Wednesday, December 26, 2012

An abandoned Detroit High School, now and then

Lewis Cass Technical High School is one of the most historic schools of Detroit. It was founded in 1907  and by 1942 it was the largest school in Michigan with 4,200 students attending the eight-storey brick and limestone building. Its alumni include musicians Diana Ross and Jack White. 

In 2004 the school was moved to new, modern facilities. The old building was left abandoned, and 3 years later it was damaged by a big fire. Finally, by the end of 2011 the building was demolished. 

Before the school's demolition, detroiturbex.com spent time taking pictures of each room of the building and combined them with old photos of the exact locations. 



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Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Inside an abandoned military bunker in Greenland


In the northwest of Greenland, near one the northernmost towns in the world, there's an abandoned Nike-Hercules missiles launch site at Thule Air Base. Flickr user ÐøÇ, visited the frozen underground facilities. 

The photographer writes: 
Rain and snow fall in from vents. The snow will melt in the summer but since the water has nowhere to go, it is slowly filling up the facility, freezing layer by layer. Ice covering the floor is over 3 feet thick and melts very little in the summer.

 He also took photos of other abandoned military facilities, relics from the cold war.



SEE ALSO: More abandoned military sites around the world // More abandoned underground places // LIST OF ALL DESERTED PLACES 
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Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Inside Buzludzha, the abandoned Bulgarian Communist party monument


From far, it looks like an abandoned flying saucer sitting on top of the hill but the Buzludzha monument is an enormous construction built on Bulgaria's Balkan mountains to mark the site where the Bulgarian Communist party was founded in 1891.

Buzludzha opened in 1981 but after the fall of communism it was left abandoned by the Bulgarian government. Since then it has been heavily vandalised and is now a destination for urban explorers and tourists. 







Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Visiting the abandoned Aldwych Tube Station




Aldwych Tube Station, one of London's 18 "ghost stations", stayed open from 1907 till 1994 when it shut down due to low passenger numbers. The station reopened recently for weekend tours given by the London Transport Museum

Guests got a chance to see first hand the station that was home to storage for the National Gallery during World War I and to the Elgin marbles during the Blitz, UK's bombing by Germany during World War II. 

The station, has also been used as the setting for scenes for various movies and TV programs including V for Vendetta and Atonement





SEE ALSO: More abandoned railway stations around the world // More abandoned underground places // More abandoned places in the United Kingdom // LIST OF ALL DESERTED PLACES 
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Sunday, November 25, 2012

Inside the abandoned Forest Park hospital


Forest Park Hospital in Saint Louis, Missouri shut down in May 2011 after struggling financially for years. The 52,670-square-metre (567,000 square feet) building housed a nursing school, an emergency room, a psychiatric wing, and a maternity ward. Recently, the hospital's site was bought by Saint Louis Zoo and the land will be used for its expansion.

Photographer and urban explorer Nick Zulauf entered the abandoned building recently and captured these photos.




SEE ALSO: More abandoned hospitals around the world // More abandoned places in Missouri // More abandoned places in the United States // LIST OF ALL DESERTED PLACES 
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Monday, November 19, 2012

Hashima, the ghost island of Japan




Hashima, also known as Gunkajima or Battleship Island due to its shape, is an abandoned island an hour away from the port of Nagasaki in Japan

Mitsubishi bought the island in 1890 to use it as a base for an underwater coal mining facility. There, they built Japan's first concrete building (9 stories high) in 1917 to accommodate the workers. In the following decades, Hashima became the most densely populated place on earth, with a population of over 5,200 people, or 83,500 people per square kilometre of the whole island. 

During the Second Sino-Japanese War, between 1943 and 1945, the Japanese government and Mitsubishi transported Korean and Chinese prisoners to the island on Mitsubishi-owned ships known as "hellships," and then forced them to handle the most dangerous work in the coal mines. Hundreds or thousands of the prisoners died to to the poor living conditions and coal mining accidents. Eventually, captives were freed in 1945 when the atomic bomb shook the windows of the island's apartment blocks. 

The island shut down in 1974 as a result of the decline in coal industry during the previous years. Since then, it was left abandoned before it was reopened for travel again in 2009. Hashima is also featured in the 2012 James Bond movie, Skyfall. Today, a process is underway to designate the island as an UNESCO World Heritage Site.




Monday, November 12, 2012

Monday, November 5, 2012

A deserted hotel on Parnitha mountain



If there is one building in Greece that keeps attracting the attention of paranormal enthusiasts and urban explorers, that is the abandoned Xenia hotel, over mount Parnitha.

Xenia was built in 1912 as a sanatorium for tuberculosis patients. Its location, 30 km away from the city of Athens, inside a forested area was ideal for the sufferers of the disease. In the following decades though, with the use of penicillin and other antibiotics to cure TB, there were fewer patients and the sanatorium shut down in 1960.

Greek National Tourism Organization bought the building next,  and operated it as a member of the -now defunct- Xenia state-run hotel chain. The hotel, with a capacity of 200 beds, couldn't withstand competition from the nearby Mont Parnes hotel and casino and eventually shut down a few years later. It continued to operate though as a School of Tourism Professions from 1967 to 1984.

Then, the building was left abandoned and over the years has been heavily vandalized. Due to its remote, isolated location it has become the center of attention for urban explorers and paranormal phenomena researchers.


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Monday, October 29, 2012

A deserted New York City, getting ready for Hurricane Sandy

As Hurricane Sandy is approaching New York City, the MTA announced that all subway, bus, and commuter rail service would be suspended, beginning at 7 p.m. EDT on October 28 and expected to continue through at least October 30. All PATH train service and stations will be shutdown at 12:01 a.m. October 29. Here are some eerie photos showing huge New York transportation hubs abandoned due to Hurricane Sandy.




SEE ALSO: More abandoned railway stations around the world // More abandoned underground places // More abandoned places in New York // More abandoned places in the United States // LIST OF ALL DESERTED PLACES 
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Grand Central Terminal closed early on October 28, 2012 in advance of Hurricane Sandy. This photo shows the largely empty Terminal after the last trains had departed.



Times Square, normally the busiest station in the system. The previous systemwide suspension of service took place in August 2011 for Tropical Storm Irene.

The largely empty Grand Central Terminal after the last trains had departed. Metro-North Railroad took the opportunity to scrub the floors of the lower level dining concourse

Monday, October 22, 2012

An abandoned rocket manufacturing plant in Florida

Aerojet, a rocket and missile propulsion manufacturer, opened its Florida facility in 1963 anticipating that solid-fuel rockets would need to be constructed for NASA's upcoming Apollo moon missions

Inside the facility, a 150-feet (about 46 meters) deep silo was created to build and test the rockets, the deepest hole ever dug in Florida. Also, 'Aerojet canal', the largest and longest canal in Florida was built to connect the plant with the Atlantic Ocean and enable the transfer of the incredibly heavy rockets by barge.


In the end, NASA decided to use the liquid-fueled Saturn rockets for the Apollo missions, Aerojet never signed a contract and the facility had to be abandoned in 1969, only 6 years after its creation. The factory remains a destination for urban explorers until today. 






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