American ruins

The BBC web site has a fascinating preview of Matthew Christopher's new book: Abandoned America: The Age of Consequence. Matthew has been exploring abandoned buildings such as mental hospitals, prisons, hospitals, churches and hotels.

http://www.bbc.com …-photos-of-americas-ruins

I was at Bethlehem, PA taking pics of the closed down furnaces. A real interesting site. and yes, Neil Young was right. Rust never sleeps.

There is nothing quite like sneaking into an old broken down hospital or mental wing and taking pictures. Talked about frayed nerves when you are done, especially if you make it out without incident.

Some of these places have underground areas too. Scary.... I wondered what broke out of these doors when I took the shot. Notice the toilet seat, you don't want to know how the rest of that area looked, I think it was shock therapy rooms.

I'd love to do shots like these, but would be concerned of who may great me inside. I did a photo shoot one time inside abandoned brick manufacturing kilns located on the property of the National Arboretum in NE Washington DC. At the time, they were not fenced off (small gates were left opened) and you had a clear view inside. Very industrial, and beautiful in their own way. It was a functioning factory up until the 60's. I believe they will somehow restore for visitors someday. You can see them as you drive by on RT 50 into the heart of DC. They fascinated me for years as a kid.

I Assume hes spent A LOT of time in detorit then


As the ABE PA. GO check out the old abandon Zinc mine/processing facility just north of Allentown in Palmertown. Just north of where McAurther turns into 248. Much of the old plant is gone now but you can still see where all the trees are dead on the surrounding hill sides from the Zinc fumes and there is still some stuff here and there around the old rail yard, last time I went though there about a year or so ago..

There's a semiannual magazine called Weird NJ that has focused on abandoned buildings and other interesting areas. They tried to make a TV show but it wasn't that successful. They've since expanded to books and have one for every state.

This type of photography and exploration is really intriguing to me... I'm interested in watching the show.