Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[linnea]

Today on BoingBoing I found a link to some unbelievable photos of an abandoned book depository in downtown Detroit that is packed with hundreds of thousands of rotting books. Here's the link that they have to the story: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sweetjuniper/sets/72157603302647339/ There are other people on Flickr who've also documented it, but this is the first time I've heard of it thanks to BoingBoing.

It's unbelievable, although corruption and incompetence is probably way more commonplace than I might naively realize. It's just sad that a school district as strapped as Detroit would have had, at one point, a wealth of materials that could have gone to needy students, and then they were just wasted. It reminds me of a passage in "There Are No Children Here" in a housing project in Chicago's west side, where the author breaks into the basement storage area to try and pinpoint the source of a terrible plumbing smell, only to find hundreds of once-new appliances that had been stored there for future use, now covered in unimaginable filth and damaged beyond use. So much waste.

[Carlos del Vaca]

I heard of the web site donorschoose.org where you can read descriptions of "projects" that various schools/classes from around the country want to do, and donate money to them.  When I heard of this site it was like "Schools who are so poor they can't buy pencils!  Or paper!  Or rulers!  You can help!"  But when I checked out the site, it seemed like the majority of the projects were "We'd like a digital camcorder so we can make a movie." 

[Nabubrush]

So conflicted. There is not much I enjoy more than abandoned buildings. Somehow they just push a button in me. I remember as a kid breaking into an abandoned medical office building that was all that was left of a hospital complex that used to be in downtown Anchorage. One of my brothers happened to be the last baby born in that hospital. Anyway, there was this giant vacant lot with only this one two story building on one corner, and we broke in and checked it all out - there was all kinds of neat stuff inside it. It was really neat, and it made a very strong impression on me, obviously. It's just a shame there's so much waste associated with it.

[lprkn]

For a while I lived on a naval air station that was being BRAC'd(Base Realignment and Closure), so there were a lot of abandoned buildings to break into, including a underground tunnel that was over a quarter-mile long that stretched from some old barracks to the airfield. However, it was dark in the tunnel and there was water in it, so I didn't go in, but there was plenty of other cool stuff, like a blimp hangar. My brothers and I definitely climbed to the top of the hangar on more than one occasion. It's the highest point for miles.

So, yeah, I like wandering around old abandoned buildings.

[theinevitable]

i recently bought supplies for exploring the tunnels under our campus. There is one going from the radio station that apparently comes out in the middle of the chapel.

[AugustWest]

i recently bought supplies for exploring the tunnels under our campus. There is one going from the radio station that apparently comes out in the middle of the chapel.

That is true.  There are old cave-like tunnels and a huge new modern tunnel that runs down the edge of campus.  There is also a tunnel that runs under Wohl on the South 40.

Disclaimer:  My information is over 20 years old.

[Nabubrush]

i recently bought supplies for exploring the tunnels under our campus. There is one going from the radio station that apparently comes out in the middle of the chapel.

Oh man, I hope this doesn't end up like Mazes and Monsters.

[theinevitable]

Those are definitely there. Weird.

But yeah, the radio station entrance is the safe bet. We just have to remember to leave a note saying "DO NOT MOVE THE fuck*ng COUCH BACK OVER THIS TRAPDOOR."

[Nabubrush]

Those are definitely there. Weird.

But yeah, the radio station entrance is the safe bet. We just have to remember to leave a note saying "DO NOT MOVE THE fuck*ng COUCH BACK OVER THIS TRAPDOOR."

What could go wrong?

[wombat]

I am going to be extremely cross if we do not see pictures of this.

[Doc]

I got to check out an old barracks in the middle of the city before they pulled it down.I wish I had taken pictures but I ddin't know they were going to pull it down at the time.
It's a bit silly remembering it since we were trying very hard to slip in and out unnoticed but there were about 10 of us with restaurants and so on all around us, must have been some bored schmuck that saw us and just didn't give two shits. Very cool place though, especially since my city is rather lacking in old abandoned buildings.

[Nabubrush]

There's a massive abandoned military complex in Knik, which is across the Cook Inlet from Anchorage. I've screwed around there a bit. It can be seen with Google Earth. I would have taken pictures, but I was trashed.

[linnea]

Speaking of abandoned places, didn't we talk about the "Chernobyl Bike Tour" by kiddofspeed? Those were some creepy pictures, but fascinating.