The 40-Foot-Tall Milk Bottle In Boston That Once Was A Roadside Ice Cream Stand

America has a long and proud tradition of making buildings shaped like things that are not buildings. As a lifelong Long Islander, this writer is obligated to namedrop the Big Duck, a legendary duck-shaped roadside attraction in the Hamptons, but there is no shortage of weird giant stuff across the country. There's a giant fire hydrant in Texas, a 66-foot-tall bottle of soda outside Pops (a quirky diner in Oklahoma that sells over 700 kinds of soda), and a giant bottle of milk in Boston, Massachusetts — specifically, a giant bottle of Hood Milk, which is headquartered in nearby Lynnfield.

You might think that this was a way for Hood to advertise, not unlike the giant bottle of the fruity vintage Southern soda Nehi that once stood in Alabama. But it wasn't actually built by Hood; in fact, it was originally built to house an ice cream stand on the side of the road, constructed by one Arthur Gagner in 1933. It served that purpose, first for Gagner and then for the Sankey family, for a few decades, before eventually being abandoned in 1967. Because you can't very well put a Chase Bank inside a building shaped like an enormous milk bottle, it simply sat, derelict, for several years.

Luckily for those who want to see weird architecture thrive, a rescue effort was undertaken. The initial plan was to put the bottle outside of Boston City Hall, but one of the building's architects put the kibosh on that idea. (In fairness, Boston City Hall is a comically ominous-looking building that looks like the office of Darth Vader's accountant; putting a milk bottle outside it would be liable to give people whiplash.) The Boston Children's Museum, on the other hand, would be more receptive to the whimsical addition, and after Hood paid to have the bottle renovated and retouched, it was installed outside the museum, where it remains to this day.

And wouldn't you know it, the building's right back where it started: it still sells ice cream, along with some other seasonal offerings like hot dogs and pizza. So if you happen to be in Boston and you have a little while before your reservation at John F. Kennedy's favorite restaurant, Union Oyster House, why not hit up the alarmingly huge bottle of milk for lunch? You'll have a great view of Boston Harbor, and you can always flee back inside if the seagulls start attacking.