I’m going to shoot this down as a political jab that’s off-topic in this thread. If you want to discuss America’s gun culture, take it to GD or the Pit.
twickster, MPSIMS moderator
I’d say so, and add the Flatiron. Show a picture of either to a decent chunk of the world’s population and they’ll identify NYC, even if they don’t know the name of the building. Empire State even more so, obviously.
All of these are fine. But really, the Statue of Liberty is the only answer here. Nothing else comes even remotely close as a symbolic icon of the US.
I recognise Times Square, and all facsimiles thereof.
a what?
Cockney rhyming slang.
Septic tank = Yank
I should add that there’s no insult intended – it’s just a convenient rhyme.
Other examples include:
Bubble (Bubble & Squeak = Greek)
and
Ethel (Ethel Merman = German)
I’d guess the Statue of Liberty.
My personal favourite though is the Empire State Building. Beats the Chrysler Building hands down, for me. It’s able to be slightly more restrained, but still awesome.
Is it really that iconic? I don’t remember knowing or learning about that building until high school, and I’m not even sure then, and I’m American. I mean, it is a well known building, but I wonder if it really is that well known and identified with NYC. If you asked me to name NYC landmarks as an outsider, I don’t think I would come up with it on my top ten.
Then again, I’m also a little surprised about the Disney Castle. I don’t recognize it as an actual structure, just in the Walt Disney logo. Might just be one of those holes in my knowledge.
My 16 year old daughter was on a trip to NYC a couple of weeks ago with her school. As she was showing me her pictures I commented on that building because I had never seen nor heard of it in my life.
ETA: I mean, it’s a pretty cool building and all, but iconic? Not in the least.
Also Brooklyn Bridge for NYC.
[Speaking as an American] I’d say the castle at Disney World is more recognizable, though I’d be curious if non-American’s are even aware that there’s two parks. FTR, I only even thought of this because the one Giles linked to looked ‘wrong’ to me and it took me a second to realize why.
Here’s the Disney World Castle.
Also, at Disney World, is the Epcot Center.
I don’t think I’d call that ‘iconic’. I had to look it up before I could say ‘oh, that building, yeah, I know that one’ which is what I do every time someone mentions it. It’s just the building you see every time a movie takes place in New York. It seems to be the shorthand way of letting the audience know what city they’re in.
I agree that the golf-ball thing is iconic, but of course it’s not Epcot, but just one attraction in it.
I agree with your original list. If I wanted to show people from different countries pictures from different areas of the world (which does come up in my job), and wanted them to definitely recognise that it was America, I’d go for:
The Statue of Liberty
The Empire State Building
The Capitol Building
The Hollywood sign.
Not the White House - it looks too much like several other structures in other countries. And some people saying they’d recognise the White House might actually be thinking of the Capitol Building.
Not the Grand Canyon. A lot of people would recognise it, but not everybody. That goes for a lot of the other things mentioned here; they’re things you might recognise, but would your average countryman?
Everybody who’s over eighteen, of a normal intellectual level and in a country with a good education system (whether or not they completed it) would recognise the four things listed above.
I was surprised when the Twin Towers were referred to as an iconic New York building because I’d never even heard of them till they fell. And I like American stuff. To me, they were just tall buildings that helped make up the New York skyline; they didn’t stand out.
So if people can see it and identify it as of American origin but not necessarily in America, that qualifies it as an American landmark? :dubious:
My friends from south of the border always seem to Remember the Alamo. It’s seen as the righteous defeat of invaders.
As the discussion continues it’s becoming more cemented (to me, at least) that the icon for the USA is the Statue of Liberty. If we had to pick one and only one, then I pick the Statue of Liberty.
Without looking at the other answers, top of my head:
Statue of Liberty
Mount Rushmore
Grand Canyon
White House
Capitol
Empire State Building
Basically all the stuff the aliens tend to destroy in movies.
There’s the Cinderella Castle in the company logo of Disney movies.
Based on what I remembered before moving to the US, I’d say they are (in order):
- The Statue of Liberty
- The Golden Gate Bridge
- The White House
- The Empire State Building
- Spaceship Earth
Cinderella Castle is in the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World (in Orlando). The original Walt Disney Pictures logo was based on Sleeping Beauty Castle, which is the one at Disneyland in California. They quietly changed the logo to Cinderella Castle sometime in the mid-1990s. I can’t figure out exactly when.
I would guess a hundred times more people have seen the original logo, but more people would recognize an actual image of Cinderella Castle.
I had never seen or heard of the Flatiron building until I actually visited Manhattan. I lived in the US for 14 years before that. Needless to say, it’s now my favorite building.
As has been noted, that’s Spaceship Earth, which is only a small part of the Epcot Center. The “giant golf ball” was the one thing I most wanted to see as a child (in the UK), though. It was definitely not worth the wait.