Abandoned Places

This house was built in 1905 and ended up being run as a boarding school. It's a huge house with several outbuildings (and tennis courts) so there is a lot here that didn't end up in the photographs.



( More photos )

Yesterday a crew of friends and I went out to Teufelsberg, which is an old abandoned listening station located in the Grunewald forest, on the west edge of Berlin.

Standing in the middle of the domes and speaking was like talking into a microphone; everything was wildly amplified and sounded like my own words were beind spoken directly into my ears by an outside source – a very strange sensation.



( See more... )

Hello all,

I'm looking for some good ideas of places to go- I'm living mostly in western Oklahoma and have easy access to New Mexico, Kansas, and Colorado. Just start driving on random country roads and see what happens? Research old mining and oil areas that aren't in use? I need somewhere interesting to go when I'm not at work.

(Someone replied to my LJ post that it would make a good post for this community. So, here it is.)

I begin with: And this, too, shall pass.

( Saying goodbye to a childhood home. )
I'm a little sad to see it die... and much relieved that the rotting deathtrap and all its junk will soon be out of my life.

This was a quick visit on the way home from somewhere else and I didn't have a torch with me so didn't look around the house - it actually operated as a restaurant prior to its abandonment. The mill building is very rotten inside, there are a lot of holes in the wooden floors. If I'm heading over that way again I'll stick a torch in the car and have a look inside the house too.



( Photos )

The last vacant house in an almost-empty town awaits demolition. More Photos

www.nytimes.com/2012/05/20/magazine/last-ones-left-in-treece-kan-a-toxic-town.html?_r=1&emc=eta1

Treece, Kansas, former mining town, is so polluted that the last residents have left; it's about to be wiped off the maps for good.

I hope I'm not reposting old news; this link came around on my Facebook feed today and I found it interesting. Apparently these folks were (or still are?) hoping to make a documentary series on the old Catskills hotels.

This entry is primarily (like 90%) about the video which can be found behind the cut...
It's been a long time since Christina and I have been to the old finishing school, and during that span we have both learned a great deal.
I, of course, shot a couple pics of the place upon our revisit, but Christina went on two different occasions to film it.
Once was pre-dawn (hence the golden sunrise hues throughout the video), and another time to wrap up all the shots she couldn't get that day.
And now, onto the entry...


Constructed in 1890 as a resort, this grand hall only served for a brief time in its original role.
By 1900 it was in use as an the upper class finishing school for young women. Built of wood and stone, the structure is equal parts elegance and frailty.
Intricate carvings can still be seen adorning corners and peaks, reminding passers-by that it must once have appeared a palace on its hilltop. Today, it more
closely resembles the classic image of a haunted mansion, the long lines of its architecture bowed and uneven as its windows stare blankly to the horizon.

The students here would likely have been the daughter's of industrialists, bankers and other members of society who's wealth permitted such an education.
Here, young women would learn fine arts and languages, and be schooled in all the lessons of societal behavior and etiquette that would make them
successful in their future roles as the wives of future bankers and industrialists.

As time progressed, such an institution began to seem more and more archaic. As the once-radical ideas of feminism became mainstream, finishing
schools became a symbol of sexism and a greater number of women began attending true colleges. In the 1970's, the school made a last-ditch effort to
modernize by expanding to a four year college, but the expanded curriculum only delayed its inevitable close in 1977.

Some places keep time differently from the rest of the world. Within these halls, it is still an era of floor-length dresses, horseback riding,
etiquette lessons and the long forgotten art of the curtsy. The very fibers of the decaying wood excrete these ideals, and cast them in long shadows across
the filth covered floors. The smell of lavender and the sound of a softly played piano are almost expected, even among the damp and dimly lit hallways
which have so gently replaced them.



( VIDEO! This way! )

i don't know if Russia know about this movie or not but "Chernobyl Diaries"
could lead to some bad tourist in other abandoned places around the would.
we might need to be vigilant in our neck of the woods to keep those sites we love clean