Album
Saint Johns Catholic Church, Albany, New York
The former St. John's Catholic Church on Green Street (1903-1908) remains in limbo years after the World Unity Corp. purchased the stone structure from Albany County in 2009 to make it the nonprofit's headquarters to promote education, multiculturalism and the arts. The church had been vacant since the 1970s.
The organization's founder, Joseph Hyson, blames the 2013 conviction of the nonprofit's treasurer Mala Khan for the project's demise. Khan was found guilty in 2013 of stealing security deposits intended for the county Department of Social Services, filing false statements and tax fraud
Update 12/18/2019
Patrick Chiou, also the owner of the Church of Holy Innocents and a number of functioning commercial buidings downtown, purchased the buidling in March 2019 from Albany County with the intent to convert the former Catholic church into 20 affordable 1 and 2 bedroom apartments.
Tool Board - Air Force Station Radar Tower
A tool board remains on the top of a radar tower for the Cold War-era Saratoga Springs Air Force Station (1952-1977). Initially known as Schuylerville Radar Site, it was named Saratoga Springs Air Force Station on 1 Dec 1955. This site assumed coverage from Lashup Radar Site L-7 in Schenectady, New York. Initially assigned a Permanent ID of P-50, later a Sage ID of Z-50. Abandoned in 1977.
The station was manned by the 656th AC&W Squadron and initially had both a Ground-Control Intercept (GCI) and early warning mission. The early warning mission involved tracking and identifying all aircraft entering their airspace while the GCI mission involved guiding Air Force interceptors to any identified enemy aircraft. Controllers at the station vectored fighter aircraft at the correct course and speed to intercept enemy aircraft using voice commands via ground-to-air radio.
Equipment included the FPS-3 and FPS-5 radars.
Chilton County High School, Clanton, Alabama
The original Chilton County High School of Clanton, Alabama was destroyed in a fire in November 1938. In 1940, a replacement school was built. In 1962, the replacement was replaced and became Henry M. Adair Jr. High School. By 2005, the 1940 building was demolished. All that remains of the 1940 Chilton County High School are the columns and steps of the front entrance. We photographed the ruins in 2021 under the light of the full moon.
Third Church of Christ Scientist / Karpeles Library Museum
Historic artifacts, including a copy of the proclamation of France's approval of the Louisiana Purchase and a yearbook from Fidel Castro's high school, were rescued Tuesday night from a four-alarm fire that damaged the Karpeles Manuscript Library Museum in St. Louis.
About 80 firefighters rushed in and out of the museum, housed in what was once the Third Church of Christ, Scientist, hauling out armloads of one-of-a-kind documents, manuscripts, statues and intricately carved wooden ship models, even as they battled 8-foot-high flames.
"They knew they were in a museum," Fire Chief Dennis Jenkerson told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "It's like, 'Don't leave empty-handed. Grab something and get it out of here.' "
Since opening in August 2015, exhibits at the St. Louis branch have included "a Gutenberg Bible, the Confederate Constitution, a map from the Spanish Armada, Babe Ruth's first baseball contract, the first draft of the Bill of Rights, and Columbus' handwritten letter describing the coasts of America in his last voyage of discovery."
Old Martinez Jail (demolished)
The Old Martinez Jail was built in 1903 and is designated on the National Register of Historic Places. Along with the Courthouse, the Jail was Contra Costa County’s first major government headquarters. Built of Vermont granite block “to last far into the future to express Contra Costa’s pride and confidence.”
The jail has been vacant since 1982 when the county begin operating the new jail in Martinez.
In February of 2021, the Contra Costa County Board of Supervistors voted to demolish the structure but were met with resistance by a grassroots group of preservationists identified on Facebook as the "Save Martinez's Historic Old Jail" group.
By September of 2021 the Supervisors awarded a $58 million contract to Webcor Construction to demolish both the jail and the old county administration building across the street.
The new office building likely will retain a wall from the old jail in commemoration of its historical significance. County officials also plan to document some of the jail’s other historic features and display them somewhere at the site of the new office building.
Brown's Hotel and Country Club -
The Jerry Lewis Theatre Club at Brown’s Hotel, Catskills (Borscht Belt), New York.
Though it's more recently associated with Jewish history and leisure, the site of Brown's Hotel goes back centuries. Dutch immigrants settled in the Catskill Mountains in the 1600s where they grew wheat and rye. By the mid-1800s, farmers and innkeepers began renting out bungalows to boarders from the city who sought to escape the humidity, heat, and pollution of New York City.
Pictured here, Brown's Resort was known for its wealthy patrons, and it attracted comedians such as Bob Hope, Buddy Hackett, Jackie Mason, Woody Allen, and George Burns, as well as musicians Sammy Davis, Jr., Tony Bennett, Harry Belafonte, and Liberace.
Brown’s also attracted Italian and Jewish gangsters. By the 1940s, the bodies of organized crime victims would turn up in Loch Sheldrake less than two miles away from the hotel. At 570 rooms, Brown's became one of the largest in the Catskills.
In July of 1988, Lillian Brown filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. It wasn't until 1997 that the resort was converted into a 396-unit condominium complex known as Grandview Palace.
By 2012, it was clear the historic complex had fallen on hard times. The city threatened to condemn the complex. Coincidentally, just a month later, a fire broke out and destroyed many of the structures, which involved over 43 fire companies and 300 firefighters. It is possibly the largest fire in Catskills history. All that remains are these shells...
#historic #abandonedny #borschtbelt #catskills
Posey Tube - Alameda Side Exhaust Portal
Beautiful, board-formed concrete in the exhaust system of the 1928 Posey Tube of Alameda / Oakland, California. It was the first tunnel for road traffic built using the immersed tube technique. The 4,436-foot-long tunnel was the first precast concrete tube, and was cast at Hunter's Point by California Bridge & Tunnel Company. Each approach to the tunnel is buffeted by Art Deco ventilation buildings designed by architect Henry H. Meyers, which house the massive fans.
Unlike earlier tunnels, which were ventilated in one direction with fresh air coming in one end and vehicle exhaust out the other, the Posey Tube was one of the earliest to use two fan systems, one for exhaust, which was channeled above the vehicles through an elaborate system of louvers and board formed concrete desgned in intracate curves; the other fan system provided fresh air through the floor of the tunnel.
One piece of interesting trivia about the Posey Tube: A pair of canaries were used during construction as living air monitors; although one canary died during construction, it was an accident caused by being penned up with a pet cat and not a toxic atmosphere.
In 2016, the towers were completely rehabilitated and a new security system was added, making the tunnels no longer accessible to illicit explorers looking to photograph the hidden passageways and nooks of the system. We took our last photos here in late 2014. There are public tours of some sections now available through Oakland Heritage Alliance, which I strongly recommend!
Fisk Tire - Chicopee, MA
The Fisk Tire Company was founded in 1898 and headquartered in Chicopee Falls Massachusetts. The largest and earliest manufacturer of automobile tires by the 1920s, there were Fisk Retail Stores in 40 states; and the Chicopee plant turned out 5,000 tires a day. The Great Depression hit Fisk hard, and its 121 retail tire stores had dwindled to three by 1934. When Fisk transformed into Uniroyal, the Chicopee plant remained its flagship U.S. factory until its closure in 1981.
Smith Tower Facade of Seattle
Seattle's first skyscraper opened on July 4, 1914. The 42 story Smith Tower was the tallest building outside of New York City and Seattle's tallest for nearly fifty years. It was built by Lyman Smith of Smith-Corona and Smith & Wesson fame. Sheated entirely in terra cotta, the building was designed by the syracuse firm of Gaggin & Gaggin. In a race to construct Seattle's tallest building, Smith also hoped to anchor the "Second Avenue Canyon" area as the center of downtown. He died before the tower was completed. #smithtower #seattlewa #historicpreservation #facade #terracotta
Mid-century Parkade of Spokane, Washington
When the Ebasco Plan - a privately funded urban renewal proposal commissioned by Spokane Unlimited â was completed in 1961, one of its recommendations was more parking in downtown Spokane.
And for good reason: according to architectural historian Amanda C. R. Clark - by 1965, American automobile makers were generating more than nine million cars a year. These increases gave rise to newly built highways and, in turn, accelerated the post World War Two flight from American downtowns to the far-flung, expanding suburbs on the edges. Civic leaders across the country needed to bring the middle class back.
Constructed in 1967 for $3.5 million, the 10-story Parkade Plaza Parking Garage was designed by Spokane architect Warren C. Heylman to accommodate 970 automobiles. Notable for its connection to the city's skywalk system, which increased its utility as a significant urban design feature - the New Formalist building was also recognized for its expressive use of concrete, earning Heylman an award from the American Concrete Institute.
Philip W. Alexander, managing director of the adjacent Bon Marche at the time, claimed that the Parkade wasn't just a parking garage but a symbol of new life in the heart of Spokane. "We wanted and got a dramatic structure," he said. "It is aesthetic and functional and is already spurring plans for upgrading other properties around it."
The Gold Room at the Hotel Jefferson
This room has remained frozen in time since the 1950s. Though hidden and dilapidated, the spacious Roaring Twenties dance floor appears roughly the same as it did some 90 years ago when it was declared "brilliantly decorated with gold the predominating color" in an advertisement in the Belleville News-Democrat in 1928. The room could accommodate as many as 1200 people, according to hotel brochures.
Scott Haefner and I spent countless hours in this room perfecting our lighting setup. This involved three different lighting sources, hand-painted from various angles throughout the ballroom. Eventually by about 3 in the morning, we finished when the last of my camera batteries were dead.
The Jefferson Hotel greeted its first guests one day before the 1904 World's Fair, on April 29, 1904. Two decades later, the Art Deco ballroom was added, helping to attract luminaries including President Harry S Truman and Judy Garland. But time was hard on the thirteen-story hotel, and by 1977, it had become a home for the elderly called the Jefferson Arms. It closed in 2006. #abandoned #stlouis #stl #missouri #hotel #roaringtwenties
Abandoned Chemical Plant Silo - Missouri
LaRoche Industries Inc., a Delaware corporation (the "Company"), was an international diversified producer and distributor of inorganic and organic chemicals and once operated six production facilities throughout the United States.
The Company was formed in a 1986 management buyout of the nitrogen, mixed fertilizers and retail business operations of United States Steel Corporation ("USX"), followed by a 1988 acquisition of certain chemical production operations of Kaiser Aluminum and Chemical Corporation ("Kaiser").
LaRoche didn't last long. By the 1990s it was entering bankruptcy and by 2000, this property in Festus, MO - a producer of blasting grade ammonium nitrate, nitrogen, and nitric acid - among other dangerous and volatile compounds, was sold to the nearby cement plant.
Nearby residents suffered for decades from the pollution and danger of the plant. As one resident noted: "I went to middle school very near here, when the plant was still active. In fact, we had to do drills where everyone would go to the cafeteria and seal the doors and windows with plastic and duct tape in case of a chemical leak at the plant. I hadn't thought about this place in years."
Sahara Coal Company Tipple
The Muddy Coal Mine Tipple was built in 1923 for the Sahara Coal Company, #12 Muddy Mine, in operation from 1904-1938. The mine has inspired at least one song, written by Rockey Alvey. In 1964 Alvey attended second grade in a one-room schoolhouse in Muddy Illinois. Looming over the school was the abandoned coal mine tipple from the O'Gara #12 mine. The mine was closed in 1937 due to the great flood of the Ohio River. The impression the old concrete structure made on Alvey led to the lyric, "the tipple still stands like an ancient ruin, a monument to those who went inside, witness to the souls that have descended but never came up from the Muddy Coal Mine."
Gold Room at Hotel Jefferson
The Gold Room at the Hotel Jefferson. This room has remained frozen in time since the 1950s. Though hidden and dilapidated, the spacious Roaring Twenties dance floor appears roughly the same as it did some 90 years ago when it was declared "brilliantly decorated with gold the predominating color" in an advertisement in the Belleville News-Democrat in 1928. The room could accommodate as many as 1200 people, according to hotel brochures.
Scott Haefner and I spent countless hours in this room perfecting our lighting setup. This involved three different lighting sources, hand-painted from various angles throughout the ballroom. Eventually by about 3 in the morning, we finished when the last of my camera batteries was dead.
The Jefferson Hotel greeted its first guests one day before the 1904 World's Fair, on April 29, 1904. Two decades later, the Art Deco ballroom was added, helping to attract luminaries including President Harry S Truman and Judy Garland. But time was hard on the thirteen-story hotel, and by 1977, it had become a home for the elderly called the Jefferson Arms. It closed in 2006.
#abandoned #stlouis #stl #missouri #hotel #roaringtwenties #abandonedmo #historicpreservation
Central State Prison, Sugar Land, Texas
Workshops (slash forced labor area) of the Imperial State Prison Farm and Central State Prison Farm. It was a men's prison in Sugar Land, Texas. The unit first opened in April 1909, but its history goes much further back - as early as 1878 - when the land was the site of a large sugar plantation that contracted with the state to lease convict laborers to harvest and process sugar cane.
The prison's largest and most impressive unit was completed in late 1932. In August 2011, Texas Department of Criminal Justice announced that the prison was closing. In March of 2018, demolition was underway on the site. By June, demolition was halted when 95 unmarked African American prisoner graves were discovered. Today, all that remains is the 1930s central incarceration unit and four guard towers for "possible re-use in the future." This building (covered in vines here) is no longer extant.
