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99% Invisible

The Great American Pyramid

99% Invisible

SiriusXM Podcasts and Roman Mars

Design, Arts

4.827.5K Ratings

🗓️ 1 April 2025

⏱️ 36 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In 1991, one of the strangest buildings in America opened — a 32-storey, stainless steel pyramid in Memphis, Tennessee.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

This is 99% invisible.

0:03.0

I'm Roman Mars.

0:07.7

Memphis, Tennessee is home to many historic landmarks like Graceland and Beale Street,

0:13.2

but one of their biggest tourist magnets is a Bass Pro shop.

0:18.2

Usually, Bass Pro is the place to buy hunting and fishing gear.

0:22.1

Best producer Chris Barube.

0:23.9

But the one in Memphis, it's less of a store and more of a camo-colored amusement park.

0:29.6

On the main floor, there are fiberglass cypress trees that are about 100 feet tall, and there's

0:35.3

an enclosure with baby alligators.

0:37.7

They have a fake swamp that is filled with real fish, and a crossbow range, and an arcade

0:43.5

where kids can take target practice with plastic guns, which gave this past FitzCanadian a few

0:50.0

moments of pause.

0:51.7

Across the way, I see a man showing his infant child

0:55.5

how to load a gun.

0:58.1

It's a little unnerving.

1:00.6

It can feel completely surreal

1:02.6

to be inside the Memphis Bass Pro.

1:05.2

And making it double strange

1:06.8

is the fact that the store itself

1:08.3

is a 32-story,

1:10.4

stainless steel pyramid.

1:17.1

The giant pyramid is hard to miss.

...

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