Abandoned structures and their stories

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
41

One of the most fascinating abandoned structures I know of is the Shivering Sands fort that sits in the estuary of the Thames river. Think of a series of oil drilling platform-like structures that were permanently placed in the estuary as air defenses during WWII. After the war they were abandoned and today remain in the estuaries where they were placed:

In 2005 an artist named Stephen Turner spent a month camping in the searchlight tower, he documented his experience in a book called Seafort, which I have a copy of.

A naval version of the fort is now the principality of Sealand. I told my wife I want a shirt made with the Sealand flag on it and the caption “Proving that size doesn’t matter since 1967.” I doubt anyone would get it but I still want it.

42

Woah! Those are unique. Very interesting bit of history. Google Maps has many pictures of them and they are a bit creepy.

43

Whittier, Alaska has the Buckner Building. It was built by the Army in the early 1950s and in use until the mid-1960s, it was billed as a “city under one roof”. The story I was told, and what the Atlas Obscura entry says, is that the building was damaged in an earthquake in 1964. But Wikipedia says it was in good condition after the quake and it was simply abandoned after the military left. Whatever the reason, I’m told it would be cost prohibitive to demolish because A) asbestos, and B) the only ways in and out of Whittier are through a single lane tunnel, or by boat. So if it were to be demolished the debris would have to be hauled out through one of those means.

44

I could well have been a restaurant, too, or a bar and grille? We first drove past it in 1997, and it was already boarded up and obviously deteriorating.

45

A place in my hometown, known as the Greenlaw house, was abandoned when my now 76 year old dad was a kid. I checked it out as a kid, too. Probably hundreds of kids did, over the years. It was on a section of highway known as Greenlaw’s corner, and eventually it was demolished when the new property owner from “out of state” asked the local fire department to burn it, as he felt it was a hazard. The local community rallied, and protested, as it has become such a familiar and photographed attraction. It was burned in 1986. Guitarist Zakk Wylde later used a picture of it on his album, Pride and Glory.

46

We drive by a long abandoned dog race track on a semi regular basis which became a local legend.. Last time we went by there it looked like last bit of the clubhouse was gone.

Spoiler: There was a dog track in a very small town an hour away from the big city. There was an incident where a few folks got food poisoning during a grand reopening. Someone did try to turn it into a flea market but the bad location prevailed.

47

Was this by any chance Adak Island? I had a pen pal who was stationed there in the 1970s (she had nothing good to say about the experience) and there are some urbex videos of people exploring the grounds, which included a long-deserted McDonald’s.

48

Since we had a cottage nearby on Lake Simcoe, I went to many movies here:

And on the way to the cottage, we passed by this place:

… This place was where my mother always threatened to send me to if I didn’t behave. There are photos on that page of what it looked like after it was abandoned, but still standing. It has since been demolished. After it was closed, a lot of stories came out about how its inmates (all teen and preteen boys) were sexually and physically abused by staff.

Finally, I couldn’t find anything about it, but the Whitehouse Restaurant, near that cottage. We kids would pass by it, on our way to the store to buy candy. It was a working restaurant, until it closed one day. Okay, but the closure was sudden.

In other words, you could look in the windows, see tables set with red and white checkered tablecloths, silverware, ashtrays, coffee cups, salt and pepper shakers, and so on. A Pepsi fountain was behind the counter. It was clean as a whistle … and yet it never opened again.

For at least fifteen years, it remained the same. The red in the tablecloths faded from the sunshine through the windows. The “Burger Special” sign on the wall (“Hamburger with everything and French Fries, only 25c”) remained, at a time when a Big Mac by itself cost $1. The Pepsi logo had changed from how it was on the soda fountain.

The Whitehouse Restaurant was a snapshot in time, of what a 1965 diner looked like, up until 1980 or so, when the building was repurposed. The new owner tried a different business, did not succeed, and the building is now demolished. But I still remember, as a child, looking in the windows, and seeing perfect place settings on faded tablecloths, waiting for guests who would never come.

49

This is standard with mothers. I believe it’s taught in Mothers 101. Somewhere my mother had picked up the phrase “reform school”, and being sent there was a constant threat hanging over my head! :grinning:

50

This reminded me of something. In the years before the second world war, there was a drive to develop technology for the early detection of approaching enemy aircraft. If aircraft could be detected early enough, then fighters could be scrambled to intercept them - but how exactly were they to be detected?

Research focused on listening devices. Actually, you can find the remains of these in a number of places, but Denge in Kent was the research centre. And the three colossal research “sound mirrors” are still there. These huge concrete dish-like objects were designed to reflect/focus the sound of distant aircraft onto a microphone. The concrete remains but support buildings and electronics are long gone.

As conflict loomed, work began to build a network of these devices around the British coast. And in order to coordinate reporting and ensure the timely scrambling of fighters, an infrastructure of command centres and communications networks was developed. Just at the point when a huge financial commitment to the detection system was about to be made… someone invented radar.

Radar quickly took over; the sound mirrors themselves were immediately redundant, and were abandoned; but the support infrastructure was repurposed to manage radar reporting, and quickly became a key defence resource.

The research centre at Denge is surrounded by water (it’s in a worked-out part of a gravel pit) and has very limited visiting these days. Decades ago we went on a visit hosted by Richard Scarth, who was then probably the leading authority on the sound mirrors. It’s difficult to convey the scale of these objects.

j

51

We told our kids we’d give them back to the Indians. That confused the little buggers.

52

I used to volunteer at Sweetwater Creek State Park, in Lithia Springs, Ga. It’s on the site of an antebellum cotton mill and factory town, called New Manchester. During the Civil War, the mill made fabric for the Confederate army, so when Sherman drove Johnston out of Atlanta, he sent two divisions of cavalry to burn down the mill and town, and deported all the residents to Kentucky and Indiana.

The ruins of the mill are all that remain – you might recognize them as the site of President Snow’s “flower bombing” from The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1. But if you hike the park’s trails, among the oaks, trilliums, and bloodroots native to the area, you occasionally come across a yucca plant, which isn’t. A park ranger told me that those were planted for decorative purposes by the villagers, so each marks the site of a vanished cabin or house.

Kinda neat that the only reminders of a bustling town are a few plants in the middle of the woods.

53

[continued hijack]We told our kids we would sell them to the LOWEST bidders.
[/hijack]

Back in the early 20th century, the ice business was huge. The end of the train line north out of Chicago was our neighborhood. There were spur lines going out to the lakes, where in the winter they would cut ice and ship it back down to Chicago. So, we had a HUGE train station. Well, later on, the tracks were extended further north for the tourists / vacationers. And people invented real refrigeration. By the time I was a kid, that train stop was a flag stop - the train would stop if someone was on the platform, but the station was unused. Boarded up. Of course, as kids, we’d play in there. You find a way in… Well, they finally decided it was a liability and tore it down. Replaced with a warming shelter. sigh. It was a beautiful old building. Of course, can’t find an image online.

ETA - OOoooo! Found it!

Looks smaller than I remember it. Then again, I was a kid - I was smaller.

54

Heh, you ‘saw’ my creepy abandoned asylum and raised with an even creepier abandoned asylum. Well played!

Michigan Central Station, the once grandiose Detroit railway station from back in the days when railway travel ruled, may be an even more archetypical example. A ruined shell of its former self for many many years, it’s had rumors that it would be renovated many times-- I think at one point it was supposed to become the Detroit Police Headquarters.

Now it’s in the process of actually being renovated by Ford. I don’t know why anybody would put in the money and effort-- scavengers have stripped that place clean of everything and it’s been sitting exposed to the elements for decades. There was a news update the other day about Ford’s progress on the site, where I think they said Ford is projected to spend a BILLION dollars on it when all is said and done. They’re running into all kinds of previously unknown problems (what a shocker). The news report said they discovered a basement they didn’t even know existed, and they were planning to fill it with concrete (I guess they don’t need a basement, or maybe the concrete will help shore up the foundation or something??). My wife said, “how do you not know a building like that has a basement? Like, wouldn’t it be in the original blueprints?”

55

That is a very cool old train station! Google Street View has a lot of interior shots since it seems at some point they allowed tours. But yeah, a billion$?!?!? :scream:

56

Another good one and, if you can stand another film reference, it serves as the perfect setting for a creepy scene from It Follows (starts at :34). Several good shots of a dilapidated Detroit, actually.

57

I’m pretty sure the news report said ‘billion’ with a ‘B’. The only way I could have misheard it is if they said million, but there’s no freakin’ way it would only cost a million to renovate that place.

{Googling} yep, here’s a Detroit Free Press article saying Ford will spend $740 Million, and it’s dated way back in August 2018:

Years ago I rented a DVD of ‘It Follows’ from the library, not knowing anything about the movie other than I’d heard it was a well-made low budget horror film. When I started watching it, I was trying to figure out where they filmed it from the scenes and context, but they started out in a very generic suburban location. I had had the idea that it was an Australian production for some reason, but the accents were all American.

Then there was a scene where they walked by an ice cream shop on 12 Mile Rd. in Berkley, Michigan I knew well, and I was all like, “hey, they filmed it RIGHT HERE!”

58

We have an abandoned mall that’s been the center of drama and controversy for a decade. White Lakes Mall in Topeka was THE place to go when I was a kid. They had TWO bookstores (B Dalton and Waldenbooks) and later on a large arcade. Heaven for a nerdy kid like me.

However, this mall is (probably/maybe/if the stars align) going to be demolished this year. A fire broke out a few years ago, probably set by squatters, but they just had to let it burn itself out inside because it was condemned (maybe? That’s a controversy too). It’s finally been sold to a developer who’s been promising to get it demolished. The previous owner just let it sit and become a major eyesore, not paying back taxes, making empty promises, etc.

My parents took refuge in its basement during the infamous 1966 tornado that tore through downtown Topeka, rated an F5 on the Fujita scale for damage caused, and notable as the first tornado to cause more than $100 million in damages.

The latest video, taken about a month ago:

59

Slight hijack, but it’s a persistent fear of mine that one day, Amtrak will tear down or remodel their Peachtree Atlanta station, a 1918 Italian Renaissance-style jewel that’s one of the city’s loveliest buildings. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, so that’s some protection; but the city has contracted with a consultant to develop plans for a new multi-modal station downtown.

60

Union Station in St. Louis was long abandoned, and its renovation in the early 1980s cost about $150 million ($400M in today’s dollars).

Last time I was there was around 2010, when I still lived in the area, and while it looked nice, the signage indicated that they’d had issues with gang activity.