The World’s Tallest Water Sphere

Not really. But here is an imagined Aurora “long box” polystrene model if it were ever produced by the now-defunct model company. This isometric view not only shows the cover with the prominent Elizabethtown Water and Gas logo, but also the side information including the Aurora company logo as well.

This artistic conceptualization is provided by World’s Tallest Water Sphere artist David Wuethrich whose works of the WTWS are featured in other articles on the site. This rendering is water color markers and colored pencils. If you have artistic representation of the WTWS, please share them with the site. We will publish any artwork and link to your web site.

Notice the dual halos around the neck of the water sphere. What are these things? A radio signaling device? Communication with the water company? Vandalism detection? Artistic embellishment? Self defense?

In case you have never seen Google Earth, or have not run it in a while, be aware that this wonderful map / visualization / virtual travel program has become populated rapidly by the user community with three-dimensional models of famous structures. In other words, not only can you zoom around the country, viewing maps from any angle and any direction and quickly pinpoint interesting places on our earth, you now can also fly around a growing database of famous monuments, buildings, structures, and sites. In the New York/New Jersey area alone, you can see fascinating detailed models of the Brooklyn Bridge, the city of Newark, and downtown Manhattan. Soon to be added to this list of global importance, Union’s World’s Tallest Water Sphere.

While waiting for the voting, you can preview the 3D model of the World’s Tallest Water Sphere. If you are a Google or SketchUp community member, please give it a good rating, so it appears in Google Earth. Note the wonderful modeling of the most recent white paint scheme, the multitude of cell phone antennas, the abandoned E-town billboard at its base, and the nearby green water tank.

This model has been painstakingly created by artist FlagFreak who has created many wonderful models in Google SketchUp. Using photos provided by this site, this Google user and WTWS has made a noteworthy contribution to virtual travellers everywhere.

We will post the Google Earth coordinates when the WTWS model goes public.

For many residents of New Jersey, this is a question that is taken for granted. Just as there are many Bobs in your classroom or Marys at your office, there are many Unions in New Jersey.

When people mentions the World’s Tallest Water Sphere, it is taken for granted that we mean Union Township, west of Liberty International Airport, near Newark, the largest city in New Jersey.

Yet, judging from the email from many international visitors, there seems to be some confusion of where to visit when making a vacation around the World’s Tallest Water Sphere.

For your consideration, here is a handy table of the five Union New Jerseys we know about. The columns show the growth of the town over the last 7 decades. The links point to the official site for the town, the Wikipedia information on the site, and a Google Map locator of the town.

Sorry for those of you looking for a famous children’s band. When I say Wiggles, I am talking about a photographic technique in which two similar photos taken a few inches apart are animated. The result is a somewhat three dimensional looking image. If you have two similar cameras you can make a rig to space them similarly to how the human eyes are spaced to provide a simultaneous three dimensional image. This technique is similar to the old stereoscopic photographic viewers that have been around for 100 years. However, the novel twist here is that they are provided in rapid time sequence.

For instance, here is a small (110 kB) and a large (360 kB) wiggle photograph of the World’s Tallest Water Sphere taken on 2007-12-29. You get the idea that the reeds are nearby and the water tower is far away.

Have fun with your viewing, and a happy wiggly new year to you all.

Shown is a view of the World’s Tallest Water Sphere as you speed eastward towards New York City along Route 22 East. You better hurry because the cars are traveling about 80 miles per hour and there are some tricky merges from Morris Avenue (Route 82), the Garden State Parkway, and Route 78 here.

Notice the two tone scheme of the tower. Light gray blue on top to match the light cloud cover. Darker gray blue on the bottom. This is reminiscent of the Navy blimp camouflage schemes used during the Great War.

Click on the image to get a larger view.

As you may know from our articles, Elizabethtown Water built the World’s Tallest Water Sphere in 1964. There have been several paint schemes to the WTWS, but at one point the WTWS had a distinctive Elizabethtown Water company logo at the waist. This is shown in our header photo for this site. When the World’s Tallest Water Sphere was painted in its most recent light blue paint scheme, and its midriff was festooned with many cell phone antennas (early 1990s), the distinctive logo was lost to history.

Recently this author discovered that the Elizabethtown Water company is gone. Apparently, the company was purchased by the New Jersey American Water company, which was later purchased5 American Water company. Now Union New Jersey’s water needs are served by a national conglomerate.

Most likely this means that the distinctive “Dripping Pump” logo will never be seen again on the World’s Tallest Water Sphere. Tell us your thoughts. What did the pump mean to you? Do you miss the pump? Do you see any remaining dripping pump logos out on the web or on the highways?

Here is the nearest neighbor to the World’s Tallest Water Sphere - the Kenilworth water tower. This squat water tower sits in Kenilworth, New Jersey just off of Route 22 between Springfield Road South and North Michigan Avenue. This quiet green spot of land is Black Brook Park near the Galloping Hill Golf Course that you see near exit 138 on the Garden State Parkway.

With this water tower the residents of Kenilworth are going for pure function. The tower is low and voluminous, but it sits on a small hill to give it more altitude. The tower is covered with antennas and industrial appendages, but thankfully some of the trees block the view.

You can park and take your friends and your dog up the hill near the base of the tower.

This photo shows the World’s Tallest Water Sphere trapped in a cage yearning to be free. This reader submission was taken on October 7th, 2007. No photo editing trickery here, just an angle taken from the perimeter fence behind the Dress Barn strip mall across the street.

Are you creative with photo editing? Do you like seeing your favorite water sphere in hilarious situations? If so, send us your photo edits featuring the World’s Tallest Water Sphere, and we’ll post the good ones on the site.

In the photo we see a drunken reveler partying with the water sphere. Perhaps his dual Water Sphere glasses contain his favorite beverage. He is enjoying shaking his water spheres like maraccas and diving into his pants pocket with his free hand. Party on dude.

In case you are wondering why water towers are so tall, or why they so often are placed on hills, there is a great article written by Marshall Brain at “How Water Towers Work”.

Not only do you get diagrams showing that the water goes inside the tower, you also see some photos of interesting and unique towers around the world.

Walther’s Model Railroad company has just made it easier for those of you wanting to model the World’s Tallest Water Sphere.

Using their Modern Water Tower Kit, one can model an N scale (1/160 scale) water tower. Of course to use the model to approximate the height of the World’s Tallest Water Sphere one must splice 3 or 4 of the models together to get a proper size.

Notice the color scheme of this instance is a lovely light blue, similar to the earlier artistry that graced the Union’s water tower. Forget that Woodlawn town name. We all know Union is the best name for a tall tower.

Google Maps now provides a service to see street views of places listed on the maps. Appropriately, the service is called Google Street views, and it is available via a new Street View button on the maps.

Not every street has a street photo view, but of course we checked, and the WTWS is listed. Apparently the photos are taken from a speeding truck with cameras pointed in 8 directions and pictures taken every 1 second. It looks like they caught the WTWS on a gray and overcast day.

Please visit Google maps and spread the word about the World’s Tallest Water Sphere.

One way to see the world without leaving your chair is to go Google Sightseeing. Using just a browser and an immense database of maps and aerial photography, one can virtually visit the world’s famous cities and landmarks, explore rivers and mountain ranges, see world heritage sites, or simply map out some vacation plans.

One of our favorite sports is of course the World’s Tallest Water Sphere. Our favorite landmark is visible and easily linked, and there is even a link to our (older, pre domain) site. I also like that it shows the Oklahoma world’s tallest water spheroid for comparison.

If you will, please leave a comment there and say you heard it from this site. Help spread the word about the World’s Tallest Water Sphere.

As we all know, the world is becoming a more crowded place. New Jersey is the most crowded state in the U.S. with the highest population density. So despite all the jokes, it appears people love and really want to live in New Jersey. What is interesting is that New Jersey has some really dense cities, some very sparse farmlands, and some pockets of wilderness within its densest regions.

This photo shows the World’s Tallest Water Sphere in the midst of a pocket of urban tranquility. The tower sits in an undeveloped swamp. The winter trees wrap the sight of the the WTWS. Not a single car, person, plane, or other building in sight.

This most unusual doorway leads to places that few people have seen. Although it looks like an ordinary maintenance passage to the interior of the World’s Tallest Water Sphere, it is rumored that few of the people who have entered here have returned with their sanity.

This photo shows the pale blue color of the Water Sphere around December 27, 2006. Not the weeping alganaite streaks along the left side of the door. This is no ordinary rusting bolt. Yes, this is a sign of life within the WTWS escaping to the outside world.

Back beyond the wintery trees lies the back side of the signage “World’s Tallest Water Sphere.”

Some coincidences are stranger than fiction, including this set of Water Sphere facts worthy of Ripley’s Believe It or Not!

• The World’s Tallest Water Sphere is located in Union Township, New Jersey.
• Less than one mile from the WTWS is Burnet Junior High School. Nearby is Burnet Avenue.
• Both of these landmarks are named after past Union resident David Gouverneur Burnet.
• Burnet moved to Texas and became the first interim President of the Republic of Texas.
• Burnet Road in Austin, Burnet county, and Burnet, Texas are all named after David Burnet.
• Less than one mile from Burnet Road in Austin is the World’s Tallest Water Sphere Museum.

And there you have it, a strange but true historical linking of the WTWS in Union to the WTWS Museum in Austin.

Strange but true. The LoveLine Radio Show has named Union’s WTWS one of its best date spots. See the article in the archives section of Best Date Spots.

“What could be cool or date-worthy about a water sphere? Well, for starters, you won’t find another larger one anywhere in the world. If that alone doesn’t impress your date, then maybe the overtly phallic design of the water sphere will get them hot and in the mood.”

Despite their enthusiasm, I am somewhat skeptical. Magnificent as the WTWS shape is, I don’t think it gets anyone “hot and in the mood.”

Much thanks to Theodore Thimou (UHS class of 1993) for alerting us to this honor. We encourage all stories, photos, and reader submissions.

The years come and go, but since 1964 Union, New Jersey has the world’s record for the World’s Tallest Water Sphere. Here’s a photo of an old sign near the base of the water sphere. I believe this sign once said “Elizabethtown Gas” with a graphic outline of the water pump design used by company and also present one-third of the way up the tower before the cell phone antennas came. (See the classic photo on this site’s home page header.)

We wish you a prosperous and happy New Year with many visits and sightings of the World’s Tallest Water Sphere.

Here’s a close-up shot of the World’s Tallest Water Sphere from the end of the year in 2006. This was a great year for the site with many user emails, stories, and lots of wonderful photos and artwork. We hope you keep contributing and writing in the future.

This photo was taken midday on a medium cold, partly cloudy day with gusty winds on 27 December 2006. Note the disused boarded-up Elizabethtown Gas brick building at the center and the Route 22 to Morris Avenue ramp overheard. Looking somewhat like an old gray ghost, the WTWS looms overhead in its light blue shroud.

Here is a Halloween-related piece of art created by resident World’s Tallest Water Sphere artist David Wuethrich. Originally conceived for a cassette tape box cover, this art still is timely and celebrating of the artist’s favorite season Halloween. Note the almost unimaginable phantasm of two water spheres colliding and generating the life-giving spark. Suddenly, the beauty is resurrected and brought to consciousness gazing upon the twin water spheres. The wonder, the potential, the fright.