Urban Decay

[Kael]

Some beautiful and haunting pics. Thanks all, it made work go by a lot faster.

[Qingdai]

Bumping to put in yet another slide show of modern American ruins, featuring Detroit! Camden, New Jersey and Harlem.

The click the slideshow piece is after the really brief article.

http://www.slate.com/id/2241211/

[godfry n. glad]

On my trip past June I got some pix of my hometown, Ordnance.







It was US government housing, tilt-up concrete slab walls on concrete slab foundations, built for civilian personnel and their families living just off the US Army Ordnance Depot. That was what was across Highway 30. The other way, out through the desert twenty miles or so was the Doolittle Bombing Range, used as a practice bombing range for the fighter/bombers out of McCord Airbase, up Olympia way. Most of the walls in the former town of about 150 households have been pushed down. The entire town, for a couple of decades after it was abandoned for human use, was fenced, the doors torn off the housing units and troughs installed in the yards and the town was turned into a pig farm. That was abandoned more than a decade ago.

Nowadays, just to the north, past the ultra-straight rows of the cottonwood forests, this is a common scene:



Turning around the other way, you see one of the most radioactive rivers in the world...not long after it has become irradiated. It's only about thirty miles out of Hanford Arm at this point...the Columbia River. Can you see the glow?



It ain't urban, but it sure as hell is decay. Between mustard and nerve gas, TNT, and dog knows what they use to make their air-delivered ordnance these days, and the leaking radioactive materials, my former hometown is at the center of decay...military decay.

[lpetrich]

Here's my favorite:

Joe Braun Photography - The Ruins of Michigan Central Station

The building is still there, but looters and urban scribblers have run loose in it, from its basement to its roof.

Though Amtrak still serves Detroit, in 1988, it moved out of that station to one north of downtown Detroit.

[Anastasia Beaverhausen]

I'm on dial-up atm, so I don't know if it's been mentioned, but have you guys seen Manufactured Landscapes? These years later, the images have stayed with me.

[livius drusus]

Originally Posted by lpetrich

Here's my favorite:

Joe Braun Photography - The Ruins of Michigan Central Station

The building is still there, but looters and urban scribblers have run loose in it, from its basement to its roof.

It's still so beautiful. I admit I've fantasized about buying a Belle Epoque glory like that for a song and restoring it. The destruction of Detroit makes it actually conceivable for normal people to afford outlandish real estate. Unfortunately the Catch-22 of an impending ghost town is that who wants to invest in outlandish real estate in the middle of a post-apocalyptic "the man in black fled and the gunslinger followed" desert?

Though Amtrak still serves Detroit, in 1988, it moved out of that station to one north of downtown Detroit.

Bah, Amtrak. They've embraced their mediocrity altogether too thoroughly for my taste.

[Qingdai]

Amtrak tried to move out of our downtown, but the city won't let them.

Unfortunately I think the building is decaying anyway. It has nice marble floors and such though.

I've long dreamed of getting a herd of like minded people to move to Detroit and take over and restore the old buildings, build a local economy there or something.

[livius drusus]

OMG that's totally my dream too!1 The only problem is I can barely make a buck myself, never mind build an entire economy. Urban farming mayhap?

[Qingdai]

I know I'm broke too. See we need to start some sort of charitable thing, or religious institution with deep pockets.
The restoration of those buildings (and seismic up-grades) would require millions and millions of dollars.

[livius drusus]

The restoration work would be an economy in and of itself, while it lasts. You know what's werd? I was just thinking the other day that I do have something of a religious feeling about history, the city of Rome in particular. I bet I could scare up a real religion out of it if I made an effort, then welcome to the tax-free non profit charitable wonderland!

[Qingdai]

"The Church of the Immaculate Train Station: It's not now, but it can be with your donation."

[lpetrich]

Originally Posted by livius drusus

It's still so beautiful. ...

It's a bit lucky to have survived. Last year, it narrowly escaped going the way of Demolished! 11 Beautiful Train Stations That Fell To The Wrecking Ball » INFRASTRUCTURIST

Bah, Amtrak. They've embraced their mediocrity altogether too thoroughly for my taste.

Another case of urban decay, one might say. It was a bailout of US intercity passenger railroading, which was suffering a seemingly terminal slump in the 1960's. Since its founding in 1971, it's had various ups and downs over the years, with it now having some ups in some of its regional trains.

[Maine Flaim]

This sort of thing is my passion. I do high dynamic range photography of abandoned structures and other things. Check them out in the Photography section of my site. The menu for my galleries are on the right hand column. I am most fond of the "Abandoned Structures" Gallery. I have a few more galleries ready to post that I'm really happy with. The other section of my website are sparse content wise, but it's a developing project so....little, by little. I only recently made it live on the web to test it out and now I just add to it little by little.

[livius drusus]

Bumperson for what looks like a great new book about abandoned asylums.

The hospitals in this book were created at a time when it was thought that architecture would help in the treatment of the mentally ill. The architects envisioned them as places of healing. It's kind of a romantic notion, but as an architect you want to think what you're creating is going to last forever and have a profound impact not only on the occupants but society as a whole.

Slide show here. My favorite pic is probably the least urban decay-y.



I love the marble and that dramatic stairwell, but most of all, I love that it's in Yankton which I've only ever come across in one awesome way: via Al Swearengen's imprecations against numerous cocksuckers therefrom.

[godfry n. glad]

Neo-classical marble balustrades and balusters in Yankton, SD?

[livius drusus]

Yup. That's the lobby of the Yankton State Hospital, est 1882. The institution is still active today as the Human Services Center, but its neo-classical and Art Deco buildings are vacant and basically caving in. It was listed as one of 2009's top 10 most endangered places by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

[Qingdai]

Good looking places they are too.
Part of Obama's stimulus package means they are restoring the caving in roof of the Union Station in Portland.

[Garnet]

What amazes me is the stuff left behind. The equipment in the hair salon, the records in the autopsy room, the suitcases in the attic...

[livius drusus]

That room with the peeling wintergreen paint and the boxes and boxes of files. I want to go through them so badly it makes my fillings hum.

[Tesla]

Awesome

[LadyShea]

OMG the marble! OMG look at that!

[Ymir's blood]

[livius drusus]

It's the mothership calling you home!

[Ymir's blood]

I would replace the chain link fence with brick and wrought iron though.

[godfry n. glad]

Now Yb and I don't share aesthetic sensibilities at all, but yes, I agree, that place needs a wrought iron fence and it is utterly bodacious.

It's where? Buffalo? Is that right?