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Abandoned, Disused & Ruined Places

Swifty said:
Sounds like The Legend Of Oak Island and their money pit ... repletion/dragging things out/restating the fucking obvious is off the scale with that show .. you'll get an entire episode out of them finding a coin, telling each other they've found that coin, going to the clubhouse to discuss finding that coin (even though a 30 second mobile phone call would have clearly happened anyway), discussing what that coin could mean on OAK ISLAND .. having a vote on if it's a coin, wandering off to a completely different part of the island that has nothing to do with the coin, hiring experts and plane flights to visit someone who tells them it's a coin using laser scanners and high fives all round, the older brother who has some sort of mud fetish on OAK ISLAND and then a recap of everything above in case we'd nodded off or something during the show based on OAK ISLAND. The Mrs is thinking of doing a drinking game for every time they needlessly remind the viewers that this is happening on OAK ISLAND.
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That's not fair, they only find a coin in the most exciting episodes. You also forgot that they don't just do a recap at the end, there's also a mini-one after the ad breaks. Like those above I also find it horribly compulsive, not sure why. Sometimes they might find a stain that looks a bit like the flag of a place you've never heard of if you squint a bit and then they can get someone to explain that this place, is literally made out of Free Masons and the Illiuminati and is probably Atlantis too.
 
Abandoned Psychiatric Hospitals in Italy. The text is in German - but doesn't really add much anyway:

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https://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/...fallende-psychiatrien-fotostrecke-168185.html
 
On Facebook I was reading a thread about my infant and junior school. Someone has posted a link to the website 28 days later, where someone had a bit of a snoop around.

It is a shame, because when I was there ( 1972 - 1978 ) the corridor in the main entrance was all clad in oak panneling and the floor was parquet floor. The staircase was a fantastic solid oak one, I wonder what happened to all that fantastic material?

The top turrett housed the black nun according to passed on kids legend. I thought that it was inspired by the Armchair Thriller series (it was originally a convent school). If you were really naughty you would be sent to see the black nun, the door was always locked!

https://www.28dayslater.co.uk/threads/oaklands-convent-leyland-march-2019.117094/
 
In the middle of Arizona's desert lies something unexpected: a rather strange, unfinished "city of the future."

Jutting out of the vast, barren Sonoran Desert and reachable only by car, Arcosanti's domes and curved structures look like something imagined up by a science fiction writer.

Arcosanti-1.jpg


There's one big problem, however: The project is reportedly only 5 percent complete.

The Italian architect who originally envisioned the city, Paolo Soleri, called his ideas "urban implosion"because he wanted to reduce the suburban sprawl that is a feature of many American cities. He also invented the concept of Arcology, a way of thinking about urban design that's in harmony with the natural world and more sustainable.

Each year, 50,000 people visit Arcosanti, according to Architectural Digest, but only about 80 residents call the city home.

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According to ScienceAlert, many of the architect's ideas were too costly to implement, leading to a loss of funds, the slowdown of construction on the site, and eventually, a number of residents simply left.

Construction began in 1970, but a new building has not been completed since 1989 .

https://www.foxnews.com/science/unfinished-city-future-arizona-desert

maximus otter
 
I remember reading about Arcosanti in "Shelter" and the wonderful "Whole Earth Catalog" when I was a child. Loved it and those publications.
 
feinman said:
I remember reading about Arcosanti in "Shelter" and the wonderful "Whole Earth Catalog" when I was a child. Loved it and those publications.
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I know it from a feature in one of the Sunday magazines -remember those?- double page spreads and a bit of text. Looks like it hasn't changed much in 40 years.
 
I love this stuff. Especially old hospitals, dunno why, just love the atmosphere of them.

Mr Zebra and I have had the experience of walking round the grounds of two disused hospitals; not able to get inside unfortunately, but seeing the old buildings from outside is still a cool experience.
 
Centralia - *shudder*
 
SAN JUAN COUNTY, Colo. — There's a ghost town high in the San Juan Mountains where people were literally living buried in snow.

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In fact, during an 1884 blizzard that lasted 23 days, 25 feet of snow was dumped on the town, forcing residents to slide open a window to scoop out snow to boil water for dinner or a bath.

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They also had to dig tunnels to the buildings that housed the stores, neighbors' homes — and the saloon, of course.

Here's the coolest part: Much of that town is still intact today.

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Animas Forks is located on the Alpine Loop, the 65-mile stretch of highway near Ouray, Lake City and Silverton — about a 6.5-hour drive from Denver.

At 11,200 feet, the town is located up a 12.3-mile off-highway vehicle road that's recommended only for SUVs or trucks.

https://www.9news.com/article/life/...state/73-aee08db9-773a-4f31-a71c-b74583b24b56

maximus otter
 
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"Robert Louis Desmarais is the only inhabitant of a Californian ghost town, Cerro Gordo, where he has been searching for a lost vein of silver for 22 years.

A 70-year-old former high school teacher, Desmarais used to visit the remote spot in the school holidays to search for ore. But he eventually moved there full-time, to live away from the crowds "up in the mountains, under the stars". "

BBC News - 'I've spent 22 years searching for silver in a ghost town'
 
Largely a Ghost City.

In 1958, a Czech-born sociology professor named Nat Mendelsohn purchased 82,000 acres of land in the Mojave Desert, about 100 miles north of Los Angeles, and founded the optimistically named California City.

Intended to eventually rival LA in importance, California City was just one of the countless master-planned communities that sprouted up across the state in the post-World War II boom years. But unlike Irvine or Mission Viejo, California City never took off.

Although it's officially California's third-largest city based on its geographic size, today just under 15,000 people live there, many of them employed at the California City Correctional Center. All that remains of Mendelsohn's Ozymandian vision is a sprawling grid of empty, mostly unpaved streets carved into the desert landscape—a ghost suburb that looks from above like the remains of an ancient civilization.

"It was promoted as this extravagant development, but in many ways it failed spectacularly," says Chicago-based photographer Noritaka Minami, who first learned about California City while attending graduate school at UC Irvine. Turns out, not many people wanted to live in the middle of the desert, miles from the nearest highway and hours from the closest city. When Mendelsohn finally gave up and sold his shares in the town in 1969, he had managed to attract only about 1,300 people to his would-be metropolis. "A lot of people bought land there without visiting it," Minami says. "If they had actually gone, they would have realized how remote it is."

https://www.wired.com/story/california-ghost-metropolis-gallery/
 
I'd love it. Out in the desert, yeah.
Properties there are very affordable. A mansion can be bought for £117,000.
 
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This abandoned 'Forbidden City' was once the largest Soviet military base in East Germany

Wünsdorf, Germany (CNN) — Deep inside a pine forest in eastern Germany, a statue of Lenin keeps watch over a lemon-colored building that has housed everyone from the Kaiser Willhelm II, to the Nazis, and the Soviets.
The abandoned military complex -- known as the Forbidden City -- sits behind a hefty padlocked gate in the quiet neighborhood of Wünsdorf. It has been empty since the last remaining Russian soldiers left 25 years ago, following the fall of the Iron Curtain.
It wasn't always like this. The site was once home to around 40,000 Soviet soldiers, earning it the nickname "Little Moscow in East Germany," says tour guide Werner Borchert.
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Full story and pictures: https://edition.cnn.com/travel/arti...base-wnsdorf-east-germany-grm-intl/index.html
 
The Mittagong Maltings, situated in Mittagong, a couple of towns down the road from me. I once lived just a 5 minute walk around the corner from it. It's an eerie old place, reputed to be haunted and a popular place for urban explorers, ghost hunters and fashion photoshoots.
It was sold earlier this year for just over $6 million, so soon likely to be re-developed.
According to Google, the Mittagong Maltings was a large three-malthouse complex first established in 1899 by the Malting Company of New South Wales, Australia, to supply malt to breweries throughout the state.
maltings.jpg


Just found this great video:
 
This is quite a find: urbex in an active spaceport, exploring the final resting place of a couple of old Soviet space shuttles. (On a factual note, in addition to the three Burany mentioned in the article, there is at least one more on the river front at Gorky Park in Moscow. Somewhere on here - ETA earlier in this thread, in fact, and see if you can guess the reason why... - I have posted a photo showing two white elephant Moscow projects - the trick is guessing which one is more recent...) Anyway, back to our scheduled programming:

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maximus otter said:
It's not the best fit for this thread, but I find these interactive photos of the Berlin Wall then & now quite fascinating. Slide from left to right and vice versa to see the situation pre- and post 1989:

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(Example. See link below for interactive pics).

https://interaktiv.morgenpost.de/berliner-mauer-damals-heute/

maximus otter
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Fascinating the way they can do this, I've enjoyed many examples of such photography. Reading some online news earlier today I came across this interesting tidbit:

Lost piece of Berlin Wall found in western Sydney warehouse
The Berlin Wall went up, it came down 30 years ago on November 9, 1989, and some pieces of it made their way to Australia.
One section went to Canberra, where it is still on display outside the Harmonie German Club.
Former transport company executive Ron Koehler remembers delivering a second piece to a private home in Sydney, where the owner modified his house and temporarily removed the roof to fit the enormous slab of concrete in his living room.

And a third, which Koehler recalls transporting to an event in Darling Harbour in the early 1990s (photos back up his recollection), has been missing for almost 30 years.
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https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw...western-sydney-warehouse-20191108-p538sg.html
 
Lord Lucan said:
Fascinating the way they can do this, I've enjoyed many examples of such photography. Reading some online news earlier today I came across this interesting tidbit:

Lost piece of Berlin Wall found in western Sydney warehouse
The Berlin Wall went up, it came down 30 years ago on November 9, 1989, and some pieces of it made their way to Australia.
One section went to Canberra, where it is still on display outside the Harmonie German Club.

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw...western-sydney-warehouse-20191108-p538sg.html
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I have a small piece myself, in my “Cabinet of Curiosities”.

maximus otter
 
This abandoned billionaires mansion in Japan, makes my tummy ache when I see it. Just one ornament from the thousands of things left sitting there to rot away could set me up financially, for life. :(


This place is what I would literally refer to as the definition for "sinful waste".
 
michael59 said:
This abandoned billionaires mansion in Japan, makes my tummy ache when I see it. Just one ornament from the thousands of things left sitting there to rot away could set me up financially, for life. :(


This place is what I would literally refer to as the definition for "sinful waste".
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And no alarms/security? Don't they have burglars with removal vans in Japan?
 
Tribble said:
And no alarms/security? Don't they have burglars with removal vans in Japan?
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Well try as I might, I could not find an answer for you. I don't know why it hasn't been looted. I do know that urban explorers have a strict code of leaving it as they find it. They never take anything from the properties they explore.
 
maximus otter said:
I have a small piece myself, in my “Cabinet of Curiosities”.

maximus otter
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Here is an interview with my brother on Australian radio, he was living in Paris at the time and took a train to Berlin to help the Germans pull their wall down. He was back at work the following week with a backpack full of wall pieces.

Shortly afterwards he moved to Berlin.

Do have a listen...

https://www.abc.net.au/radio/progra...LWjaPNPG4q7OV0h0OFHj1N4cNx3oICWKRgSDpjrGyF69Y
 
michael59 said:
This abandoned billionaires mansion in Japan, makes my tummy ache when I see it. Just one ornament from the thousands of things left sitting there to rot away could set me up financially, for life. :(


This place is what I would literally refer to as the definition for "sinful waste".
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That's mind blowing, nice find. Perhaps the owner has criminal connections and locals are too frightened to rob it? .. plus who would you know to approach to sell the stuff on without the risk of some of it being identified? .. I'm thinking about this too much.
 
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