Interesting things near where you live or work

In My Humble Opinion
1

Where I work is almost literally a stone’s throw from the houses that John Lennon and Ringo Starr lived in during the Beatles’ heyday.

Even closer is the final resting place of one of only twenty Concorde aircraft that were built.

And Ockham, home of William of Occam who I understand was big in the world of razors, is just a few miles away. You’d think they’d have a vistor centre or something, or a least a great big sign, but I drove around the village and there was no obvious indication of its philosophical heritage.
There’s also the remains of the Brooklands race circuit, but I don’t think Brooklands is world famous in the way that the Beatles/Concorde/Occam’s Razor are.

2

I work near both where the Tanners had their picnic, and where they lived. Note: they are not the same place… no idea why everyone thinks that.

3

My office is across the hall from the production company that made Twilight.

4

How near is near? 1 block? 1 mile? 5 miles? And how interesting should it be?

I live 4 blocks from the corner of Castro and Market. That’s in almost the geographical center of San Francisco. So everything inside the city limits is within five miles.

Most interesting (to me) place within 1 mile? It would have to be Mission Dolores. Did you know the official name is Basilica of Mission San Francisco de Asís? It got the common name Mission Dolores from a lagoon/creek that no longer exists, called Nuestra Senora de los Dolores (Our Lady of Sorrows).

5

Let me think…

I’m about 5 minutes walking distance away from the grandstand and start/finish line of a quite well known motorcycle street-racing cirtcuit.

Not that interesting, and I’m sure there’s more interesting places in this part of Douglas IOM, but I don’t know of them.

6

I might be way off the mark here, but is Brooklands by any chance the circuit where James May recently staged the world’s longest scalextric track event?

7

The oldest continually-used public building in the country is within a mile of my house. About another half-mile away is what may or may not be the oldest church in the US.

Other than that, I got nuthin’.

8

Apparently yes, but somehow it totally passed me by. They did it on a weekend, I guess. I think a lot of the Top Gear-related stuff is filmed in this neck of the woods. The Lego house thing was not a million miles away from here either.

9

Elijah Wood lives down the street from where I work, but my favorite is that the filming location for the Dude’s (The Big Lebowski) bungalow is just a block east of here.

From home, I can just barely see into Sony’s movie studio lot.

10

The movie Conspiracy Of Silence, the true story of the murder of a Native Canadian girl by four white teenage boys in The Pas, Manitoba, was filmed where I live. The courthouse scene near the end is about a ten minute walk from my house.

11

Elijah Wood’s brother works in my office.

12

I guess it would depend on what you consider interesting. I live about a mile from the Gerald Ford Presidential Library. I get invited to events there sometimes, but I’ve never been. Last year, I got invited to Abraham Lincoln’s birthday party there (the invitation specified there would be cake, even), but sadly, I was busy that day. I’ve never been to a birthday party for a dead president! (Or a live one either, now that I think about it.)

I don’t know. Not a lot of really exciting stuff happens in Ann Arbor, I guess. Unless you think college football is exciting. (I don’t.)

13

Prince used to date a girl that lived across the street from where I work.

Yeah, I got nothin’ either.

14

I pass the State House with the damned Confederate flag out front every day on my way to work - it’s a few blocks from my workplace. I can see the church where they wrote the Articles of Secession from the window here.

15

I work in downtown Charleston–history just oozing out everywhere!

16

The Arizona Biltmore hotel is very close to my work. I also pass by the headquarters for the Arizona Republican party. That was interesting during 2008.

17

I live about a mile from the restaurant where Jenna Bush got arrested for using a fake ID.

18

Five minutes south of my current location is Yasukuni Shrine where some of Japan’s WWII war criminals are enshrined.

Across the moat from the shrine is Nippon Budokan, the site of many famous concerts by Japanese and western musicians.

Five minutes to the east is Tokyo Dome (aka Big Egg), home of the Yomiuri Giants ball club and site of other famous concerts.

19

I work no more than two miles from the restaurant in which the restaurant scenes in *Office Space *were filmed. At the time of the filming, I was living in the apartment complex where the apartment exterior scenes were filmed. (“Hey Peter.” “Yeah?” “Watch your cornhole.”)

There’s a cave that extends well under my neighborhood- the entrance is two blocks from my house. It’s explorable, if you don’t mind some crawling and at least one really tight squeeze. About once a year there are a whole bunch of fire trucks and emergency vehicles parked near the entrance- apparently the local fire department uses the cave for training to simulate collapsed-building rescues. I wish I could see a map of the cave overlaid on a street map to see how close to my house it gets.

I apparently live in the same city as HowieReynolds.

20

OOOh, bragging time!

The Maastricht treaty was signed in the office where I work.

I’ve got a mini Lourdes in my street. Yup, the Virgin Mary was sighted there and now people come and light candles there.

My city, Maastricht in the Netherlands, is full of beautiful Roman and Medieval remains. One of my favourites is the restaurant where they’ve unearthed a genuine Roman road (10 BC) in the basement, at its original level.