Abandoned places

Gene's posting of the radioactive house started me thinking. Do you (forum

members) think there would be any interest in a photographic essay/book on

Abandoned America. I've been thinking of beginning collecting photos of all

the abandoned homes I can find. There is one just down the street from me,

completely overgrown, and surrounded by new upscale homes. It has piqued my

interest for the two years I've lived here. (and no, I haven't taken a picture

of it yet---DUH)

That's an interesting notion. I've always been sort of fascinated by old, seemingly abandoned houses, and I'm sure every town has at least a couple (I can think of 3 or 4 offhand in my small town).

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The following was shot in digital with a PowerShot S3, and not the greatest, but I think it's a terrific old house. It's not totally choked by plant growth, but the grass all around it was very high (I'm sure it gets cut for hay a couple times a year) and there were some sort of flowers growing up the back side of it and up onto the roof. I just really like it for some reason. :)

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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=909374487&size=l">click</a>

There are some excellent 'ghost town' websites documenting forgotten US towns. Something about them always makes me a bit sad - thinking of the last moments of occupation - the truck with belongings and posessions trundling away for the last time, Just a trail of dust behind. Did they bother to lock the door? Was the house left tidy or in dissaray? Lots of thoughts and emotions triggered by empty houses for me.

 

My Nan was the last person living in a terraced dead-end street. She would not move until forced. Eveyone else had gone but her. Weeds and peeling paint were her neighbours. When she went her once tidy garden was soon swamped with weeds too, like a tide coming in.

 

If there is a book made, I would buy it.

 

Ian

I've always gravitated to old and abandoned places. I used to live in the Hudson Valley and I've got a lot of photos of the old, abandoned D&H Canal and cement kilns from the same era.

 

What with "This Old House", restoring old houses has become all the rage, but our industrial past doesn't get the same care...

 

Rob

<a href="http://www.westfordcomp.com/wasteplaces"> I love lost places. <a>

Gene, you are the master!

The last set of pics was particularly disturbing to me. I can take abandoned tenements, and ghost town factories, and state schools, and even someones house. But a DEAD BAR, now that is a tear jerker ;-)

I can't wait to cry in my beer after 5.

What I can't figure out is how, in a tiny crowded island like the UK, we also have abandoned houses, some of which aren't even very old...<div></div>

I'm sure there's a market for such a book, but there's also a lot of competition.

 

I've seen on the market books of abandoned gas stations, ghost towns, and two really stellar books on old Route 66 that show past and present photos of several landmarks along the way.

 

Related:

Got to spend 2 weeks travelling Route 66 this past July, in a Jeep with my 12 y/o son. I didn't think I'd enjoy it, I expected it to be deadly dull, but I was pleasantly surprised. Had a wonderful time. Consider it a ghost town that's 2200 miles long...

I know there are quite a number of ghost town next to the abandoned ores or mining areas. You can find them from wiki.

 

THere are very few houses and buildings like this in Hong Kong. Most of them have been completely covered with trees or removed already. You can meet them by chances only.

There are a few books available on Abandoned factories and other buildings. I've been exploring Abandoned places for years now ( www.urbanprojects.be -->my website). It's fasinating but also sometimes dangerous.

One fascinating abandoned town is <A href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia,_Pennsylvania">Centralia, PA</a>. It's probably too dangerous to actually visit, but its history makes for interesting reading.

Unless something's changed dramatically in the past 2 years, you can visit Centralia PA. I was there in 2004 & 2005. Took a street-dirt motorcycle, and was able to ride on some of the abandoned roads (carefully).

 

Also took an infrared pyrometer, to measure temps of the gasses coming out of the various vents (of the underground coal fire). Varied - from 130F to 200F. Must be really hot way down in the ground where the fires are...

Come to Metro Detroit. You won't have enough film to capture all the houses. Seriously, I do enjoy seeing rambling old tumble down farm houses and the like. It makes you wonder what happened to cause the abandonment.

What an interesting post as much as I am interested in abandon houses. Gene obviously is the best one shooting such a motives.

 

 

Spencer Salyer`s excelent picture reminds me the extraordinary Edward Hooper`s painting of the house at rails train level.<div></div>

Given the economy, just drive about an hour outside of any smaller city and you will find entire towns recently abandoned as the jobs dry up, and the small plants that the people worked for for 50 years move to China. More people from the small towns are being forced to move into the cities to find work... alot like what was going on 100 years ago in this country.

Taken with Zeiss Ikon Nettar 6X6. This was my home from about 1942 till about 1946. The last time I visited up there the snow had taken it's toll.

Guess I messed up again ??

Sorry

There is a website for abandoned ski areas of New England

As already suggested, many artists have pursued this concept. Hopper is among the better known. Birger Sandzen of central Kansas was famous for his old houses. Many of his students and successors, especially those self-styled as the "Hardly Known School of Kansas Landscape Painters" of Lindsborg continue to paint the many abandoned houses from the failures of early people claiming land under the Homestead Act.<div></div>

Okay, the big stuff first. It's Edward Hopper, not Hooper. And Ron, in the phrase "had taken its toll," it is wrong to put an apostrophe in the word "its."

 

Now as for the book. I would buy a book like that only if it included interior shots of the deserted houses. Grass coming up through the floor interests me more than grass climbing up the outside walls.

Person knocks on the Pearly Gates.

 

St. Peter: "Who's there?"

 

Knocker: "It is I."

 

St. Peter: "Go to Hell; we've got enough English teachers up here!"

ah! ah! Thanks you JDM.

 

Why the better teachers.

 

never saw their pictures?

Actually, the punch line is: "Please enter, we need more English teachers in all departments."

I like the idea. Here is one I took of the abandoned Colt Arms factory. There is something sad about seeing these industrial age structures decay away to nothing....<div></div>

There's an entire suburb of derelict houses beside a busy highway only a few miles from our home. All the properties were bought with the intention of building a strip mall on the area. Two weeks ago, my husband and I walked around the area and I shot numerous 3D slides with my Stereo Realist. These places are very eerie, even in broad daylight.