very artistically expressive if we designed everything to look like the same old timey building, hell some of the more "kitschy" towers blast some old 1800s towers like that one in ypsilanti out of the water tower, and they also dont look like whatever ypsilanti looks like that i cant say on youtube
Farts are also topics
star with insert subject here and.... Hmmm WE got ryan out he looks bord
Yay! I came down to the comments to mention my home town of Ypsilanti, MI! I was raised there & went to college there (born in California and live there now, as well). However, while we always internally joked about our locally famous water tower, it wasn't until the Internet came along and dubbed it the "world's most phallic building" that it became world famous. It's seriously a weird-looking building, but it has a place in the hearts of millions now. Glad you noticed it!
Florence Y'all! That one always makes me chuckle circleville Ohio has a pumpkin
big day for water tower fans
we're eating good today💅✨
This is why I love RUclips niches so much. Where else am I going to get this quality content?!
It seems (to me at least) that the the next age of the Education side of RUclips (EduTube) is specialty niches. We have Kendra talking about architecture, Oceanliner Designs talking about ship building, Angela Collier talking about physics, Tibees talking about Maths, Miniminuteman talking about archeology etc etc etc. The age of 5 hour long video essays from a layman is coming to an end and the age of short but accurate information from passionate people who actually work in that field is on the rise.
@BadgerOfTheSea i prefer a lecture. Theres Still a place for em.
@@BadgerOfTheSeayou forgot practical engineering - he does hydrodynamics and civil engineering. Theres a really good video on his channel about water towers from an engineer's perspective and I found it really informative even if it isn't as in-depth as this one
666 likes. Oh my 👿
Ooo thanks for the recommendations folks in this thread
I feel seen.
ohh 69
Have you found the sweet life?
You are seen, and tour are loved
so real
"Oh my god, yes. Gravity. From earlier."
I love your style, as well as the way you subtly and expertly deliver jokes and one liners. You are truly a gem on this platform.
her cadence and pace of information and a little bit the humor reminds me of ask a mortician
@@nenben8759Yea, I do get that vibe lol
dry delivery par excellence
@@nenben8759 Same
she’s so funny
You're kind of filling an emotional void that was left by Tom Scott's departure from RUclips. Can you maybe start traveling all over the world to bring cool and bizarre factoids' to me? I mean, uh, us. Now that I think about it, Tom had a full crew that he would bring with him for his travel videos. I imagine that would have been a pretty swanky job. If you get to that point, Kendra, I want you to remember me and this comment. I want a swanky travel job, Kendra. I have a lot riding on your success, here. Don't let me down.
bring me too!!
Love this comment 😂
I just found this channel and I 100% agree
i can point a camera, maybe!
Tom left? Why?
Hello from the "Florence Y'all" water tower in Florence, KY (Ok I'm neither from nor live there but it's close enough). It originally said "Florence Mall" as it's by the mall... in Florence, but had to be changed due to laws about advertising on public utilities. A little white-out and marker later and now we have Florence, Y'all!
thats amazing!!
There's also an independent baseball team called the Florence Y'alls
I came here to mention that!
So the mall closed and they changed it? As a mall enthusiast that kinda sucks. But, Florence Y’all is much cooler anyways.
@SamRK-1000 Looks like the mall is still open, they just weren't allowed to put a giant ad for it on their water tower
I was devastated to learn that the "Earful Tower" water tower at Disney MGM/Hollywood Studios in FL was a fake decorative-only tower for its entire existence.
now i, too, am devastated to learn that
Water towers: the thing New York City has a ton of that you never actually notice since they are so well camouflaged. Lol
Only for people who’ve never seen Flodder In Amerika.
(Dutch movie - spoiler: one character siphons fuel from every car he car find in NYC and stores it in this weird wooden tank on the roof. Eventually the thing blows up…)
aren't they usually on top of tall buildings?
You can see plenty of them if you look at the city from a skyscraper. 😊
I was anti water tower before this video, you changed my life with this one
How and why can anyone be anti-water tower? I am confus
@@danielowefitzpatrick2291 just a little joke
@@danielowefitzpatrick2291 Probably from Australia where the water towers suck the water out of the houses. /jk
😂😂
I work at a retirement home in upstate South Carolina and a 96-year old resident recalled that Peachoid was apparently sitting on the ground for years because they couldn't finish it for whatever reason
Yakko, Wakko and Dot are gonna jump out of that tower.
That's the first thing I thought of
CUZ, WE ARE THE ANIMANIACS!
As the prophecy foretold
That was my first thought as well, I see the WB water tower and all I can think is Animaniacs.
They're tiny
They're toony
They're all a little looney
A perfect day:
Stewart Hicks on Frank Lloyd Wright this morning and Kendra on water towers in the afternoon.
I recently studied architecture history in grad school, and one of the most interesting things I learned was about the role of design in advertising and public relations. Why did everything look so fancy and beautiful in the past? To build public support for things like water towers. Unfortunately, they don't have to be beautiful anymore because the idea of a water tower is no longer novel.
Or with fancy office buildings and department stores like those of Woolworth, Wrigley, Macy's, etc - that's advertising money, the same kind of money that goes into Super Bowl ads these days.
I work in water! I have never known anyone else who already knows what the Engineering Record is. So thank you, for making me feel seen ✨
Did someone talk? I can't see anyone 😜
so what are you like an underwater welder or a swimming teacher?
LET'S GOOOOOOO, THE WATERTOWER VIDEO IS HERE!! thank you for posting it!
u are honestly such a gem to watch. the silly jokes and play on words combined w the super interesting and well thought out information is so entertaining
I’m so glad you mentioned Aquamarine, if only for a moment. I’m a grown man and yet it’s still the first thing that comes to mind whenever water towers come into the conversation.
This movie is what started my obsession! I always wondered if it was in use and a bunch of people had no idea they drank mermaid tea.
omg i was about to comment being like “i grew up next to a water tower and aquamarine made me wanna swim in one”
You get a like and comment for climbing all those stairs to explain this for us😊. Love your sense of humor too!
As it happens, I collected a few dozen fawning photos of water towers from my various travels across the US over my life. No one’s ever seen them, they’re just for me. They’re so charismatic!
Ya gotta have a hobby. I think it's cool though. Print them out and make an old fashioned photo album. For me, that's what triggers great memories that would normally be forgotten with age.
The little stretch at 9:48 is some of the best *dry* comedy I've seen in a while (ironically in a video about something wet.)
I lived 2 miles from that Dixie Water Cup water tower for over a decade and never even knew it was there. I somehow feel like I missed out! We now live a couple of towns over from the World’s Largest Catsup Bottle water tower and call it out just about every time we drive by it. It’s right next to a highway and the way it’s placed among the landscape, it looks quite majestic in it’s own silly way. Great video as always!
That water tower in the park which is visit-able makes me wonder what other important infrastructure could be designed to be visited. I think it would be neat to have information signs all over our infrastructure. Such a combo would make walking around town a lot more interesting, at least for people with such interests, but I also hope it would help develop an awareness of how the world works in people, both young and grown. - thoughts from a civil engineer
Thanks for the great video!
that would be absolutely wonderful!!!
I live near the Peach one in Gaffney and I like seeing it along the road! :)
It’s one of my favorites. Have been waving to it for decades. I have old photos of it taken from the shoulder of the road.
We got a identical one in clanton Alabama where I live , Chilton county is famous for our delicious peaches ,
I'm from Gaffney! Absolutely had to click on the video when I saw the infamous peach tower!
What the hell i just went to that exact water tower in seattle for the first time yesterday!!
We've got an all-time banger in my hometown. Ypsilanti, MI.
Oh that *fucks*
good old phallic water tower
I got this video from Tom Scott, a british person, and when I clicked on it I went "Oh, water towers, I have one near me, but it's probably not going to be featured because it's not that famous." Lo and behold that is the ONE water tower featured on location. Very cool!
i found this blog page fully dedicated to documenting every water tower with a smiley face in america, and now i just gotta convince my friends that it's a good roadtrip idea
The ability to make boring shit interesting is a highly unrecognized talent. If we had a word for it, it would be at the top of your resume.
I've seen the one in Gaffney! Their is a peach stand near the base of it.
I watched this whole thing to see if ypsi would be mentioned.
It was hard to fit in
A history of water towers from someone with the driest wit imaginable ? I am there !!❤
So weird how the government used to be able to build something to meet a public need and nobody said it was communist or that we should let the market decide.
When I was a kid and we visited my grandma's house downtown there was an industrial sector with an old warehouse, railroad track and big old rusty water tower and whenever we passed it in the car I'd freak because it looked like a mechanical monster from War of the Worlds and I'd hide from it by crouching down in the car seat, lol.
NOT MAVIS BEACON TEACHES TYPING AND WORLD PLAY. Honestly, great video I didn't know I needed. Much like all of your content.
why do I feel like I've been tricked into watching 14 minutes and 49 seconds of a lovely person talking about the equally lovely subject of watertowers even though there'd been no sign of deception at all--
"But what about the water towers that look more Aquamarine less aquaduct?" THANK YOU that iconic 2006 cinematic masterpiece is not referenced enough
The style of this video reminds me so much of the format of science education videos in the early 2000's. Whimsical editing and writing while delivering great educational material.
I live near the ketchup bottle (at 0:57 and 11:09) one and pass by it every time I head to town on IL-159. My family likes to point it out when we're together on a drive, similar to when we see the Arch when crossing over into Missouri. Cool video!
- Fred
"Gravity...from earlier!" is the one that made me snort.
Also, thank you for educating me on things I didn't know I was interested in knowing.
My favorite water tower is a few towns over from me and it's a smiley face. You see the smile just as you come over a hill so it pops up and smiles at you. It's between Austin and Houston.
I fully expected at 4:25 after "clean safe water" you would follow it up with "So they installed longer lasting lead water pipes". The humor in this video is great
I have never seen your videos before and I have no idea how this ended up in my feed but I’m so glad it did!
I can tell you had a lot of fun making this and all the work paid off. Such a fun and informative watch.
I’m so glad that RUclips recommended me your video! This was very entertaining and informative! Love it!!
This was sooooo good, Kendra!!!
Deadwood mentioned! I grew up there and could see the big water-towers on the hills above town from my bedroom window. I ended up being grateful for them when a big forest fire burned through town when I was 12. Thanks for teaching me something new about my hometown and state!
Your videos have been popping up randomly on my RUclips feed. I've enjoyed them. Today, I saw my favorite neighborhood water tower, here in Seattle. Now I'm a subscriber.
I wasn't expecting so many location changes! Educational and fun, as always. (also giggled at the toilet flush)
I love the transitions! Good job!
Your jokes and transitions combined with your knowledge of things I never really consider (like water towers ) is so fun to watch! Thanks for the vid!
Your channel holds so much water! Sorry I couldn’t resist but I really have been enjoying checking out your videos. Especially this one. When I was little, I had such a crazy experience with a water tower. It was on a local airport and it was covered in checkered, red and white squares. Something about a 3-D round object covered in squares really tripped me out when I was a kid. Thank you
Video upgrade. We love to see it. Keep up the great work!!!
I'm from Vancouver, and we do not have a water tower (I just googled where ours is and I believe it is in a suburb), but anytime I go on a road trip or in popular media, I see water towers. I never fully understood why they all looked the same, or their purpose, so this video was very interesting. The water tower in the suburb is made of cement and also looks like some type of tower, but it is also in the water, so not your typical one.
i haven’t seen one of your videos before but i loveee the script you wrote for this. Entertaining, slightly irreverent, and educational. I’m subscribed!
This is quality content, I appreciate you and the effort you put into these viddies!!
You've officially become one of my favorite commentary youtubers. Keep up the good work we appreciate it and please never stop giving us details on things we would never think to think about (ok to be fair water towers isnt a good example ever since i was a kid i was fascinated by them and why and how they worked but i still had to watch)
I bloody love that you made this video! Thank you! 💗
Just the whimsy I needed today thank you!
wanted to compliment the "more aquamarine, less aqueduct" line. solid writing there
im so happy you mentioned aquamarine its literally the only reason I know what a water tower is and it left many questions about them in my brain as a kid
Thanks, Kendra, for a really interesting presentation.
This was extremely enjoyable to watch!
This is amazingly done!
I live about 2- 2.5 hours away from Gaffney SC, in NC and I love it everytime I see it bc it reminds me of James and the Giant Peach.
I swear every week I find out another RUclipsr I follow lives at least Seattle-adjacent.
This video rules.
Because the PNW is best 😊
Great video!
This was a great video!! I learned so much, and your humor and delivery style were super engaging :)
thoroughly entertaining and informative video, great job :)
I have never known how water towers worked in my whole life and you have taught me while being so so entertaining. Thanks!
This just popped up in my feed, and it's a delight. You've got a "Technology Connections" vibe, but your delivery is unique. Take your damn like AND your damn follow. MOAR!!
I found my way here through Tom Scott. What a great video! Thank you for sharing and taking the time to create this content.
There was one in my grandparents town when I was growing up (halfway between Houston and Galveston, near Kemah) that I would always gaze up at. It looked actively impossible, a huge blue globe on top of a skinny pole
And filled with water, no less!
A friend of mine told me about a tour she took in Berkeley california where an architect has tracked down all the remaining windmill fed water towers and gives walking tours of some of them! I immediately thought of you and might go on the tour myself!
Very nice banter
I never realized how interesting water towers could be. Thank you 😊
As someone from outside North America... water towers are inescapably one of those "quintessentially American" things in my mind, or at least the big metal ones you see super commonly in TV shows or films set in the US, like the Warner Bros studio one. You just... don't really see them here (I'm in the UK), where water towers do exist they _generally_ tend to belong to the "desperately trying to pretend it's not just a water tower" school of water tower design. If I had to guess, I'd say the reason is probably that the UK tends to prefer building reservoirs up in hills for supplying water and pressure? Then again I'm from Bristol, which is like... 80% hills by volume, so it's not exactly difficult to find a place to put a reservoir that's also conveniently close to your population centres, or convenient high-up places to put smaller reservoir pools, which act like water towers you barely even have to build. (although it's probably worth mentioning that there _is_ a water tower in Bristol, although I had no idea it was one for a long time, as it doesn't look anything like the stereotypical American ones. Weirdly, its biggest claim to fame might be having featured as "Animutation Incorporated" in the old animutation video "French Erotic Film or Colin Mochrie versus Jesus H. Christ" by Andrew Kepple, which is something I didn't realise until I was going past it one day and was like "wait a minute.... that looks familiar?". The early internet of pre-youtube flash animations was a _weird_ place, honestly)
Having said all that, who knows; maybe the lack of visible water towers is just down to architectural sensibilities over here just place greater emphasis on hiding water infrastructure? Or maybe it's that we don't really have any great vast expanses of open flat plains like the US does, so the need for water towers (see above, convenient hills etc.) isn't really there.
Great video, keep it up
i love this video style 😭reminds me of stuff i watched as a kid, i'm not sure what exactly but it feels familiar and comforting
Nice! Thanks for another super fun video! I also love Bernd and Hilla Becher‘s photo series on water towers (worth a look!)
Looking forward to your future posts 🙂
The information I didn’t know I needed.
Thank you!
just found your content, and I absolutely loved this video
love your videos! always epic!!!!
Great script. Keep going out and doing bits
amazing video. love this style of video
a subject i never thought i’d think about, thank you for sharing !!
Great vid as always 😁👍
Love your videos
@10:55 RIP to the Libby’s corn water tower of Rochester MN. A known landmark and fixture of my childhood, beloved by the community, so a few years ago the city allowed it to be bulldozed by a real estate developer and in the place of the historic factories and beloved water tower, they have built nothing. Hurrah! Thanks for showing a fixture of my childhood, if only for the purpose of pun deployment.
Amazing video
Did not know what to expect clicking here, but this is so wonderfully kitchy and niche but relevant. Thanks!
I love this. My dad and his co-worker had a patent on a chemical they created back in the early 80’s to prevent corrosion inside cooling water towers. He’d always point them out on family trips and I thought he had the coolest job (no pun intended) 😊
I came for the knowledge and wit and was overjoyed by the wordplay.
"Gravity! From earlier!" ;'D Kendra, you're a delight.
This is so brilliantly done and made me laugh too hard at some points! Thank you for sharing this and I look forward to what else you have in store!
This was such a good script, relentless consistency.
amazing video
I've never thought about the aesthetics of water towers before.
I’m glad you included the worlds largest catsup bottle water tower just across the river from StL. I wish you would’ve included our 3 historic beautiful standpipe water towers though. There are 3 of the only 7 left in the country here in St. Louis! 😊