Deserted Places

Sunday, November 25, 2012

Inside the abandoned Forest Park hospital

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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.

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Nick Zulauf

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Monday, November 19, 2012

Hashima, the ghost island of Japan

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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.

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SEE ALSO: More ghost towns around the world // More abandoned places on islands // More abandoned places in Japan // LIST OF ALL DESERTED PLACES
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Monday, November 12, 2012

An abandoned Russian mansion

An abandoned mansion in the Russian countryside. Once inhabited by rich, it became a school for kids with disabilities after the Russian Revolution of 1917. Today, it remains an abandoned reminder of the past.

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A statue of the unknown guardian of the estate

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The old kitchen

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Monday, November 5, 2012

A deserted hotel on Parnitha mountain

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athpap/dpgr.gr

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.

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.

Metropolitan Transportation Authority / Aaron Donovan

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

Metropolitan Transportation Authority / Aaron Donovan

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

Metropolitan Transportation Authority / Aaron Donovan

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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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Monday, October 15, 2012

An abandoned concert arena in Western Australia

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Perth Entertainment Center opened its doors on 27 September 1974 and for the next 3 decades it was the venue of choice for many top international rock and pop artists. Queen, Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, David Bowie, U2 and Oasis were only few of the names that performed on its stage.

The indoor arena, built in the city center of Perth, Western Australia, had a capacity of 8,000 seats and it is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest purpose built regular theatre (containing a proscenium arch) in the world. Except of music concerts, it also hosted theatrical plays, musicals, circuses, corporate functions and international beauty pageants (Miss Universe 1979). From 1990 to 2002, it was home to NBL team Perth Wildcats and from 1988 to 1989 to WNBL's Perth Breakers.

The venue officially closed in August 2002 and remained abandoned ever since. It was demolished between May and December 2011, and now a new facility called Perth Arena is being built in its place.

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Tuesday, October 9, 2012

The Holy Family Orphanage in Marquette, Michigan

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Built in 1915 in Marquette, Michigan, the Holy Family Orphanage was the dream of Marquette Catholic Diocese Bishop, Frederick Eis. It cost somewhere between $90,000 to $120,000, an astronomical sum at the time. The mammoth structure was designed to accommodate 200 children. It was furnished with classrooms, a dormitory, bathrooms on every floor and an annex that housed heating and plumbing facilities. There were laundry and kitchen facilities, a large dining hall and playrooms.

The orphanage stayed open for more than 50 years. At the end, its inhabitants were a group of Cuban children, refugees from Fidel Castro’s Revolution. It finally closed in 1965 and since then it has been left abandoned. Today, the six story building stands with half of its windows boarded up and an over-growth of trees and wild foliage that seems to be melding with the dilapidated structure. Many urban legends and myths are circulating about kids being tortured and dying inside the orphanage, while there are also reports of ghost sightings inside the building.

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Wednesday, October 3, 2012

The UFO houses of Sanjhih

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The UFO houses of Sanjhih (三芝 can be romanized as "Sanjhih" or "Sanzhi") -as they were nicknamed- was an abandoned building project in the Sanzhi district of the New Taipei City in Taiwan. The futuristic buildings were intended to be a vacation resort marketed towards the US military officers coming from their East Asian postings.

Construction begun in 1978 but the project was abandoned 2 years later, due to investment losses and several car accident deaths and suicides during construction. Legend has it that the accidents were result of the blasphemous act of bisecting the Chinese dragon sculpture located near the resort gates for widening the road to the buildings.

After the resort's abandonment, the UFO houses became a tourist attraction due to their architecture. There were plans for conservation of at least one of the structures but between late 2008 - early 2009, all buildings were demolished to make room for a commercial redevelopment of the area.

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Thursday, September 27, 2012

Prypiat, the ghost town of Chernobyl

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When the Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster took place in 1986, a large area of land was heavily contaminated by radioactivity. The Soviet government ordered the evacuation of over 90,000 people living in proximity to the disaster area. Inside the so-called Chernobyl Exclusion Zone lies the now abandoned city of Prypiat.

Pripyat was founded in 1970 to house workers for the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. Officially proclaimed a city in 1979, its population reached 50,000 people before the accident. Pripyat was a fully functional city with 15 primary schools, one hospital, malls and restaurants and a primarily young population of factory workers.

After the Chernobyl disaster, the residents had 2 days to evacuate the city. They were told to carry with them their documents, a few vital personal belongings and some food. Everything else was left behind. Today, the levels of radioactivity have decreased significantly and the city, although still excluded and guarded by the army, is visited by guided tours.

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