Creepy, Bizarre, Isolated Places

[elpollodiablo]

Dr Bob, that was seriously cool. Thanks for sharing.

Have we talked about the abandoned Pennsylvania Turnpike, yet? I know we've touched on various abandoned sites in Pennsylvania, but a quick search didn't bring anything up on this.

How much you want to be they filmed parts of The Road here?

[diesel_powered]

Yeah, thanks Dr. Bob. I thought that was particularly fascinating since that era of architecture had a lot of influence over the architecture where I went to school:



And speaking of (school, not fascist architecture):



I can't remember if I've posted this here before, but this is a pool on the grounds of the guest mansion at my school. It used to be quite luxurious and there are a number of photos in the school archives of various celebrities hanging out in the 60s and 70s (I guess it used to be known as the resort art school back then). At some point, one of the owner's children drowned in it and it's been disused ever since. At this point, it's a budgetary decision more than anything to keep all the various pools on campus closed. Plus, there's a really beautiful new indoor swimming facility at the High School.

[davy]

How much you want to be they filmed parts of The Road here?

Haha, funny you mention that. They did indeed film there; I'd never heard of this turnpike until I read the wikipedia entry for The Road: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_(film)

[Doctor Bob]

That Wikipedia page is was obviously written by the Pennsylvania Tourist Board.

Pennsylvania, where most of the filming took place, was chosen for its tax breaks and its abundance of locations that looked post-apocalyptic

[davy]

 

[Aglaya]

Thanks for that Dr Bob!  This has to be one of the coolest buildings I have ever seen.

[Andrew_TSKS]

This link isn't too amazing in and of itself, though it does point towards a livejournal community that gets multiple posts a day and is generally well worth reading:

http://community.livejournal.com/abandonedplaces/1760196.html

The real reason I'm posting it, though, is to mention that there are a lot of Russian/Ukrainian posters on this community, and I notice a pretty significant difference between the stuff they post and the stuff that a lot of Americans post. It seems like, where abandoned places in America are rundown, post-USSR abadoned places are much farther along in the process, often actively becoming what I'd call ruins rather than just plain abandoned buildings. I'm starting to think that this is a symbol of overall cultural decay, and that what the difference really demonstrates is that the USA's decline as a cultural center is not nearly as advanced as that of the USSR, which seems to have been steadily falling apart since the days of, oh, Stalin or so.

Anyway, to demonstrate my point, here are a few photos from the above link, of an abandoned Russian church (with gravestones that are apparently still visited):

[Aglaya]

I want to go there!
This thread makes me wish I still had my pictures of Dungeness from when we went to Cumberland Island for Spring Break one year.  That was great.

[davy]

That was one of the few LJ communities I belonged to when I was a regular poster there. It caught my eye once when someone was posting pictures of ruined dungeons below Moscow. Totally mind-blowing stuff.

[Maaik]

I want to go there!
This thread makes me wish I still had my pictures of Dungeness from when we went to Cumberland Island for Spring Break one year.  That was great.

Ooh!  I went there last year.  For those that don't know, The Carnegie family used to live here back in the '20s. After the Depression and the end of the era of steel magnates and the like, the place was kind of abandoned. Then it burned down.  I've posted these pics before, but that was a year ago.








There are wild horses all over the island.

[davy]

Given my fascination with ruins and E's obsession with all things equestrian, I honestly have no idea why we've never been there.

[Maaik]

It's a bit of a trip--it's only accessible by a ferry (or private boat if ya got one) that departs and returns to the mainland like twice a day.  I highly recommend renting bikes when you get there.  But yeah, it's a great place.  Breezing through a forest road to some awesome ruins to jumping into the Atlantic Ocean.  Oh yeah, and you have to pack all your own food and water for the day.  And we were there in June--it was freaking blazing outside.  We wound up napping on a picnic table before the ferry got there.

[Aglaya]

My first year of college a few of us went camping there on Spring Break.  We had to reserve a spot months in advance, and it was still really chilly, but it was amazing.  They have primitive cmaping if you're serious, but they also have less serious camping, running water, showers, etc., which is what we did.  It was wonderful and gorgeous.  We took pictures standing on the beach in sweatshirts and long pants.  I'd recommend camping if you can, it gives you time to really explore the whole island, which you need to do.  It was the first place I met an armadillo.  I didn't even know they came in a small size.

[davy]

And you call yourself a Georgian?! I've been up to my eyeballs in armadillos.

[Aglaya]

Well, I have now.  I come from Iowa, remember.  No armadillos there, my friend.  None of any size.

[Ignatius]

I don't believe armadillos are real.

[Greg Nog]

A couple days ago, I overheard this from a woman in Trader Joe's Wine Shop:

"So I was like, 'I got to touch an armadillo', and they're like, 'Oh, so what else are you up to?' and I'm like, 'I touched an armadillo!  That's not enough?  Have YOU touched an armadillo lately?'"

[Ignatius]

See? It might as well be a unicorn up in these parts.

[davy]

I remember going camping at Disney World when I was little...the campground was absolutely swimming in armadillos. That's my earliest armadillo memory. The last day we were there, my sister was riding her 10-speed around and around the campsite and swerved to miss an armadillo, skidded sideways on a patch of gravel and totally wiped out. Big nasty scrapes all over the place. Not what you want to deal with on your last day at Disney World.

[Andrew_TSKS]

Found a new website full of interesting abandoned stuff: artificial owl

Here are a couple of interesting recent posts:

Mexican church buried by lava

This church is the only remaining building left from the village of San Juan Parangaricutiro, located in the state of Michoacán in Mexico. What happened? Not far from there In 1943 the Volcán de Parícutin started to rise out of a farmer's cornfield. In the following irruption, it buried 2 villages under lava and ashes, including San Juan Parangaricutiro. The church of San Juan is now an abandoned ruin in the middle of nowhere. During the eruption, the lava flowed around and into the church, and covered 3/4 of the town. Just beneath the church, the old houses and buildings keep buried under the rocks. No one died from the Parícutin volcano as all residents were evacuated before the villages were covered in lava.

Aral Sea disaster: shipwrecks around Muynak, Uzbekistan

Once a bustling fishing community, Muynak is now a shadow of its former self, dozens of miles from the rapidly receding shoreline of the Aral Sea. Fishing had always been part of the economy of the region, and Muynak became a center of industrial fishing and canning. A regional agricultural monoculture dominated by cotton production which diverts water from tributary rivers of the sea into irrigation, and severe pollution caused by agricultural chemical runoff, are causing the sea to evaporate and the water that remains is highly saline and very toxic, causing the ecological disaster which is inevitably destroying the sea and killing the residents of the towns in its vicinity, including Muynak.

I just discovered this site today, but I think it's going to be well worth keeping up with.

[ellaguru]

I like the pictures of the camels with the boats.

[G.C.R]

I'm not going to trek through all 7 pages of this thread, but have you guys talked about Pyramiden yet? Abandoned Russian coal mining settlement on Svalbard.







Abandoned in 1998. Everyone given a couple hours to pack, and then everything locked up. Although you are not allowed cats on Svalbard, as they are a danger to the wildlife there, of course many people did have them, and they were left behind. Several months after the town was abandoned, a clean up crew came through and found a lot of dead cats - they buried them there and there's a memorial thingy with a big metal sunflower. I can't find the pictures of it I was looking at last night! there were some great ones.

[Aglaya]

That Artificial Owl page is great!  I especially love how they have a link to Google Maps for the coordinates.  It's fun to see it in context, especially the shipwrecks, so far.

[davy]

Very cool, GCR! Russia is the fucking KING of this thread, for real.

You really should read the whole thing, though. This is the best specific-topic thread in all of LPTJ-land.

[Doctor Bob]

That Mexican church is amazing.

I remember reading about the Aral Sea a couple of years ago.  Anyone for a walk on the beach?  (Check out the Wikipedia page for fuller resolution.)



Good animation of its demise too: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Aral_Sea.gif