Every time I think I’m going to write a quick post and be done with it, I fall into a research k-hole, only to come to many hours later, balls deep in a PDF of some ancient medical textbook that a librarian in Wyoming scanned and uploaded in their free time (god bless!) Being that I don’t get paid to do this, I have to be smarter about what I research and what I phone […read more…]
(go here to see all Vieques Island posts) The Playa Grande Sugar Plantation ruins are on Vieques Island in Puerto Rico. For the sake of honesty and full disclosure, the ruins are occasionally open to the public during tourist season and are legally accessible as long as you stick to the path. However, if you go off-season and off-path, you can find some sketchy tunnels and disregarded areas that aren’t part of the tour. And […read more…]
Everyone has a different exploring style, ranging from spending all their time taking precise, long exposure shots, to just dickin’ around taking dumb photos of their friends trying to look hella cool while wearing unnecessary gas masks or shitty clown masks. (Those photos are one of the main reasons I hate explaining to people what urban exploring is, because later when they google it, those photos pop up and I die a million deaths by […read more…]
The downtown area of Newark, New Jersey, is something of a modern ghost town. Although the ground levels of the main streets are still very active, it seems like more than half of the buildings are abandoned from the second floor up, which is easy to miss if you never look up. It’s kinda like that Sesame Street song “Nearly Missed a Rainbow,” which is about not looking at your feet or a crack in […read more…]
March 2022 update: Bennet School is currently in the process of complete demolition. When I first drove by the Bennett School for Girls, I did a cartoon double-take. If asked to imagine the most elaborate, creepy abandoned mansion I could, my fantasy would come nowhere near the actuality of Bennett, which is better than anything a CGI designer could conjure up. The structure looked so implausible and surreal that it gave my brain a new […read more…]
Update: as of 2015, the Boyce Thompson building has been bought by Simone Development and renovations have begun to turn it into a commercial and office space. rendering and webcam photo c/o Simone Development The Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research is still a functioning facility in Ithaca, New York, but its first incarnation is now a skeletal ruin in Yonkers. Half of the property is comprised of beautiful, abandoned greenhouses, and the other half is the […read more…]
Pleasure Beach is the worst name for an amusement park, but the best name for a ghost town. Located in Bridgeport, CT, the beach is a tidal island, meaning at low tide, it’s connected to the mainland by a narrow strip of sand, and at high tide, it’s just a regular ol’ island. The land was first used as an amusement park, then residential housing, summer cottage, and questionable art projects, most of which ended […read more…]
(go here to see all Vieques Island posts) The Puerto Ferro Lighthouse lies on the south side of the island of Vieques in Puerto Rico. (Vieques has an unfortunately sordid history, which you can read about in my other posts about the island, linked above.) From 1899 to 1926, it guided ships through the Vieques Passage. Its construction began in 1896 (frequently and incorrectly cited as the date it was first lit) by the Spanish […read more…]