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.
Baltimore, MD
Built between 1907 and 1911 for the company behind Bromo-Seltzer headache remedy, this clock tower was originally crowned by a giant glowing blue medicine bottle. The bottle is gone, but the tower now contains artist studios and a Bromo-Seltzer museum, with scheduled access to the clock room.
Boonsboro, MD
Discovered during quarry work in 1920, Crystal Grottoes developed into Maryland's only commercial show cave. Guided tours descend into chambers filled with stalactites, flowstone and other formations, so visitors must enter during the attraction's operating season and tour hours.
Germantown, MD
A huge spherical water tank has been painted as a remarkably detailed globe of the Earth, turning a piece of utility infrastructure into a giant roadside planet. It is best viewed from nearby public roads and areas around the Montgomery College Germantown campus rather than approached as an attraction with its own visitor entrance.
Ellicott City, MD
Maryland's original Enchanted Forest storybook park opened in 1955 and eventually closed, but many of its giant fairy-tale structures were rescued and restored at Clark's Elioak Farm. Visitors can now wander among pieces such as Cinderella's pumpkin coach and the Old Woman's Shoe during the farm's seasonal operating dates.
Glen Burnie, MD
A 34-foot-tall yellow crash-test dummy stands outside Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration headquarters as an oversized traffic-safety mascot. Installed in 2012, it is a permanent outdoor photo stop visible from the public MVA complex.
Frostburg, MD
A church congregation began planning a full-scale Noah's Ark beside Interstate 68 after its pastor said he received a divine command to build it in 1976. The enormous steel skeleton remains an unfinished landmark decades later; view it from legitimate public roadside areas and do not enter the construction property without permission.
Baltimore, MD
This alley behind Baltimore's Motor House is one of the city's best-known legal graffiti spaces, with nearly every wall and surface repeatedly covered by new layers of paint. Because the artwork constantly changes, repeat travelers may find an almost entirely different alley from one visit to the next.
College Park, MD
A life-size bronze Jim Henson sits on a bench beside Kermit the Frog on the University of Maryland campus, where Henson studied before creating the Muppets. The memorial garden is outdoors and publicly viewable while campus access is open.
Bethesda, MD
Maryland's Madonna of the Trail is one of 12 nearly identical pioneer-woman monuments installed across the country along the National Old Trails Road in 1928 and 1929. Dedicated in Bethesda in 1929, the massive stone figure has been moved several times as the surrounding downtown developed but remains publicly viewable beside Wisconsin Avenue.
Temple Hills, MD
This enormous fiberglass cougar survives from the days when the property operated as a Lincoln-Mercury dealership. Once mounted on the roof, the 1960s advertising cat now sits at ground level near the dealership and is easily visible from the public-facing commercial area.
Greenbelt, MD
Outside NASA's Goddard Visitor Center is a collection of rockets and space hardware that gives travelers an up-close look at the scale of sounding rockets and launch technology. The grounds also include a Moon Tree descended from seeds carried around the Moon during Apollo 14, while the visitor center contains additional free exhibits.
Silver Spring, MD
This former women's school developed an extraordinary campus of architectural fantasies including a Japanese pagoda, Dutch windmill, Swiss chalet and English-style buildings before becoming part of an Army medical complex. Much of the property has since been redeveloped as residences, so visitors should stick to public roads, sidewalks and designated public areas rather than entering private buildings.
Ocean City, MD
Ocean Gallery's boardwalk building looks like a chaotic collision of scrap metal, signs, art and old vehicles rather than a normal gallery storefront. The family-run business has evolved into one of Ocean City's most recognizable visual oddities, and the exterior is worth seeing even without shopping.
Baltimore, MD
Papermoon is less a normal diner than a giant assemblage artwork with mannequins, toys, Pez dispensers, dolls, brightly painted objects and bizarre decorations covering nearly every available surface. The restaurant is still operating, so travelers can actually go inside rather than merely photographing the exterior.
Baltimore, MD
Built in 1891 as an observation tower, this brightly painted four-story structure is popularly called a pagoda despite being designed in a fanciful Victorian interpretation of Asian architecture. The exterior can be visited in Patterson Park year-round, while interior stair access is limited to scheduled open hours and events.
Takoma Park, MD
Roscoe was a free-roaming rooster that wandered Takoma Park for roughly a decade and became so beloved that residents memorialized him after he was killed by a vehicle in 1999. A life-size bronze statue now stands along Laurel Avenue and is occasionally dressed or decorated by locals.
National Harbor, MD
J. Seward Johnson Jr.'s enormous sculpture depicts a giant apparently clawing his way out of the earth, with separate head, hand, arm, knee and foot emerging from the sand. The work was moved from Washington, D.C. to National Harbor in 2008 and is freely accessible on the waterfront.
Germantown, MD
This barrel-shaped building is a surviving example of novelty roadside architecture from the era when businesses were designed to look like the products they sold. The former cider stand is no longer a normal walk-in attraction, but the oversized barrel remains visible from public roadside areas.
Hyattsville, MD
Artist and conservator Clarke Bedford transformed his home and vehicles into dense assemblages of metal, found objects, antlers, machine parts and architectural fragments. It is a private residence: admire it from the public street unless the owner is present and explicitly welcomes visitors onto the grounds.
Timonium, MD
Smyth Jewelers unveiled this enormous stainless-steel-and-acrylic engagement ring outside its Timonium showroom in 2015. The sculpture stands 17 feet tall and 14 feet wide, was designed as a permanent landmark, and is meant to be approached for photos from the store's public frontage.
