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Posts Tagged ‘Abandoned’

Mustard’s Last Stand: 10 Abandoned Hot Dog Kiosks

27 Jul

[ By Steve in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

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Easy come and easy go (just like their product), hot dog stands like these abandoned frankfurter kiosks are the fly-by-night black sheep of the fast food trade.

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Now gone but not forgotten thanks to the wonders of photography and the internet, the abandoned Carney’s Corny Dogs stand (images c/o Noel Kerns above and Steve Snodgrass below) stood unloved and unappreciated long after the last piping-hot, mustard-swathed frank was served.

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For better or worse, images of the decrepit kiosk were for a time the most popular photos taken in southwest Shreveport, Louisiana.

It’s Crunch Time

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Standing alone and neglected with its skewed striped awning flapping in the breeze, this squarish hot dog stand in Munkfors, western Sweden appears to be closed for the season… wait a minute, it’s mid-July of 2008 according to Flickr user Rolfen – that IS the season! Perhaps the unfortunate closeness of “hamburgare” and “glass” on the sign tended to put off potential customers.

Friendly Ghost Town

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Established in 1929, Kasper’s Hot Dogs in Oakland’s historic Temescal neighborhood was closed to perform temporary maintenance… in 2004!

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Hopefully city authorities will find some way to preserve the unique flatiron-style structure from the wrecking ball. Kudos to Flickr users Ian Ransley and japanesejack for the above images taken in 2014 and 2010, respectively.

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Mustards Last Stand 10 Abandoned Hot Dog Kiosks

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Baroque and Broken: Eerie Paintings in Abandoned Places

24 Jul

[ By Steph in Art & Photography & Video. ]

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Shuffling through ancient paint chips, dead leaves and empty bottles in an abandoned and dilapidated building, you turn a corner and register a human figure emerging from the darkness in a haze of flesh tones and pale fabric. It might take a moment to realize that it’s not a real person, but rather a painting in the style of the old masters, rendered right there on the gritty wall like an heirloom left behind when the place was vacated.

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Working under an assumed name, Belfast artist Ted Pim has spent the last ten years traveling the world, creating these eerie works inside abandoned buildings. He spends days alone completing each work armed with no more than his paints, industrial torches and a camera.

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Aside from anyone who might have stumbled upon them unknowingly, no one has seen these works prior to Pim publishing the photos on his website and on Instagram in June 2015. The artist documented each painting and kept the images in a folder all these years. Private collectors in London and New York City recently purchased all of his completed works on canvas, and more are coming in winter 2015.

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“I was drawn to abandoned buildings as I liked the contrast of painting detailed, Baroque-inspired pieces inside dark, neglected structures,” Pim tells WebUrbanist. “These buildings provided me with the perfect atmosphere to create my pieces, with the end result often reflecting my surroundings- haunting, dark figures.”

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“The paintings usually take a few days, and I never return to the building. All my images were taken on an old analog camera and printed and scanned (the reason for fingerprints on some of the images.)”

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Red Ink: 10 Closed & Abandoned Tattoo Parlors, Studios & Shops

24 Jul

[ By Steve in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

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Tattoos and tattooists have made their mark on society – pun intended – but what happens to your neighborhood tattoo parlor when the ink finally runs dry?

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Sure, drive-thru is a convenient option for those visiting banks and fast food joints but tattoos? Permanent body decoration is something that shouldn’t be rushed, amiright? Obviously someone didn’t think things through before opening the Outlaw “Drive-In” Tattoo parlor in Tucumcari, New Mexico. As if Route 66 couldn’t get much cheesier and/or sleazier… wonder how many drivers got their kicks engraved all quick & easy-like while Outlaw Tattoo was open? Kudos to Todd Longwood of A Love Of Two Brains for chancing upon this remarkable discovery in late 2013.

Jersey Sore

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It’s not impossible the infamous Snooki visited this abandoned tattoo parlor in Browns Mills, New Jersey before it bit the proverbial biscuit – one fervently hopes they sterilized the equipment immediately afterwards, ideally from orbit.

OOZ Next?

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Flickr user lungstruck snapped the above closed tattoo parlor in Kent, Ohio on March 6th of 2009. Seems even inebriated college students couldn’t keep this colorful operation afloat. Then again, calling your tattoo studio “TATTOOZ” may have been unwise – who wants tattoos that ooze from a place called TATTOOZ? Besides Xzibit, that is.

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Red Ink 10 Closed Abandoned Tattoo Parlors Studios Shops

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Abandoned McBarge: Floating Fast Food Restaurant in Ruins

14 Jul

[ By Steph in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

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Built in 1986 in the hopes of enticing diners who were gravitating toward more high-end fare, this now-abandoned floating McDonalds might just be the saddest-looking fast food ruin around. Known as the ‘McBarge,’ it’s been anchored in Burrad Inlet near Vancouver, Canada since its debut and served its last Big Mac in 1991.

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The idea was to show off the future of technology and architecture while also attempting to regain some of the market share it lost during an ‘80s trend toward bistros and boutiques.

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How, exactly, McDonald’s aimed to do that with a clunky-looking barge serving the same old menu is unclear. The chain dropped $ 12 million on the floating fast food joint and four other locations built just for Expo ’86 in Vancouver, thinking they could simply move the barge elsewhere if it didn’t catch on.

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For whatever reason, it was never reopened, and hasn’t budged from its apparently permanent spot in the inlet. Owner Howard Meaking proposed renovating it into the showpiece of a new waterfront development along the Fraser River in 2009, but the city council still hasn’t approved the idea.

A group called ‘Vancouver’s Worst Ghost Hunters’ took a tour of the abandoned barge, using a legal loophole to get aboard and filming the experience. Check out the (surprisingly vermin-free) interior in the video (Images via Wikimedia Commons, Ashley Fisher/Flickr Creative Commons).

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Unread: 12 Abandoned Inner City Newsstands

05 Jul

[ By Steve in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

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Once vital fixtures of the urban milieu, these inner city newsstands were abandoned by an information society evolving away from portable print media.

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Time’s up for this classic green newsstand near the corner of 34th Street and 8th Avenue in New York City. One of many near-identical twins still thrives nearby at 33rd and 7th, however – blame the cold equations of economics driven by the relentless advance of technology.

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Flickr user Brecht Bug captured the forlorn state of this formerly ubiquitous inner city icon in early February of 2010. One wonders if its grungy sister stand at 33rd and 7th (above) is still serving commuters the Daily News five years further on?

L.A. Times They Are a-Changin’

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Our rickety old globe has spun many a time since Globe News, a Los Angeles storefront-style newsstand, locked & lowered its security grating for the last time. According to Flickr user vistavision (who snapped this intriguingly post-apocalyptic tableau), the stand closed for good sometime before July 16th of 2008.

Free At Last

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An abandoned newsstand in midtown Manhattan presents a uniformly dull and dreary face to a world that no longer cares. Flickr user DeShaun Craddock captured the somber scene in April of 2011 and it’s noteworthy the only bright spot is an ad for a disposable, addictive, carcinogenic product.

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Unread 12 Abandoned Inner City Newsstands

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Light Lines: Stunning String Installation Inside Abandoned Church

04 Jul

[ By Steph in Art & Installation & Sound. ]

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What seems at first to be narrow rays of turquoise light streaming in through the stained glass windows of a vacant Gothic Revival church turn out to be over 6,500 feet of paracord painstakingly wound around ornate posts and columns. Artist Aaron Asis temporarily transformed West Philadelphia’s St. Andrew’s Collegiate Chapel, which has been closed for more than 40 years, with a geometric string installation that shifts the spatial perception within its darkened nave.

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Entitled Ci-Lines, the project re-opened the disused chapel for three days over three weekends so visitors could take in both the grandeur of the church itself and the surreal sight of criss-crossing string creating new geometries within the negative space. Built in 1924, the chapel was used for sermon lessons and school services until 1974, and though the larger complex has been reclaimed for other uses, the chapel remains vacant.

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“The geometry of Ci-Lines is like an artistic exercise in connecting the dots, crisscrossing overhead and inviting visitors to visually explore a sculptural form as a portal into the nuances of a vacant environ,” says Asis. “The resultant series of cords in tension draws direct inspiration from the existing architectural form inside the chapel. These cords literally render a woven and symmetrical connection between the ornamental posts lining the chapel walls and architectural columns featured along the balconies above, combining to act as a temporary catalyst for observation, investigation, conversation, and realization of spatial majesty in vacant context.”

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Asia hopes that the project will renew interest in the historic structure, helping to preserve it as the cityscape around it shifts and changes. Making use of vacant spaces for art installations helps the public see them in a new light and can spur ideas for revitalization.

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Imploded: 8 Burned Out & Abandoned Fireworks Factories

28 Jun

[ By Steve in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

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Skyrockets red glare and bombs bursting in air were once sweet music to these abandoned fireworks factories, many of which ended with a bang not a whimper.

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Wells Fireworks manufactured pyrotechnics at Dartford, Kent, UK from 1837 through the late 1970s, finally financially sputtering out under price pressure from cheap competition based in China. We’ll bet old Joseph Wells did not see that coming.

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Many of the firm’s original factory buildings still stand (though not too steadily) at the now-overgrown and peaceful Joyce Green area of Dartford. Credit Flickr user Darren Cullern (innerbeast) with these images of the former Wells Fireworks factory taken on August 2nd, 2013.

Colombian Explosition

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Fireworks factories make products that go BOOM… ideally, far from their place of origin. Premature explod-ulation is not cool – just the opposite! Kudos to Wells Fireworks for not blowing itself to smithereens even once during its 150-year-long history; incidents like the colorful explosion of a fireworks factory near Bogota, Colombia in January of 2015 are all too common.

Boom Boom Room

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The office and administration building of an abandoned fireworks factory in Macau looks like it’s been through a battle or two in its day. Most likely it was built to survive an explosive calamity, which if you come to think of it is rather like being in a war. Betcha the boss of the place passed on the corner office with a view – wouldn’t you?

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Imploded 8 Burned Out Abandoned Fireworks Factories

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Photo Finished: 12 Closed & Abandoned Camera Stores

22 Jun

[ By Steve in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

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Point, click, shut! Camera stores are rapidly fading into obsolescence as smartphones take the place of mass market cameras, film and paid photo processing.

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Now here’s a developing story… NOT! The long-abandoned Foto Hut on Forbes Avenue in downtown Pittsburgh sold cameras, film and greeting cards while promising to develop film in an unknown number of “hour” – well, either “one” or “24”, it’s hard to tell from the red rectangle on the Kodak Yellow sign. Kudos to Flickr users strawbrryff and john (J Blough) for capturing this frozen-in-time, eternally bankrupt abandoned camera store in November 2010 and February 2011 respectively.

Chick Clinic

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Once a one-stop-shop for Louisville, Kentucky’s photo fans, Schuhmann’s Click Clinic opened in 1946 and its eye-popping animated signage dates from the early 1950s. Schuhmann’s kicked the bucket in 2001, however, and the sign out front was modified to advertise the store’s new tenants: the Show-N-Tell Showgirls Lounge. No cameras allowed, we’re guessing.

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Takes a licking and keeps on clicking? Both the club and the subsequent owners, the circa-2013 Meta bar, cleverly modified the front signage while completely ignoring the former camera store’s other sign, mounted on the back of the building overlooking the parking lot.

Foto Finis

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Flickr user Who Cares? (busy.pochi) snapped this abandoned Photographies camera and book store in February of 2011, and it didn’t take long for graffiti taggers and handbill posters to take advantage of the stores neglected status. One would think a city as photogenic as Paris could support at least a few camera stores.

Morgue & Camera

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A Hollywood landmark since the 1930s, Morgan Camera Shop finally gave up the ghost a few years into the twenty-first century. Boasting an idyllic location amongst Hollywood’s iconic tall palms and a sign influenced by Bauhaus architecture, Morgan Camera played a large roll in introducing 35mm photography to the United States from Europe.

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Morgan Camera exists in an odd sort of limbo – closed to be sure, but otherwise left pretty much alone inside and out thanks to the efforts of the Morgan family, members of whom who still own both the shop and the building.

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Photo Finished 12 Closed Abandoned Camera Stores

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The Hand of Man: Bonsai Hangs Inside Abandoned Power Plant

20 Jun

[ By Steph in Art & Installation & Sound. ]

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Inside the cooling tower of an abandoned power plant, a tiny bonsai tree hangs from a geometric metal frame, its roots exposed. The only other sign of life inside the cavernous space is an occasional slick of moss. The project meets at the junction between urban exploration, installation art and photography, with no one but the artist witnessing it in person before it was quietly whisked away, the bonsai re-planted to continue its life.

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Located in the city of Charleroi, Belgium and originally built in 1921, the coal-burning power plant was decommissioned in 2007 after criticism of its inefficiency. While much of it was demolished, the tower – which once cooled 480,000 gallons of water per minute – still stands as a dystopian monument, drawing in determined explorers despite the security guards posted outside. Before protests shut it down, it was responsible for 10 percent of the total carbon dioxide emissions in the nation.

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Japanese botanical artist Azuma Makoto doesn’t typically provide any explanation for the meaning behind his installations, but it’s hard not to see some potent symbolism in this image. Bonsai plants are painstakingly constrained by human intervention, and here one floats without the soil it needs to thrive, within a cavernous representation of waste and short-sighted thinking.

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Makoto previously sent a bonsai into space for the Exobiotanica project, suspending a Japanese white pine and a bouquet of lilies and other flowers from carbon-fiber frames and launching them into the sky with a specially-equipped balloon. Six GoPro cameras captured their journey. Said the artist, “Roots, soil and gravity – by giving up the links to life, what kind of ‘beauty’ shall be born? Within the harsh ‘nature,’ at an altitude of 30,000 meters and minus 50 degrees celsius, the plants evolve into exbiota (extraterrestrial life.)”

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No Perking: 15 Drained Dry Abandoned Coffee Shops

07 Jun

[ By Steve in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

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These 15 drained, disused & abandoned coffee shops recall a kinder, gentler, perkier time before Starbucks rebrewed the latte lover’s landscape.

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Black gold, Texas tea… not the rich dark liquid you were looking for? Well you’re lookin’ in the wrong place, pardner. Said to be “a far West Texas oil town eatery” that last flourished along with the rest of Penwell, Texas back in the Roaring Twenties, the Joker Coffee Shop looks to have last provided service (with a smile) long, long ago.

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Regarding the stuffed leopard in the former cafe’s restroom, let’s just say they didn’t call it The Joker for nothing. Hey kitty, why so serious?

Beaver Tales

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Here’s a late and no doubt lamented “abandoned coffee shop/adult entertainment facility” in Okayama, Japan. The place’s name is “Beaver” (of course); Flickr user Trevor Williams visited the site in June of 2009 for some, shall we say, “creative photography” and we are SO glad he did!

3 Stars, Yer Out!

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Central Perk it ain’t… The cozy 3 Star Coffee Shop on Columbus Avenue at 86th Street in Manhattan’s West Side has seen better days, as have almost every other store on the block.

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West Side Rag‘s “intrepid tipster Kenneth” (hey, it’s better than being an intrepid hipster) was sent to check out the abandoned coffee shop in August of 2014 and he was, shall we say, less than impressed: “Half torn out. There must have been 1 million flies inside. Clearly, food must have been left inside.” Guess their signature Donut Burger Sandwiches didn’t exactly sell like Cronuts.

Hey Jo…

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Starbucks may have dealt traditional coffee shops a wicked uppercut; then McCafe moved in to deliver the knockout punch – at least, such can be surmised about the above abandoned Jo To Go in Savannah, Georgia. “This drive-thru coffee shop was built in the parking lot of the shopping center at the corner of Waters Ave. and Eisenhower Drive, behind a McDonald’s, in the spring or summer of 2007,” according to Flickr user C-Bunny, “and had closed sometime earlier this (2010) year.”

Denny’s Destiny

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When Flickr user Charles Hathaway snapped the sad state of Denny’s Coffee Shop (and adjoining motel) in Palm Springs, California, he hedged his commentary by stating “It seems like someone has bought the land with the intention of re-opening the motel.” Hope someone’s watering the palms in the meantime.

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“A restaurant will likely open in this former Denny’s once the motel opens.” That was in January of 2008… what was the ultimate fate of this palm-treed oasis and its Space Age architecture and awesome flying saucer chandelier?

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No Perking 15 Drained Dry Abandoned Coffee Shops

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