A forgotten Flintstones theme park in Arizona

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Back in the 1970's and 1980's there are many Flintstones-inspired theme parks around the US. The last one remaining is a forgotten and derelict theme park in Arizona. 

Located at the corner of Arizona State Route 64 and U.S. Route 180, Bedrock City is mainly visited by tourists who are on their way to Grand Canyon, some 30 miles away. It opened in 1972 after its owner found success with a similar theme park in South Dakota, that one near Mount Rushmore. 

The park has licensed the likenesses of the Flintstones characters, and features statues, rides, a diner and a gift shop based on that theme. 

In 2015 it was reported that the park's owner wanted to retire and was looking to sell the park for $2 million. On the same year the South Dakota location shut down as well.

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An abandoned (literally) underground music hall in Boston

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Boston's Piano Row is a historic district known for its piano showrooms built in the late 19th century. There, piano dealers M. Steinert & Sons own the building standing at No162 Boylston Street. The six-story building was designed by architects Winslow & Wetherell  and it was erected in 1896 by company employee Alexander Steinert.

Four stories below the ground, the building features Steinert Hall, a now abandoned concert auditorium designed in the Adam-style with fluted Corinthian pilasters separating round arches. In the early 20th century, the 'Little Jewel' as Steinart Hall was called, was considered headquarters for the musical and artistic world of cultured Boston. Among those who performed there, 40 feet below ground, were Josef Lhévinne, Josef Hofmann, Harold Bauer, Fritz Kreisler, Ignacy Jan Paderewski and Sergei Rachmaninoff.

The last performance was given in 1942 as the hall closed due to new stricter fire code restrictions enforced after the 1942 Cocoanut Grove Nightclub fire and a prohibitive cost of updating the hall.

In 2015, it was reported that the new owners of the building were hoping to restore Steinart Hall and open it again as a concert hall. 

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greiglamont.blogspot.com

The abandoned Hagedorn Psychiatric Hospital in New Jersey

New Jersey's Hagedorn Psychiatric Hospital is a recently abandoned hospital, since the state of New Jersey shut it down in 2011. The hospital has a history dating back to 1907 when the state opened its first sanatorium near Glen Gardner, in rural New Jersey. 

Back then, it was a modern facility able to treat 500 tuberculosis patients annually. Between 1907 and 1929 more than 10,000 people were treated in the sanatorium. Although at first the hospital would accept only "curable" patients, by the 1920's it accepted all cases, regardless of severity. In 1950, after new TB treatments had emerged, the sanatorium broaden its scope of treatments to include all chest diseases. The hospital finally shut down in the 1970's and was left to fall apart.

In 1977, a new gero-psychiatric hospital, named after Senator Garrett W. Hagedorn in 1986, was built next to the old abandoned sanatorium. The new hospital was a a state nursing home and a 288-bed psychiatric hospital. In 2011, New Jersey governor Chis Christie announced that the hospital would shut down as part of an effort to save $9 million a year in expenses.

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West Virginia's amusement park of death

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Haunted or not, the Lake Shawnee Amusement Park in Lake Shawnee, West Virginia, has seen its fair share of death and suffering, which begun even before the small amusement park was built. 

Formerly, it was the site of the Clay family massacre. Until 1783, Mercer County was home to a Native American tribe. When a European family attempted to settle the land, a turf war began. One day, while the family's patriarch, farmer Mitchel Clay was away hunting, the natives murdered his family, including his youngest son Bartley, while his daughter Tabitha was knifed to death in the struggle and his eldest son Ezekial was kidnapped and burned at the stake. After burying his family, Mitchel Clay assembled a group of white settlers and took revenge by murdering several Native Americans. 

Centuries later, the tragic history of the site didn't stop a businessman named Conley T. Snidow from buying the site of the Clay farm in order to turn it into an amusement park. The park included a swing set, a Ferris wheel, and a pond for swimming. Then, more deaths followed. 

A little girl in a pink dress was killed after climbing into the circling swing set. Another time, a little drowned in the amusement park’s swimming pond. In total, 6 people died inside the amusement park. In 1966, Lake Shawnee Amusement Park was abandoned.

Its new owner claims that the amusement park is haunted and you can hear the wooden swings creak even if they don't move, while sometimes the seats start moving when you get near them. He says that he's even seen a little girl covered in blood. Unsurprisingly, he offers paid tours of the "haunted" amusement park. 

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A secret abandoned apartment inside New York's Hunts Point Library

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In 1902, Andrew Carnegie, one of the richest men of the modern time, donated $5.2 million to New York City to be used for the construction of 39 public libraries. The Carnegie libraries were heated by coal, and maintaining them was a 24/7 job. That's why every one of them included a large apartment where a live-in custodian and his family could live while also getting paid for their job. Although coal is a thing of a past, some of these secret apartments were occupied until fairly recently. 

For example, Hunts Point Library in the Bronx includes an apartment that was occupied until 2001. Today, it is one of the 13 Carnegie apartments that haven't been renovated yet. Built in the architectural style of 14th-century Florence, Hunts Point Library was one of the last Carnegie libraries to be completed, opening in 1929. 

Located on the second and third floor of the building, the huge 8-room apartment was occupied by the library's custodian and his family until 2001. One of the perks of the job was that the residents could read books after hours and have parties in the library when it was closed. 

The custodian program ended towards the end of last century as a 24/7 presence in the library wasn't needed anymore after coal furnaces were removed. During the last years the abandoned library apartments are being converted into usable space for the libraries. 

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Tod Seelie/Gothamist

Tod Seelie/Gothamist

Tod Seelie/Gothamist

Tod Seelie/Gothamist

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Deserted places on Alaska's Adak Island

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Adak Island is part of Alaska's Aleutian Islands, where Bering Sea meets the northern Pacific Ocean. Harsh winds and cold temperatures make Adak Island an inhospitable land, however it has been home to Aleut peoples since ancient times. 

Due to its strategically important location, the United States military constructed a base and an airfield on the island during World War II. From there, fight operations against the Japanese began in September 1942. After the war was over, the approximately 6,000 American military men who served on Adak recalled its cold, foggy, windy weather; mud; Quonset huts; few women and no trees; and a volcano that from time to time would issue puffs of smoke. Fresh food was a rarity.

The military continued to have a presence on the island with Adak Naval Air Station which remained operational during the Cold War and finally closed in 1997. The closure of the base brought the population of the island down to 326 residents from a high of 6,000. Although the town of Adak was incorporated with the former base, many structures were left abandoned. 

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Inside the abandoned Cottontail Ranch brothel of Nevada

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Two and a half hours outside Las Vegas, near the intersection of U.S. Route 95 and State Route 266, stands a small abandoned building that used to host the legendary Cottontail Ranch brothel. The brothel opened in 1967 on leased federal land from the Bureau of Land Management by madam Beverly Harrell, a Jewish girl from Brooklyn and former dancer. 

In its early days one of the most faithful customers was billionaire aviator Howard Hughes who would make several visits while he was living in nearby Las Vegas. He would fly there are a small airstrip exists next to the brothel. 

While Cottontail Ranch was licensed as prostitution is legal in the state of Nevada, the bureau of Land Management evicted her in the 1970's when word leaked of the government's role. In 1974, Harrell attempted to run for a Nevada Assembly seat in 1974 gaining national attention. 

The madam died in 1995 and the brothel finally closed in 2004. Since then it remains abandoned. 

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RAISE THE STAKES PROJECTS/JAM PRESS/thesun.co.uk

The ruins of San Haven Sanatorium in North Dakota

San Haven sanatorium was built was built in the early 20th century on Turtle mountain, close to the North Dakota and Canada borders. It was founded in 1909 after the state legislature put aside $10,000 for such an institution to treat TB patients of the state. Its location was ideal as it was far away from big cities were the population felt threatened from the disease. The sanatorium attracted patients and medical staff from all over the country until the tuberculosis epidemic died down in the 1940's thanks to antibiotics. 

Unlike other TB campuses, San Haven allowed (by a 1913 state Act) social organizations, like the Freemasons, to build cottages on the property. The same Act also forbade the sharing of drinking cups. San Haven was operating as a satellite hospital for the North Dakota Institution for the Feeble-Minded at Grafton, but as the hospital expanded it gained more autonomy.

In the 1950's, San Haven was converted into a sanatorium for the developmentally disabled, as most TB patients were now treated at home. Like with many similar institutions at the time, there were rumors for mistreatment of patients and other abuses at San Haven as well. The sanatorium was finally shut down in the 1980's. The closure of the hospital by government mandate became an issue that created a lot of anger and resentment in the area (which was named San Haven, after the sanatorium) as it brought a lot of money in the region. 

Since then, the results of abandonment are visible, while nature has reclaimed parts of the buildings. 

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Penn Hills Resort: An abandoned honeymoon resort in Pennsylvania

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Penn Hills Resort was founed in 1944 in Pennsylvania's Pocono mountains, outside Stroudsburg and near a small town called Analomink. A tavern at first, it expanded to over 100 rooms, becoming a popular honeymoon resort. 

In the 1960's the 500-acre Penn Hills grew to include a ski resort and a golf course. Guest villas featured floor-to-ceiling carpeting, round beds, and heart-shaped bathtubs. An ice rink and a wedding bell shaped outdoor swimming pool were also installed. Billed "Paradise of Pocono Pleasure", the resort catered to young couples who enjoyed archery and tennis and danced at modestly lavish New Year's Eve parties where the motto was "No balloon goes unpopped."

During the next decades though the decline came gradually, and by 2009 when the 102-year old owner of Penn Hills died, the business owned more than a million dollars in back taxes. The resort closed 2 months later, with Monroe country taking over the property. 

Already in serious disrepair, flooding and copper thieves damaged the buildings further, and the resort was abandoned. Small pieces of the property were sold and in January 2016, a group of New York investors purchased what remained of Penn Hills for $400,000.

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