Tag archives for Abandoned

Derelict Coal Silo, Beacon NY

By Richard Published April 17, 2013


Coal Silo, Beacon, New York

Beacon, New York is a strange town. Today it’s a quiet, artsy town with the Dia:Beacon art gallery at its core. Even twenty years ago it was a different place. A former industrial centre, its manufacturing base had collapsed. The city was a mix of faded grandeur and industrial architecture. Often right next to each other.

Coal Silo, Beacon, New York

For instance, this coal silo stands immediately behind a church from 1869. It’s hard to know which building overshadows the other.

Coal Silo, Beacon, New York

Though the silo is rusted and derelict, the plot of land is clearly still used.

Coal Silo, Beacon, New York

The whole town is like this. Two entirely different towns occupying the same physical space. Maybe that’s why I’m so attracted to Beacon.

Derelict Coal Silo
Address: Tioronda & Van Nydeck Aves, Beacon, New York
Hours: Visible 24/7

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The Ghost Towns of Chile

By Richard Published December 23, 2012

Patricio Guzmán’s Nostalgia for the Light looks at the history of Chile through the prism of the Atacama Desert. From prehistoric paintings to telescopes.

And this. An abandoned town.

The film inspired me to comb the desert on Google Maps. It is littered with abandoned towns and graveyards. The detritus of human existence. The one you see here, Oficina Chacabuco, has a dark history.

Chacabuco was founded in 1924 by the Lautaro Nitrate Company to house its workers. They mined saltpeter, the Atacama being one of the world’s major sources. The buildings are prison-like; but there’s a theatre, a town square. The only things nearby are more abandoned towns.

By World War II, saltpeter was being abandoned in favour of petroleum-based fertilizers, so Chile’s burgeoning industry collapsed, Chacabuco was abandoned in 1938. In 1971 President Allende declared it a Historic Monument.

But after the coup in 1973, General Pinochet turned it into a concentration camp for political prisoners. Barbed wire was added. And those prison-like worker’s houses? They were turned into cells.

The theatre has been restored, but the rest of the town is deteriorating, being reclaimed by the desert. One man, Pedro Barreda, lives there. He considers it his task to protect the town as a monument.

One man standing against vandalism, decay and the desert.

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Edgar Allen Poe’s House, Baltimore MD

By Richard Published November 30, 2012

Edgar Allen Poe’s house has closed to the public. A couple of years ago, the city of Baltimore stopped funding the museum. It’s been vandalised. It’s future ain’t looking too rosy.

I’ve read many handwringing articles about the closure of the Edgar Allen Poe House. Most of the authors seem surprised or confused that the place has closed. It’s pretty clear that most of the authors never visited the house. There’s a simple—and sad—reason why it has been defunded while e.g. the Babe Ruth museum downtown hasn’t been. It’s in the projects. People were probably too scared to go visit.

There’s a sign on the door (the photo above isn’t mine, maybe taken before the sign was put up) saying “do not handle any money outside”. It also tells you to knock and wait for a reply.

I visited a few years back. Sadly I didn’t take any photos, sorry. It’s well worth a look if you can get in. Entering by the front door, you walk into the parlour. Converted into a gift shop and surveillance station, cameras are positioned around the house, on the doors and the windows. You have entered a claustrophobic fortress.

It’s creepy, it’s weird, it’s odd. It’s out of place. It’s exactly what the Edgar Allen Poe house and museum should be.

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Fleishhacker Pool, San Francisco

By Richard Published November 28, 2012

The Fleishhacker Pool. I just found out about this last night. It’s gone straight to the top of my “Must See” list. Built in 1924, it was the largest heated salt water pool in the world. 1,000 feet long, lifeguards would patrol in rowing boats.

In this view from the 1920s, that’s the Pacific off to the left, San Francisco Zoo on the right. Over the years, the zoo grew while the pool deteriorated. It was closed in 1971, was paved over and became a parking lot.

This screenshot of Google Maps, shows how the parking lot follows the shape of the old pool.

The old pool house still exists too. Boarded up and falling down, squatters live there now. I wonder how long before it gets pulled down.

For more history, see here and here.

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Tacheles is Dead

By Richard Published September 6, 2012

Berlin always changes. It’s what I love about the city; it’s what’s most heartbreaking about the city.

Tacheles is gone.

An abandoned, bombed-out building taken over by a collective of artists in 1990. Just after the Wall fell. It represented so much of what the Mitte was like back then. The central district had been part of East Berlin. Magnificent buildings had been left to rot by the East German government. They’d even demolished the old castle to build the Palace of the Republic in the 70s.

Tacheles, 1997. Image credit below.

I remember visiting an exhibition in 2000 in the Neues Museum. Bombed in World War II, reconstruction hadn’t even begun. Floors were missing. Charred paintings of Egyptian scenes high up on the walls in abandoned rooms. It was beautiful. I still dream of that exhibition; I still carry my ticket stub with me everywhere.

But it had to change. The Neues Museum has been restored. The Palace of the Republic demolished (an asbestos risk).

Tacheles clung on. A symbol of the hope and excitement of 1990s Berlin.

I stumbled across it by accident in 2000. I was looking for a phone box (remember them?). Went inside, closed the door, called up my friend. She answered and I turned around.

“Hallo?”

“Heilige Scheisse!” I saw Tacheles for the first time.

“Hallo?”

I’d read about it in Der Spiegel, but here it was in all its decaying glory. A cacophany of competing art. Painted up broken down cars. Graffiti. Meaningful things dangling from ceilings. I was drawn in and I loved it.

Tacheles sign. Image credit below.

But I knew it had to pass. All things pass. Berlin is a city layered on a city layered on a city. The scars of National Socialism and the GDR quietly heal, but will always be visible. The beauty of Berlin is undeniable: its puppet theatres, the cute figures on the pedestrian crossings, the underground clubs that would be gone tomorrow. Excitement and constant change.

I knew Tacheles had to go. I’d read about threats to close it even before I saw it first. But why couldn’t it stay? Just a little longer.

I love you Berlin, but you’ve broken my heart again.

 

Thanks to Slanky for the heads up. Images: Tacheles 1997, Howard Percy; Tacheles Sign, Victorgrigas.

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Abandoned Church, Columbus Ohio

By Richard Published July 29, 2012

Meandering through Columbus, Ohio, I came across this abandoned church. I can’t find out anything about it. This is partially my fault as I didn’t note down where it it, though I think it’s near the giant neon Wonderbread Sign.

Doesn’t look like it’s been used in years, but I’m not sure anyone’s told the Post Office.

The back is boarded up with a patchwork of plywood boards. They don’t look as though they’d keep a determined Cocker Spaniel out, let alone a human being.

If you know anything about this place, do let me know!

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The World’s Largest Ship Graveyard, Mallows Bay MD

By Richard Published March 23, 2012

Mallows Bay, 30 miles south of Washington DC, is home to 130 wooden ships, most of them sunk in the aftermath of World War I. Looking down at them from Google maps is a weird sight.

Preparing for war in 1917, the US government authorised the building of 1,000 ships to carry troops and supplies to Europe. By the time of the armistice 18 months later, only a fraction had been built. None had crossed the Atlantic.  At a cost of between $700,000 to $1 million per ship, it was said they were poorly built, too small and heavy to feasibly transport troops.

The Western Marine and Salvage Company bought 233 of the ships in 1922, eventually deciding to move them to Mallows Bay for wrecking. The stock market crash of 1929 put the Western Marine and Salvage Company out of business. People eager to make a living picked at the hulks for salvage. Other ships were used to hide illegal stills (this was Prohibition era after all), while brothels were set up on others.

Another attempt to salvage the ships occurred during World War II. Since then, the remnants of at least 152 ships has remained there, largely untouched, reclaimed by the fish.


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