Everything OddWay knows about. Narrow it down by what you're after, or where you're going.
Giant objects, odd monuments and things built for no clear reason.
Vineland, NJ
George Daynor originally built his bizarre "palace" from junk, mud, concrete and discarded materials after losing his fortune during the Great Depression. Volunteers have spent years reconstructing the folk-art landmark; access is restricted and visitors should follow current tour or event information rather than enter uninvited.
Princeton, NJ
Among the Gothic details of Princeton University Chapel is a small bulldog incorporated into the stonework, reportedly a playful reference to rival Yale's mascot. Finding the hidden animal turns the massive chapel exterior into an architectural scavenger hunt.
Longport, NJ
Longport's blue municipal water tower wears an enormous smiling face visible above the barrier-island houses. The town restored the cheerful design after tower repairs, preserving one of the Jersey Shore's friendliest pieces of infrastructure.
Egg Harbor Township, NJ
Opened in 1955, this family amusement park fills wooded grounds with three-dimensional scenes based on nursery rhymes and children's stories. Its vintage fiberglass characters and storybook structures preserve the atmosphere of a classic mid-century roadside fairy-tale park.
Bayonne, NJ
Officially titled To the Struggle Against World Terrorism, this nearly 100-foot monument consists of a split steel tower holding a huge stainless-steel teardrop. The Russian-designed 9/11 memorial stands on the Bayonne waterfront facing New York Harbor.
Chester Township, NJ
Rows of old utility poles stand upright in an open field at Highlands Ridge Park, creating the eerie appearance of a forest made entirely from telephone infrastructure. The unusual landscape is publicly accessible within the park.
Berkeley Township, NJ
A large old-school dinosaur statue stands beside Route 9 in Bayville, surviving decades of changing businesses around it. Its hand-built roadside-attraction look makes it feel like a leftover from an earlier era of highway tourism.
Jersey City, NJ
A massive octagonal clock faces Manhattan from the Jersey City waterfront, surviving from the former Colgate-Palmolive factory complex. Its enormous illuminated face has remained a local landmark even after most of the industrial site around it disappeared.
Montclair, NJ
Thomas Edison experimented with a system for pouring entire houses from concrete as an inexpensive, durable form of mass housing. Several examples survive in Montclair, but they are private residences and should be appreciated only from public streets.
Edison, NJ
A 131-foot Art Deco tower topped by an enormous light bulb marks the site of Thomas Edison's Menlo Park laboratory. The nearby museum interprets the experiments conducted here, including work that helped develop recorded sound and practical electric lighting.
Asbury Park, NJ
A large grinning Tillie face overlooks the exterior of The Wonder Bar, preserving Asbury Park's long-running connection with the strange smiling mascot once associated with Palace Amusements. The present face is a tribute rather than the original mural, but it remains an easy public-roadside stop.
Kinnelon, NJ
An enormous glacial boulder appears improbably balanced on three much smaller stones at Pyramid Mountain. The formation is natural, but its precise-looking supports have inspired repeated speculation about whether people altered or used it in the distant past.
Union Township, NJ
A spherical water tank perched on an exceptionally tall narrow column rises more than 200 feet beside major highways in Union. Long promoted as the world's tallest watersphere, the peculiar tower looks like a giant white ball balanced on a stick.
Rutherford, NJ
Artist Victor Victori filled the lawn around his home with a crowd of expressive white figures tied to his 'multiplism' style. The sculptures are on private residential property, so travelers should view them only from the public sidewalk or street.
Jersey City, NJ
This tiny stainless-steel diner began as a futuristic building displayed at the 1939 New York World's Fair before being moved to Jersey City. Its compact circular form and counter-only interior preserve a distinctive piece of early roadside diner architecture.
Willingboro, NJ
A rare Futuro House—Matti Suuronen's 1960s prefabricated flying-saucer-shaped building—survives beside Beverly Rancocas Road. The fiberglass pod is one of only a limited number of Futuros still known to exist and should be viewed from public areas.
Holmdel Township, NJ
The giant three-legged water tower at Bell Works was deliberately shaped like an early transistor, the revolutionary device invented at Bell Laboratories. Its saucer-like form makes the scientific tribute look more like a machine from a vintage alien-invasion film.
Franklin, NJ
A bronze miner holding a pick stands near the Franklin Mineral Museum entrance, representing generations who worked the area's exceptionally mineral-rich zinc deposits. The figure wears a carbide lamp and stands on a pile of rock as a memorial to Franklin's mining workforce.
