Florida may be America’s Sunshine State but these odd abandoned wonders reveal a darker side to the land of oranges, alligators and retirement communities.

Speaking of ‘gators, who ever thought that primeval, carnivorous reptilian monsters would make an alluring and enduring tourist trap? Lotsa folks, actually, though often as not their efforts were unsuccessful – more on that later. Jungleland Zoo in Kissimmee, Florida was one such failed alligator-themed attraction. Originally established in the 1970’s as “Alligator Safari Zoo”, the place changed both its name and its management in 1995.

The more things change, the more they stay the same… such was the case with Jungleland. Criticism from state and federal wildlife and animal welfare agencies punctuated by the widely-publicized escape of a 450-lb lioness led the the place being shut down and abandoned in 2002. The 126-foot long alligator statue which stood in front of the on-site Gator Motel was demolished in October of 2014. Flickr user amysusanne’s photo set dating from August of 2012 allows us to recall the singular glory of an enormous artificial alligator eating a car.

Heart Of Glass

Let the Space Age begin! The First Federal Savings and Loan Association of Cocoa, Cocoa Beach Branch opened in 1962 and featured the Sky Room restaurant – a likely hangout for Major Nelson and Jeannie.

Dreams must confront reality sometime, however, and in 2004 Hurricane Frances damaged the Glass Bank‘s lower floors so severely it never re-opened. Shattered windows enabled ingress by vandals and encouraged the spread of toxic mold. By 2014 the City had had enough: demolition (watch it here) was approved and within a year this iconic building was no more.

Flying Saucerful Of Secrets

The so-called “Alien House” in Homestead, Florida, was built in 1974 – purportedly by a big-time drug trafficker whose cover was being a big-cat exotic animal importer. Sounds legit!

The house was purchased by a doctor from New York shortly before Hurricane Andrew struck in 1992; the powerful storm rendered the unconventional abode uninhabitable by man or beast. The structure then sat abandoned, accumulating an abundance of graffiti, until late 2013 when it was finally demolished.

To The Bat Tower!

When the late great Robert Burns wrote “the best laid schemes of Mice and Men oft go awry, leaving us nothing but grief and pain,” he could have been describing the sad saga of the Sugarloaf Key Bat Tower (also known as the Perky Bat Tower) in Monroe County, Florida.

Built in 1929 at a (for the time) staggering cost of $10,000 in a well-meaning effort to house mosquito-eating Mexican Free-Tailed bats, the 30-foot-tall tower was immediately abandoned by the hundreds of bats procured to stock it. Great depression then ensued – in more ways than one. Over 80 years later the still bat-less tower still stands on Sugarloaf Key, mocked by man and mosquito alike.

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Shunned Shine State 10 More Abandoned Wonders Of Florida

When planning out world travel, one typically dwells on destinations more than times, but some of the best sights can only been seen at a particular point in the day or, in the case of these marvels, at night.

WebUrbanist is pleased to announce a new partnership with Google Field Trip, bringing some of our best and brightest travel articles to their mobile platform, allowing you to find hidden wonders of the world wherever (and whenever) you may be. In this article, we have teamed up to highlight seven amazing places to visit by night, each offering special surprises to the nocturnally inclined.

World’s Largest Urban Bat Colony in Austin, Texas

At dusk, people flock to watch the emergence of 1.5 million bats from beneath the Congress Avenue Bridge, designed and built in 1980 in a way that inadvertantly turned out to provide an ideal roost for a particular breed of flying nocturnal predators.

Often under-appreciated or even feared, these night flyers consume between 10,000 and 20,000 pounds of food each evening, helping them earn their keep. Today, there is even a dedicated Statesman Bat Observation Center from which visitors are encouraged to experience the spectacle.

World’s Largest Ice & Snow Festival in Harbin, China

By far the biggest such event in the world, the Harbin International Ice & Snow Sculpture Festival consists of huge works of art and architecture that truly come into their own once the sun sets and glowing lights behind and within bricks of ice come to life.

Using swing saws to cut ice directly from an adjacent river, artists then turn the frozen building blocks into human, animal and mythical figures as well as huge staircases and structures. Among other honors and awards, a snow sculpture featured at the festival holds the world’s record for size at 750 feet by 28 feet (13,000 cubic meters of snow). Other similarly-impressive global ice festivals can be found in Japan, Canada and Norway as well.

Synchronous Firefly Swarms near Knoxville, Tennessee

Fireflies can be a wonderful sight regardless of the species, but one rare type in particular (Photinus Carolinus), is even more special than its cousins: the so-called Synchronous Firefly swarms light up in unison, pulsing every few seconds at the exact same time.

At Great Smoky Mountains National Park, viewers can buy tickets in advance and be taken by shuttle to special viewing areas from which to observe these lightning bugs. Within the park, 18 other species of firefly can also be found, but only one whose constituents almost all flash simultaneously.

Ghost Ship Water Hologram in Amsterdam, Holland

A maritime marvel in more ways than one, this 3D optical illusion involves two intersecting planar projections beamed onto perpendicular planes of vertical water.

Created for the Amsterdam Light Festival by VisualSkin, the resulting real-life rendering looks like a 17th-century seafaring vessel seemingly held in stasis and composed of water and light. The effect, naturally, works best at night, turning a fountain by day into a marvelously surprising evening display.

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Nocturnal Field Trips 7 World Wonders Best Explored At Night

We hear so much about the vanished wonders of the ancient architectural world, it’s easy to forget about those of our more recent history, from the 19th century to the present. These train stations, palaces, monuments and skyscrapers may not be as grand and dramatic as the Colossus of Rhodes and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, but each of them represents the loss of an icon. Whether by fire, war, demolition or terrorist attacks, these 7 destroyed architectural wonders may be gone, but they remain important symbols of our cultural heritage.

Old Penn Station, New York City

Just one of many historic New York City buildings that have vanished, the original Pennsylvania Station was a pink granite structure inspired by Roman and Greek architecture, occupying two city blocks from Seventh Avenue to Eighth Avenue and from 31st to 33rd Streets. It covered an area of 8 acres, and featured a cavernous concourse. Inspired by the Roman Baths of Carcalla, the main waiting room was the largest indoor space in New York City at 150 feet in height, and one of the largest public spaces in the world. It served as a spectacular entrance to the city, with dozens of passenger trains arriving and departing each day for cities like Chicago and St. Louis.

Its grandiosity couldn’t save it from the onward march of progress, however. By the late 1950s, intercity rail travel declined dramatically. Plans for a new Penn Station, which is now the busiest passenger transportation facility in the United States, were announced in 1962; demolition on the old building began in 1963, making way for Madison Square Garden. The cost of maintaining the building had become prohibitive. Three eagles statues from the station were salvaged and remain in the city, including two in front of the Penn Plaza and Madison Square Garden complex.

The Crystal Palace, London

Built in Hyde Park, London to house the Great Exhibition of 1851, The Crystal Palace was a cast iron and plate glass building measuring 990,000 square feet. It hosted more than 14,000 exhibitors from around the world, displaying examples of the latest technology. The building was rebuilt even larger when the exhibition was over, in a residential area beside Sydenham Hill, to become a ‘winter park and garden under glass.’ It boasted two towers and a number of fountains with over 11,000 jets, and soon became the world’s first theme park with a rollercoaster, cricket matches and other entertainment. The gardens even had a prehistoric swamp with models of dinosaurs, just thirty years after the existence of these creatures was discovered.

But times were hard, and the owners had difficulty making enough money to keep the Palace running. It fell into financial ruin and underwent a series of misfortunes including wind damage and fires. It was declared bankrupt in 1911. In 1936, another fire broke out, this one catastrophic, and the building could not be saved. The grounds have been used for various purposes since then, and in 2011, it was announced that the Crystal Palace Football Club would build a new stadium and athletic track there.

Königsberg Castle, East Prussia

With its beginnings in the 13th century and a great expansion in the 1700s, Köningsberg Castle was an important landmark in the East Prussan capital of Königsberg (Kaliningrad) for centuries. What began as a fortress was later designated a castle, home to the Grandmasters of the Teutonic Order and then various Prussian rulers. It featured a gothic tower stretching 328 feet into the air, with 284 steps to the top. It contained an extensive library as well as a palace church. By the 20th century, many rooms were turned into a museum full of art and provincial archives.

The region was plunged into disorder and violence during World War II, and the city was bombed in a series of air raids by the Soviet Air Force, mainly in retaliation for the German bombing of Moscow. More than 90% of the city, including the castle, was destroyed by 1945, and the German population was forced out of the city by the occupying Soviets. Under their rule, the city became Kaliningrad. While the ruins of the castle’s stone walls still stood for decades, they were ultimately blown up in 1968. The site of the castle is now the city’s main square.

Pearl Monument, Bahrain

Erected in 1982 in honor of Bahrain’s first time hosting the Gulf Cooperation Council, the Pearl Monument featured six ‘sails’, representing the member nations of the council, supporting a pearl, which symbolized those nations’ shared heritage and Bahrain’s history of pearl cultivation. It was built in the center of Pearl Roundabout, located near the city of Manama’s financial district.

In 2011, the monument became central to the Bahraini uprising. Several thousand demonstrators set up tents  and obstructed traffic in the roundabout to protest the first fatality of the uprising, and police soon cracked down, killing at least four more civilians. Tanks were deployed to disperse the demonstrators, and while the Prince of Bahrain urged the government to allow peaceful protest, the camp was bulldozed and set on fire. The government tore down the Pearl Monument, stating that it had been “desecrated” by the protests and had to be “cleansed.”

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7 Destroyed Architectural Wonders Of The Modern World

These epic wonders show off the phenomenal beauty of the natural world, awesome abilities of animals,  dangerous capacities of the planet and even the amazing environmental designs of our ancient ancestors. Forget your standard sets of wonders: with hundreds of images and links and pages of information, this cunning WebEcoist collection may be the sensational, educational and inspirational eco-series you have ever read. Divided into 10 parts, each featuring 7 themed subjects, here are 70 incredible wonders of the natural world.

7 Phenomenal Wonders of the Natural World

Vast canyons, giant mountains – those are old natural wonders. Many of the most fantastic natural phenomena are far more impressive but correspondingly difficult to capture. Some are incredibly rare while others are located in hard-to-reach parts of the planet. From moving rocks to mammatus clouds and red tides to fire rainbows, here are seven of the most spectacular phenomenal wonders of the natural world. Click Here to Continue.

7 (More!) Phenomenal Wonders of the Natural World

Sailing stones, fire rainbows, red tides and blue holes … were just the beginning.Imagine sidestepping a house-sized hole in the ground as it forms around you in seconds, walking through a field of razor-sharp ice spikes taller than yourself or fleeing from a deadly vortex of smoke and flame far more dangerous than the raging fire that spawned it. From light pillars and sun dogs to firewhirls and sinkholes, here are seven more beautiful, terrifying and awe-inspiring natural wonders of the world. Click Here to Continue.

7 Phenomenal Wonders of the Animal World

Fantastic phenomena are, however, far from all mother nature has to offer – some of her most impressive creations reside in the animal kingdom. Though they may seem too strange to be real, all but a few of these have been extensively documented in photos and videos – and those that haven’t are supported by dazzling eyewitness accounts from around the globe. From raining and exploding animals to amazing animal architects, here are seven sensational wonders of the animal world. Click Here to Continue.

7 Symbiotic Wonders of the World’s  Seven Seas

Evolution alone is an amazing thing – but species that evolve together can be all the more spectacular, protecting, feeding and cleaning one another in incredible ways. Sharks pair with fish, fish with shrimp and shrimp with sea cucumbers and much much more. From boxing crabs that wield poisonous anemones as weapons to shrimp that scour the mouths of electric eels, here are seven of the most radical symbiotic relationships from the shallowest to the deepest waters of our world. Click Here to Continue.

7 Soaring Symbiotic Wonders of the World’s Skies

There are many unlikely animal pairings in the world, but some of the most uncanny ones involve birds. Wait, what? Those flighty animals the flit about and flee at the slightest sign of trouble? Precisely those. They have been known to climb in and clean the teeth of a crocodile, lounge on the backs of buffalo, moose, hippos, elephants and zebras and even to share a residence with ants – their natural prey. The first set of symbiotic wonders focused mainly on underwater matches – this set focuses on fliers of the friendly skies. Click Here to Continue.

7 Color-Changing Wonders of the Animal World

Can you spot the creatures the images above? The lizard blends so perfectly it is hard to see even when pointed out. The ability to change color seems like a superpower at times – some amazing animals can alter their appearance to blend with the colors, materials and textures of virtually any surroundings. For some this ‘costume change’ happens quickly, for others it is seasonal – for many it helps them avoid predators, for a few it enables them to sneak up on prey. Culled from around the animal kingdom, here are seven of most impressive color-changing species in the world. Click Here to Continue.

7 Deep-Sea Wonders of the Animal World

Earth’s ocean depths often referred to as the planet’s last great unexplored frontier. Blacker than the darkest night, crushed by unimaginable pressure and for the most part untouched by the hand of man, the world below the water’s surface is bursting with life – though in many cases not life as we know it. Here are seven exceptional examples of weird wonders lurking beneath the waves. Click Here to Continue.

7 Geological Wonders of the World’s 7 Continents

Will wonders never cease? Probably not, Mother Earth has had 5 billion years to sculpt herself into spectacular splendor and it’s certain she’s not done yet. For now though, let’s take a little trip across the seven continents to find our planet’s coolest natural wonders you have likely never seen. Click Here to Continue.

7 Architectural Wonders of the Animal Kingdom

So you thought the ancient and modern wonders created by mankind and creative contemporary architecture were something? From underground ant colonies that extend farther than the Great Wall of China to termite mounds that tower at nearly twice the relative height of the Burj Dubai (tallest skyscraper in the world), and from the largest multi-species spider web ever discovered to the longest beaver dam on the planet, here are seven of the most awe-inspiring animal architects and architectonic structures of the animal kingdom. Click Here to Continue.

7 Green Wonders of the Ancient World

While mother nature herself has much to offer and going green is the latest trend, there have been amazing sustainable designs since the dawn of written history and beyond. We have come a long way since humans first used biomass fuels for their fires over 800,000 years ago. Green design, sustainable innovation, alternative energy – these are all recently-coined buzz-phrases for concepts that in some cases date back tens of thousands of years. The ancient Chinese used concentrated solar power for heat energy and fire, Native Americans used hot springs as renewable geothermal sources for cooking and healing, and some speculate the Egyptians used wind power to help build their pyramids. From Greece and Rome to Persia and North America, here are seven incredibly innovative uses of geothermal, water, wind and solar power from around the ancient world. Click Here to Continue.

Bonus: 82 Epic Elemental Phenomena & Natural Disasters

So you thought this last piece would be a final set of seven to round off the list to 77? As a small surprise, here is an entire additional set that shows the eccentricities and capacities of our planet – also courtesy of WebEcoist, the great green sister site to WebUrbanist (subscribe now!). These amazing natural wonders and epic elemental disasters of the world showcase both the most beautiful and most terrifying sides of Mother Nature. With hundreds of images and over one hundred paragraphs of link-packed information you will not find a more definitive collection anywhere online. Sectioned according to the four classic elements of earth, water, fire and air, here are 52 elemental phenomena and formations and 30 environmental disasters – and to round it off: 100 beautiful HDR photographs of the natural world. Click Here to Continue.

Megaproject… even the word sounds big! As technology evolves to meet the demands of our dreams, more and more wondrous feats of engineering will transform our world; and us with it. These 7 amazing engineering wonders push the envelope of what can be accomplished on Earth – and someday, beyond.

Dubai’s World Islands

(images via: Homes Dubai and Ursi Paltenstein)

Following on the successful completion of other offshore artificial island communities like the Palm Islands, Dubai’s World Islands was intended to be even more ambitious, not to mention larger. Imagine owning a private island in the shape of a country or continent, surrounded by the warm waters of the Persian Gulf – and your equally “worldly” neighbors?

(images via: ESA and Amazing Dubai Islands)

While Dubai’s vision of a 300-island floating world may someday come to fruition, things aren’t so rosy at the moment thanks to the ongoing world economic crisis. As of late summer 2009 only a single island has been developed and it belongs to Dubai’s ruling Sheik; “the rest looks like a pile of muck” according to a local realtor. With property prices crashing by 50 to 75 percent, many of Dubai’s spectacular construction projects have been put on indefinite hold if not canceled outright.

Bering Strait Bridge

(images via: Mr. James and William Bacon)

A bridge across the Bering Strait connecting Russia and Alaska? No, this is not a repeat from 11,000BC. OFF Architecture won the 2nd Prize in the Professional Category at the 2009 Bering Strait Project competition (yes, there is such a thing) with their grandiose and green bridge-tunnel combo. The design would greatly reduce circulation between the Arctic and North Pacific Oceans, thus cooling the former and mitigating the effects of global warming. Or so they say.

(image via: Inhabitat)

The 53-mile wide Bering Strait is surprisingly shallow – it was a natural land bridge back in Ice Age times – so OFF Architecture’s design would reach from just above the water’s surface down to the ocean floor 100 to 150 feet below. Such a design would necessitate circular “pass throughs” for migrating marine mammals and whales. The thought of a whale having a panic attack inside one of the tunnels gives a whole new meaning to “Thar she blows!!”

Large Hadron Collider

(images via: BBC, Discover Magazine and Device Daily)

The Large Hadron Collider, or LHC being built by CERN is without question the largest and most complex machine ever constructed by Man. It has to be – the universe doesn’t give up its deepest secrets very easily. The LHC is the world’s largest refrigerator, requiring 10,080 tons of liquid nitrogen and nearly 60 tons of liquid helium to bring the temperature of the collider’s huge electromagnets down to -271.3°C (1.9 Kelvin). Want more? The interior of the LHC’s ring tunnel is the emptiest place in the entire solar system – the machine’s particle beams will travel through an ultra-high vacuum with ten times less pressure than you’ll find on the Moon.

(images via: Sun HPC)

Huge as it is, the LHC doesn’t look too impressive from the air since the actual 17-mile (27 km) tunnel lies buried an average 330 feet (100 meters) underground. It IS big however – part of the ring is in France; part is in Switzerland. Since this short blurb gives only a hint of the LHC’s workings, check out this Schoolhouse Rock style rap on the LHC from TeacherTube:

Gotthard Base Tunnel

(images via: WTC 2013 and Popular Science)

The 95.3-mile (153.5 km) long Gotthard Base Tunnel network now being drilled out beneath the Alps, when finally completed in about ten years, will be the longest underground tunnel ever constructed. High-speed trains traveling at 155 mph (250 kph) will significantly reduce travel times between Zurich, Switzerland and Milan, Italy while at the same time relieving the bottleneck of commercial and passenger traffic now clogging existing mountain highways and train lines. Hannibal would most definitely approve.

(image via: Railway Technology)

The most difficult portion of the tunnel is the 57 km (35.4 mi) stretch that will run nearly 2,000 feet (600 meters) under the Gotthard massif below the existing Gotthardbahn track. It’s estimated that 459 million cubic feet (13 million cubic meters) of crumbly, porous rock will have to be removed during the course of tunnel construction – that’s enough to fill the Great Pyramid of Giza five times over. In the above image, one of the huge tunnel-boring machines is shown just as it breaks through to one of the completed sections of the tunnel.

Japan-Korea Undersea Tunnel

(images via: InventorSpot)

Though the shovels have yet to shift any dirt, the blueprints are ready for construction to begin on one of Asia’s most momentous megaprojects: the Japan-Korea Friendship Tunnel. Or the Korea-Japan Friendship Tunnel – the fine details are still being discussed. Should the project get the nod from the politicos, work will begin on joining the southwestern Japanese city of Karatsu with the South Korean port of Busan with a 79-mile (128-km) train tunnel. The distance is more than three times that of the Anglo-French “Chunnel” but the technology is proven. As for North Korea’s take on the project, either Kim Jong Il hasn’t been told or everyone’s scared to bring up the subject.

The wags at Asiadog have put together a nifty video of what they refer to as the Korea < -> Japan Undersea Tunnel, backed by a bouncy beat:

Space Solar Power Station

(images via: Inhabitat, Treehugger and Pink Tentacle)

The challenges and difficulties involved in large-scale orbital construction projects are immense… yet someday they will be tackled as the demand for interplanetary spacecraft, space elevators and orbiting power stations becomes irresistible. The latter – a solar power station in geostationary orbit – is now on the drawing board and has been given a sky-high price tag of 2 trillion yen ($21 billion).

(image via: Bloomberg)

The project, conceived by the Japanese government and industry researchers, will see a space-based solar power station built in orbit 22,360 miles (36,000 km) above the earth. The station will generate 1 gigawatt of power from sunlight and beam the energy down to a receiving station where it can be used to power almost 300,000 homes.

Terraforming Mars

(images via: All These Worlds, Daily Galaxy and Electro-plankton)

The most extreme engineering project in the history of the world will be performed OFF the world… on Mars. A variety of schemes have been floated over the past few decades with the intent of making Earth’s nearest neighbor more amenable to life of the earthly variety – in other words, Terraforming. Naturally the scale is huge – comets may be redirected to impact the Red Planet to provide water for oceans, which would be seeded with algae in order to boost the oxygen content in the Martian atmosphere. Other schemes entail the placement of giant orbiting mirrors to focus sunlight upon Mars’ polar icecaps, thus releasing liquid water and gaseous carbon dioxide to kick-start a greenhouse effect.

(images via: LA 2101 and WonderlandJACK)

Terraforming Mars is no pie-in-the-sky scheme; it could be the salvation of our species should our actions on Earth continue to reduce our home planet’s livability. It would be most fitting if someday, as predicted/depicted in The Million-Year Picnic, a short story from Ray Bradbury’s book The Martian Chronicles, this scene should take place: A father answers his children’s desire to see Martians by suggesting they look into the canal their boat is floating on… in which they view their own reflections.

More Underground, Underwater and Other Wonders of the World
7 Engineering Wonders of the World (Part 1!)
7 Underground Wonders of the World
7 (More!) Underground Wonders of the World
7 Underwater Wonders of the World
7 Island Wonders of the World
7 Urban Wonders of the World
7 Wonders of Modern Green Design and Technology

Amazing Abandoned Wonders: Buildings, Towns & Cities

7 Abandoned Wonders of America
7 (More!) Abandoned Wonders of America
7 (Even More!) Abandoned Wonders of America
7 Abandoned Wonders of the Former Soviet Union
7 (More!) Abandoned Wonders of the Former Soviet Union
7 Abandoned Wonders of the European Union