Browsing category Abandoned

The National in Detroit

December 30, 2017

  It's the Moorish details that make this theater particularly lovely. Built by Albert Kahn in 1911 and closed in 1975, it's the only one of his theaters still standing and the only one left in Detroit's old entertainment district around Monroe Street - but not for long. Current plans are to preserve just the facade and tear down the rest to make room for inevitable new development, a move that Preservation Detroit considers to show a distinct lack of imagination. There are lots of great

By Julia Solis
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Sprinting out of Time

October 23, 2016

  On a nice Sunday, you can run into all sorts of people wandering and biking around these abandoned sheds. And yet this former barracks complex in the East German countryside is in good shape, considering that the military moved out around the time the wall came down. The bright paint is impressive, as is the attention to style and details in the sparse decor. It looks pretty ready to be turned into a rollerskating rink, with Sputnik tunes and polyester

By Julia Solis
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The House of Louise

September 17, 2016

  It's rare to find a time capsule that's quite this preserved. An old mansion in Luxembourg has become a museum of family life in pre-WW II Europe. The shelves in the attic were littered with school books, journals, letters, funeral notices and bills. Notebooks from a girl named Louise showed her progress in calligraphy while a young boy in the family was making his first forays into the Hitler Youth. The dates spanned the late 19th century to about the 1950s. The furnishings and

By Julia Solis
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Disfigured

September 15, 2016

  Found inside a closet in an old psychiatric ward in Italy. Burnt, painted, scribbled on, these cards have turned into a very personal visual poem over time.        

By Julia Solis
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Keeping Records

December 5, 2009

    Someone took the warning "Do Not Remove From Hospital" on the patient files a bit too seriously when this place was shuttered. Of course it seems to be a rarity whenever the staff of a closing hospital actually disposes of medical records in a way that keeps them confidential. Usually the echo of the giant "Fuck it" reverberates for years after the doors are slammed shut. Coming across records like this time and again, it was surprising to see what a stir was caused in

By Julia Solis
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The Orphanage

November 20, 2009

  The German Catholic Orphanage in Buffalo, New York, was built in 1927 and served as a temporary home for thousands of kids over the decades. It's still strikingly pretty, although its chapel (added in 1938) is quickly declining into a vandalized dump site. Its days are numbered anyway; construction and demolition are about to begin to turn the campus into affordable housing. Above, a picture of the chapel from about three years ago; a few recent photos

By Julia Solis
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Doorway in the Afternoon

October 26, 2009

  "... As I went forward, striding very strong, and making a good speed, I did hear presently a little noise upward in the night, and someways unto my left, that had seeming as that it were a strange low sound that did come down to me out of an hidden doorway above; for, indeed, though the sound did come from very nigh, as it did seem no more than a score feet above my head, yet was it a noise that did come out of a great and mighty distance, and out of a Foreign Place. And I did know

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Watching You Fight For Your Life

July 27, 2009

  This is definitely what I would want to wake up to as a child with a life-threatening illness in this cheery old ward. How consoling it is to think that if you make it, some day you might have a family that is just as adorable and wholesome as those dolls. All the better if one of those dolls starts speaking to you after a week or two of lying there in a drugged stupor, for surely it has great advice. Although if it contains the words "die", "choke" or "kill", you might just be better

By Julia Solis
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Old School Science

July 17, 2009

  It isn't often that you open a random desk drawer to find a jar with a pig foetus inside. But this derelict lab holds lots of preserved surprises. Bees in a honeycomb, crabs, frogs and coiled snakes, some collapsing into indefinable brown piles much like certain areas of the building that houses them. Admittedly, the pile of worms in the Kraft orange juice jar is a bit disagreeable to look at. Much better to check out the various dried bugs and wonder how they came to be brought in for

By Julia Solis
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... this travelogue

Explorations and ruminations about time capsules near and far, with an eye towards the structures, textures and playgrounds of decay. A companion blog for darkpassage.com.

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