Inside America’s ghost town Play Video Gonzo, Nick and Parv throw out the travel books and backpacker guides and hit the highways of USA to explore some of the country's lesser seen subcultures. Ruin: Welcome to Michigan Central Station. Picture: John Hardwick/Flickr 2009. I AM going to tell you a story about the most inspirational city I have ever been to. The remarkable city in question is Detroit. But I came away totally in love, wanting to be a part of its rebuilding. One of an estimated 80,000 homes abandoned in Detroit. This burnt-out husk of a building was once the home of the Fire Department. This autoroom was once an engine of Detroit’s prosperity. On our journey around the United States we heard about the large capital city, which was once known for its motor vehicle industry but now lies in total ruin. The city has been abandoned by 60 per cent of its population. HOW A CITY WENT BANKRUPT: How it came to this CITY OF RUIN: ‘It was unlike any other city I’d been to before’ Inside a Detroit housing project.
Visit the Ghost Towns of Nevada During the 19th century mineral rush that earned Nevada the nickname “the Silver State,” boom towns popped up left and right across the desert. Unfortunately, only a few survived. The rest were abandoned. Houses, schools, saloons, hotels, general stores, and mines were left to deteriorate amidst the tumbleweeds. Fortunately for adventurers, many of these ghost towns have survived into the 21st century, albeit a little worse for wear. Here are six eerily empty ghost towns in Nevada awaiting your exploration. 1 Belmont Like many Nevada ghost towns, Belmont was a silver boom town. Perhaps because of its intense though short-lived success, Belmont’s buildings are surprisingly well preserved. 2 St. St. Today, after rampant water consumption has drastically lowered the level of the lake, the remains of St. 3 Nelson Nelson was once the site of the scandalous Techatticup Mine. 4 Stokes Castle The Stokes reign, however, was short. 5 Unionville Unionville’s story is that of so many boom towns.
15 Eerily Beautiful Photos of Abandoned Movie Theaters Movies Take a peek inside architectural photographer Matt Lambros's new book, After the Final Curtain: The Fall of the American Movie Theater, which pays tribute to the once-lavish movie palaces of yesteryear. PHOTOGRAPHS BY Matt Lambros // After The Final Curtain For more than 100 years, movie theaters have been the place where people’s Technicolor dreams come true. But as technology has advanced and the age of streaming has engulfed us, many of the world’s most lavish movie palaces have been demolished, repurposed, or outright abandoned. The Brooklyn-based architectural photographer has long had an interest in capturing the haunting beauty of these once-opulent places, which he has captured in a gorgeous new book from Jonglez Publishing, After the Final Curtain: The Fall of the American Movie Theater, which includes photographs and historical information from two dozen theaters across the country. Lambros gave us an exclusive peek at some of the photos, which you can view below. 1of15
12 Abandoned Movie Sets You Can Actually Visit Although movie productions often film scenes on location, sometimes a real-life location doesn’t offer all of the right places that are called for in the script. So they build it! But taking that set back down isn’t always a top priority. Although the cargo ship, originally named “The Livingston,” was built in 1912 for the East Africa British Railways company, director John Huston spotted the vessel on the Ruki River in the Democratic Republic of Congo and wanted to give it the titular role in his Oscar-winning film, The African Queen. In 2012, Suzanne and Lance Holmquist leased “The African Queen” and completely restored it with a new interior steel-hull frame and replacement boiler, but kept its rustic and worn-out charm. In 1979, Paramount Pictures and Disney co-produced Popeye with Robin Williams as the titular sailor man and Shelley Duvall as his main squeeze Olive Oyl. Stanley Kubrick hated to travel, even if a film’s script dictated it. At the beginning of The Fugitive, Dr.
atlasobscura Prior to the 19th century there was little distinction between lunatic asylums, as the primitive mental-health facilities were known, poorhouses, and jails. Those unable to fit into society were shut away in these squalid facilities, sometimes for their entire lives. The Kirkbride Plan was introduced in the mid-19th century to get rid of all that. A more humane approach to mental health, the plan focused on care and treatment in psychiatric institutions rather than mere containment. While this was undoubtedly an improvement on the conditions of previous mental-health care, Kirkbride-style facilities were overpopulated, understaffed, and again became a dumping ground for people with developmental disabilities. Hundreds of psychiatric institutions opened between the mid-1800s and the 1910s, most of which were abandoned during deinstitutionalization.
Modernist ruin in London canal provides a glimpse at an "uncertain future" British artist Alex Hartley has installed this crumbling modernist ruin in the gardens of London's Victoria Miro Gallery. The installation, entitled A Gentle Collapsing II, has been designed to resemble an abandoned and decaying modernist building. The piece was specifically designed for the gallery's canal-side garden and intended to present "a situation of ambiguous cause and uncertain outcome". "The work offers poignant reflection on themes of entropy and decay," said Victoria Miro gallery. "It is, in some ways, emblematic of a wider collapsing – of ideals or even spirit." "Running contrary to such thoughts, however, is the undeniable aesthetic pleasure we find in ruins – their compelling, transportative quality," it continues. Typical of modernist architecture, the the building is characterised by simple forms and a lack of decoration. Internal walls are exposed to the elements, with plaster fallen away to reveal brickwork. The region has a strong historic link with modernism.
Gilmore Ghost Town – Leadore, Idaho On Jan. 14, 2009, four Idaho State Police officers on snowmobiles approached a building on the edge of Gilmore, Idaho, a former silver mining town once completely deserted but now accompanied by a handful of occupied homes. As the officers got close, gunfire came from the building and a gun battle ensued, with officers reporting hearing bullets zinging around them. They eventually retreated, leaving the snowmobiles behind. The incident was never reported but eventually word was leaked to the Post Register newspaper in Idaho Falls. atlasobscura When the Century III mall in the south of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania opened in 1979, it was the third-largest enclosed shopping center on Earth. With three stories and over 200 stores, it was the place to shop, hang, eat, and make mischief involving the indoor fountain. Not anymore. Century III is now a dead mall—not entirely abandoned, but mostly deserted, and hauntingly so. The above video tour, created by Dan Bell as part of his Dead Mall Series on YouTube, gives a sense of what it’s like to walk through this retail graveyard. Every day we track down a Video Wonder: an audiovisual offering that delights, inspires, and entertains.