Not for much longer. http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=ap-tigerstadium&prov=ap&type=lgns
Thus ends the only (as far as I know) stadium in baseball with an upper deck on their bleachers.
Good to know the ol’ ballpark at Michigan and Trumbull is going to be put out of its pain.
The old state mental hospital in Danvers, MA is finally being torn down to make way for a housing development. Young people of my acquaintance tell me it was a scary place to break into and wander around (oh, hell, I’d have done that too at that age) - picture the water-treatment room in Cuckoo’s Nest, for instance.
Come to think of it, the scariest infrastructure I’ve ever been in hasn’t been entirely abandoned. I’m speaking of the German U-boat pens in St.-Nazaire, France, a long series of “garages” built of meters-thick heavily-reinforced concrete, roofs included, by forced local labor during the Occupation. Heavy Allied bombing didn’t do more than chip the roof, as you can see walking over it, but at the cost of many casualties. They’ll be around until, probably literally, the next Ice Age, since demolishing them would be perhaps even harder than building them. A few harbor-related business now occupy some of the bays, but not many.
The evil in there is almost palpable, almost oozing from the walls, as you picture a pair of U-boats in each bay being loaded for the next voyage in search of Allied convoys, loaded that is by French slaves with guns pointed at them.
For those who haven’t seen this before, or have seen it and forgot: Baltimore Ghosts: Forgotten Relics & Urban Artifacts.
Illinois and some other states in the mid-west had highways that followed the parralells of latitude and lines of longitude.
The offsets of longitude created offsets in the north/south lines. The resulting 90 deg corners close together were later replaced by curvaceous and more maneuverable sections of pavement. The farm land to be reclaimed wasn’t worht the cost of removal of concrete and gravel base.
I live on a road which used to be one of the main routes out of town . Fifteen years ago it was blocked off because a new bypass was built around town and the road was diverted . So now just past my house there are a set of gates across the road which give access to some farmer’s fields and the local cricket ground. Beyond the gates the old road continuous for about a quarter of a mile before it come up against the embankment of the bypass road. It’s surprising how many people still drive up the road , still thinking it’s a main highway. Just lately driver’s sat-navs have been sending along here as well. When I am outside mowing my front lawn I am always having to send drivers back the way they came because of these errors.
As long as we’re expanding to temporarily-abandoned infrastructure: the interchange between state Hwy 237 and Interstate 880 in Milpitas, California was unfinished for years in the 70s, due to a change in priorities (IIRC, Jerry Brown was not as enthused about building freeways as his predecessor had been). The odd part is that the overpass over 880 was complete, but the connector ramps on both ends remained unbuilt for the better part of 10 years. So we had this surreal unconnected bridge over the freeway.
Immortalized in the cover of a Doobie Bros album.
Just remembered, there’s a dead-end spur off a motorway in the middle of Manchester. Underneath, there’s a roundabout dealing with the bottom end of a one-way street that made the spur redundant.
It’s at co-ordinates 53" 28’ 20.07, 2" 14’ 10.17 (OK, am I stupid, or is there no easy way to link to locations in Google Earth?)
Not in Google Earth, but Google Maps has a “Lnk to this” link at the top right- you can copy that link.
I have come across these in the woods of NE. Many times they have a few graves, and are overgrown by trees. They always make me wonder about how these people lived…most likely, they had a farm that their descendents just abandoned.
I also was on Cape Cod once and a little cemetary off the highway caught my interest. About half of the graves were cared for, but one corner was all overgrown by trees-sad in a way!
I’m fed up with Google Map’s freezing and refusing to load images. It just feels like an early prototype to Google Earth (beta!)
There is a large section of semi-abandoned duel-carriageway near to where you live GorillaMan. This is the old A12 south of Ipswich. It runs for two or three miles, passes through Copdock before it comes dead stop against the embankment of the A14. There is just a small lane leading off it going towards Sproughton.
You can see it here
It’s a bit strange driving along this stretch of road. This used to be a major highway and now you will be lucky to see more than the odd car.
Here in Southern California we have our own “Bridge to Nowhere”. I have been meaning to get up there for years. Heull Howser had a show where he showed a section of old subway tunnel under downtown LA. You can only see a few segements because it is pierced by skyscraper foundations. We also have the Mt. Lowe trail, that used to be a railway. You can see remains of the overhead electric supports in spots. It has been abandoned for years. At the top of Runyon Canyon are remains of a sign that was even larger than the Hollywood sign. If you know what you are looking for you can find remains of the Red Car system. Bits of track, etc.
One of the more interesting abandoned rail sites is very hikeable. The Iron Goat Trail has remains of collapsed snowsheds, retaining walls, a tunnel and many other features. It has been abandoned for quite some time.
I don’t know if anyone has mentioned the old TWA building at JFK but it is a major air terminal that has stood empty for a long time. It is also a major architectural landmark. Abandoned airports are a dime a dozen in all parts of the country, and getting more common, unfortunately.
Never knew that was there! Cheers. It’ll be the same as this short stretch the other side of the Orwell, predating the Orwell Bridge, when the then-A45 and the A12 went through the centre of town.
Have a nice visit to Detroit. Though not as nice as the New York site, there are some nice photos to be found there.
A shame about Tiger Stadium. There are a number of people that would have bought the place and preserved it. The plan calls for sort of a strip mall ringing the playing field. If such a thing somehow revives Corktown, great. But I’m not holding my breath. At any rate, I hope they sell the fixtures for souvenirs.
In my earlier excitement to tell about the ones I found while I was older, there is a forest preserve across the street from my parent’s house that I used to play in all the time as a kid. There was some old cement foundation that was back there that was really just a broken slab with some collapsed walls littered about around it. We always had wondered what it was. My mom got a job with one of the smaller Chicago suburban dailies writing a human interest column twice a week. We told her she should figure out what the old slab in the forest preserve was. Turns out it was a government training facility back during the development of radar. They used to train on it’s use by tracking planes coming in and out of O’Hare (Then called Orchard). It was a super top secret program at the time and my mom’s the one who cracked that mystery. That was pretty cool.
Here’s another which I drive past regularly - the remains of a railway line. http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g3/owainsutton/mslr.jpg
The ultimate abandoned highways in England are sections of Roman roads. Although the original line of many roads are still in use, others are not. Sometimes when driving along one of these, the road will make a sharp turn to the right or left but you can see the original road going straight on. They are now reduced to what are known as “green lanes”. There are a couple of these green lanes in Warwickshire on the line of the Foss Way. I also know of a section of Ermine Street in Hertfordshire (the old London - York road) which is now just a farm track.
Two cases of this can be seen here.