Does anyone remember the Seven Wonders of the World in the parking lot of Great Western Shopping Center on the west side?
A now-retired COTA driver told me about it back in the 1980s. In the 1990s I asked my wife, and she said she remembered playing on it while her parents shopped at J.C. Penney's. She could not remember any other details, but since her family did not move to Columbus until 1964 it was obviously still around in the 1960s.
It was called the Walk-o-Wonders. But I can't figure out exactly what wonders it included. If you look in World Book Encyclopedia, for example, you will find two lists of the world's seven wonders:
Seven Natural Wonders of the World
- Grand Canyon, one mile deep and 277 miles long located in northern Arizona, United States.
- Mount Everest, the world's highest mountain standing at 29,035 feet above sea level along the border of Nepal and Tibet as part of the massive Himalaya mountain range.
- Ayers Rock, the world's largest rock, rises 1,142 feet in the air in central Australia.
- Victoria Falls, a waterfall on the Zambezi River in southern Africa, is one mile wide and 355 feet high.
- Meteor Crater is a huge depression, 570 feet deep and 4,180 feet wide in the ground formed 50,000 years ago when a meteorite struck the earth near Winslow, Arizona.
- The Great Barrier Reef is the world's longest group of coral reefs, following the Australian coast for 1,400 miles.
Then there are the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World
- The Temple of Artemis at Empesus was one of the largest temples built in Greece and features extensive use of marble.
- The Statue of Zeus at Olympia, Greece is made of gold and ivory.
- The Pyramids of Egypt at Giza are just outside the present day city of Cairo.
- The Lighthouse at Alexandria, Egypt, was the world's first major lighthouse and marked the city's harbor for about 1,500 years.
- The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were probably built by King Nebuchadnezzar II for his wife.
- The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus was a marble tomb built for local ruler Mausolus, hence the name.
- The Colossus of Rhodes was built in honor of the sun god Helios. It was constructed after the people of Rhodes survived a yearlong siege by a large force of Macedonians.
In the picture you can see a waterfall (which one?) and what appears to be Temple of Artemis at Empesus and the Pyramids of Egypt in the background.
Were both lists of wonders included in the Walk-o-Wonders? Or is there another list I am not aware of? If anyone remembers, please email me at columbusoh.guide@about.com.
Why is it that everything interesting like this is now gone? In this case, was that hole for the falls a liability?
