x-posted to personal journal and creepgirlfrenzy

Since 1919, the KD Station has been a shining icon in the cattle processing town of Siouxicide City, Iowa. In 1949 an explosion inside the meat packing plant killed several people and thus the haunting stories began. When the plant shut down and the building later reopened with shops and restaurants, the stories got worse. Most of it stemmed from the place itself, not the spirits floating around the place.

Consider a dank building with only a handful of windows on the top floors and a labyrinth of cold, dirty corridors buzzing and scarcely lit with industrial lamps. The elevators were so decrepit they were always threatening to commit suicide and take the passengers with. The full suits of armor peering at you from a caged hallway never put one at ease, either. I never saw any of the rumored ghosts, though a couple people have told me about seeing White Tuxedo Man outside the costume shop. However, I nearly had a coronary when I rounded a corner and came face to face with my reflection in the enormous mirror I wasn't even aware of.

Over the years the building has hosted restaurants, night clubs, music shops, a beauty salon, a butcher, clothing stores, an archery shop, an arcade, and a dinosaur exhibit. In 2004 the building was condemned when a generator in the bowling alley burst into flames. Just before this, some friends and I got a chance to go on the closed off floors with a video camera. If the areas open to the public were considered dirty, the restricted was absolutely filthy. The beams on the third floor had completely caved in certain rooms and the minigolf course was riddled with mold. An army of dusty clowns had been stockpiled in a janitor's closet, though no one ever bothered to move the 6-foot grinding wheels even on the public floors. Most of the meathooks had been cleared out. Most of them. Sadly I have no way to upload clips from the video to the internet so as to illustrate the inside of the building. In 2006 little bastard children set another fire and the city made the decision to demolish it. It's finally happening.



( This is Iowa )

Yes, these are the abandoned monuments to Lenin and the ruins of some churches and noble estates, which were abandoned because of the destrucitive activities of Lenin and his followers. In the background of the first monument you can see the ruin of the Intercession church (1905) in the village Ust'-Karemsha.



( +8 photos )

Hello abandoned places fans!

I have been following this community for a while now and I am amazed by the awsome photographs one can find here!
This is my first post and I am sharing photos of an abandoned LORAN Station - located the Santa Maria island, Azores, Portugal. It was a Longe-Range Navigation Station operated by NATO, deactivated and in ruins since 1980.



( More Photos Here )

I'm not sure if anyone is any good at going through old posts, but summer/sprinf of 2008 I posted pictures of Thornwald Mansion? It was a pretty popular post. I'm hoping someone could find it for me.

I wasn't able to take pictures past the fence, and didn't want to "break in". I contacted the city and they've gotten me in touch with the owner. I am hoping to show her the post I did here, and the positive feedback I got here from the community so that maybe she would let me take some more pictures, this time inside the fence, possibly in the Mansion? Thanks in advance if anyone can help!

Found this link at another site. It's of Lincoln Park in Dartmouth Mass.

www.dollygphotography.com/Movies/LincolnPark/

Beautifully done!

From this...



to this:



( Read more )

Go with a BBC correspondent for a look at a weapon storage bunker built by the East German military. It's for sale. Maybe we could all pitch in and ...nevermind.
LINK ~VIDEO

I was in the newspaper! My contacting the local news may have had something to do with the developer jumping into action as the work suddenly started on the mansion the day after the newspaper article appeared.

It is a shame they have to jump into action every day now at 7 am! Early morning silence is now shattered by a giant cherry picker, drills, buzz saws and men shouting. But it is good to know the building is being fully restored and turned into apartments.



Would people be interested to see progress pics of the house as it's returned to it's former glory if I post them here?

The history of the Grandview (Alias) is much broader than just a tale of a single resort.
This plot of land represents the times of an entire region...
Within these walls you witness the rise, and fall, of the Borscht Belt.



The Borscht Belt is (was) a band of hotels, resorts, spas, and places of that nature,
that spread across the Catskills Mountain area of New York state.
At one time vacationing in the Catskills was a very popular thing to do.
It was at it's most popular from the late 1940's, up until the 70's.
A number of factors contributed to the eventual demise of the Borscht Belt,
not the least of which was affordable air-travel.
A family could now go to Florida for little more than the trip to up-state NY...
The entire Borscht Belt region now lays in ruin.
Hundreds of miles of mountain land, dotted with abandoned resorts.

Though the Grandview may stand for an era of American popular culture,
this is not to say that it was just a number in the list of Catskill resorts.
Of all the resorts that stretched the Borscht belt, the Grandview was the crown-jewel.
It was so popular during it's time that an airstrip was constructed on the grounds
so that vacationers could fly directly to the resort.
An airstrip that now has 20+ years of growth covering it...
Interestingly, the "Kellerman's Mountain Resort" from the 1980's film "Dirty Dancing"
was modeled after the Grandview.

The resort had very humble beginnings,
as a single house in the rural mountains of New York state.
A family of three decided to rent out the extra rooms of their home to vacationers from New York City.
The husband ran the facility, the wife cooked and cleaned, and the daughter was hostess.
In 1919 they sold the original house to purchase a larger one on 100 acres.
From that point on the resort steadily grew in size and popularity.
In 1952 it made history as the first ski slope in the world to use artificial snow.
By 1972 the resort had grown to 35 building on some 1,200 acres of land,
and was serving 150,000 guests annually.



Nothing lasts forever though...
By the late 1970's the younger market was no longer interested in vacationing in the Catskills.
Especially when they could take a jet anywhere in the country for nearly the same cost.
To regain Catskill popularity, a bill was put into motion to legalize gambling in the region.
In preparation for this influx of vacationers looking for an alternative to Atlantic City,
the Grandview went under a massive re-construction.
(I have included some of the re-design illustrations at the end of this entry,
along with more historical images of the place)
However, the bill was never passed and gambling remains illegal in the Catskills.
That was the last hit the resort could take.
Construction halted, and in 1986 the resort shut it's doors for good.

Present day is a strange way to perceive the Grandview.
It lies trapped, between what it once was, and what it was on it's way to becoming.





( Once upon a time there was a tavern... )

About 5 miles north of Kramer Junction on the 395 outside of Boron, CA is an abandoned prison. FPC Boron ("Federal Prison Camp") shut down in around 2001 judging by the dates on most of the forms found around the facility. The facility itself does not appear to be a typical prison.. driving up to it, it looks mostly like an industrial complex. There are about 28 houses in a circle slightly south of the main facility--housing for the correctional staff. The inmate's quarters are two-story dorms with central air and heating and carpeted floors, huge windows. Each inmate gets a locker and there are bathrooms at the end of each hall. Not a bad place at all to serve out a sentence. The facility was minimum security and housed "white-collar" criminals.. sort of a slap-on-the-wrist detention center for tax fraud, stuff like that.

I've been to this site several times but decided to take a couple friends who'd never been. I took tons of pictures so I'll just post in parts.



( Read more... )

...but it's pretty cool!

I took a trip up to Elicott City early on Saturday morning. The weather and the hour made it a perfect time for exploring. We hardly saw a soul! Unfortunately, the rain also got the camera lens wet and messed up the quality of the photos. I hope you'll enjoy them anyway!

Our first stop was to Enchanted Forest, an abandoned nursery-rhyme themed amusement park. My dad actually visited this park as a kid, so he got a kick out of seeing it in its current state. These photos are all courtesy of a talented friend who wishes to remain anonymous.



( More Enchanted Forest, and Thistle Mill! )

Hello group.
I have a question to ask all of you...

There are some places I wish to post here, however I do not wish to disclose their names.
All the historical information will be included and factual, but I would like to use an alias.
Additionally, if I make a post in which I am using an alias, I will state it up-front.

My reasoning for this is that I recently made an entry about a location
(not on here, on my myspace page)
which was taken and posted to an "Urban Explorers" website.
The location was then ransacked...
The entry has since been removed from the site, but the damage is done.

I now feel guilty to have brought such damage to this place I wrote about.
A place, which until I photographed it, sat safely and quietly in the woods.
My feeling are that if I'm doing a dis-service to the location, then what I am doing is counter-productive.
I wish to share these places out of respect to them, and the history they represent.
Most, if not all, of you here treat these places with a high regard.
This is made obvious by the passion in which you all write, be it as a post or comment.
I greatly enjoy the feeling of "community" here, and hope my inquiry does not offend anyone...

Just wanted input. If it is a problem I will simply not post the locations.


Also, I forgot to post this image with my Bennett School entry.
Which is a shame, because it's my favourite exterior shot...

( Image Under Cut )

These pictures were taken just outside of Trona, CA. Trona is a tiny desert town 30 miles northeast of Ridgecrest.. pretty much in the middle of nowhere. The road to Trona is narrow and riddled with potholes and deserted, which definitely sets a certain mood for the trip. Trona itself is mostly abandoned. This trip was actually a split-second decision made as the sun was setting so we (myself, inneedofescape, and her boyfriend who also took pictures) didn't get a lot of exploration time but we did take some pictures of a "neighborhood" right on the outskirts.. basically two houses that were inhabited (but barely looked it..) surrounded by abandoned houses. I joked that the natives would run out and chase us off with rifles but all they did was wave to us from their houses while a huge dog watched us from a makeshift chickenwire-fenced yard.

Prior to us coming here, we had made a day of exploring a nearby abandoned prison in Boron.. pictures of that trip will be posted tomorrow maybe.



( Read more... )