Giant Roadside Landmarks Across the U.S. and How They Got There

There is nothing to visit anymore, and yet people still argue about it. For nearly two decades, motorists passing Cermak Plaza in Berwyn, Illinois, encountered artist Dustin Shuler’s Spindle, a vertical stack of automobiles pierced by a massive metal spike. Eight cars appeared to have been skewered and lifted into the air, with a Volkswagen Beetle sitting near the top. Created in 1989, the sculpture fit naturally into Shuler’s fascination with treating cars as raw artistic material rather than treasured machines. Hollywood gave it another audience when the sculpture appeared in Wayne’s World (1992), forever linking an already unusual shopping-center landmark with the movie’s portrait of suburban Chicagoland.