OT: Urban decay...
 

Nothing to do with music, but...

I have this thing for old buildings and other urban structures, abandoned or active. I've seen some of the photo galleries from Detroit, and just like many other people, I was especially fascinated by the fate of the Michigan Central Station:

http://www.forgottendetroit.com/mcs/photos.html

Any interesting comments, thoughts about this? I wonder if they're eventually going to demolish the building.

Other stuff:

http://www.derelictlondon.com/


-Methem

Re: OT: Urban decay...
 

wow. what a place. an absolute shame to tear it down...

thanks for the links, Methem.

Re: OT: Urban decay...
 

No problem, Roger.

Just found these:

http://www.detroitfunk.com/2006/06/back_to_motown.html
http://forgottenmichigan.com/gallery...ished/donovan/


-Methem

Re: OT: Urban decay...
 

http://russos.livejournal.com/210363.html

Quite a place...


-Methem

Re: OT: Urban decay...
 

:rofl: :shootmeno :rofl: :shootmeno

I meant OT: Urban decay was a new Ozric Tentacles 's CD:jawdrop: :jawdrop: :jawdrop:

Re: OT: Urban decay...
 

"OT" was supposed to mean "Off-Topic".

But if Ozrics were to make such an album, perhaps it would be their first to explore the darker, melancholic side of music. I wonder how that would sound... :rolleyes2


-Methem

Re: OT: Urban decay...
 

Well, I live in the Detroit suburbs so you'd think I'd actually know something about this, but I hardly ever get downtown unless there's a music event I want to see down there (went to the Hoedown once to see some friends play there, but that's all I've been to) or family comes in and wants to go to "Greek Town" (which is a joke IMHO compared to say the ethnic "towns" of Chicago or SF or whatever, Greek town is 2 blocks long and across the street from a casino) so I've not been down there much. Fact is, downtown Detroit doesn't have all that much to offer (compared to say Chicago where I used to live) IMHO.

I didn't grow up in the Detroit area though, so there may still be a lot that I'm not aware of in this area (it *is* MOTOWN after all, the birthplace of all those great R&B recordings, and there's still an active music scene, not prog that I'm aware of, but techno is the current claim to fame that I'm aware of), but one feature of Detroit is the exodus of gainfully employed people away from the city Detroit over the years. The Detroit area has a series of "rings" as people migrated away from the city (I live in a 3rd ring suburb and live < 1 mile from where I work) and apparently many businesses also moved/built their headquarters outside the city. The end result is that Detroit proper is really struggling since there isn't a sufficient tax base to even provide proper essential services such as water and sewage treatment, or so I've heard. The 1st "ring" is also in trouble from what I've heard due to declining property values.

Actually, the whole area is having trouble right now with Ford and GM (the two largest employers IIRC) having major difficulties right now; many of my friends/colleagues have seen the values of their homes decrease even out in the third "ring". Fortunately I live in an old (circa 1950-1960) neighborhood that is still desirable, but even so, my property values have only gone up about 1% in my first year here and it is relatively expensive to buy a house out here in the third ring, not as bad as say Silicon Valley where some friends live, but about twice what it costs in the St. Louis, MO suburbs where I grew up.

As far as the building referenced above being destroyed, I've not heard anything about it, and although there is an effort to revitalize downtown Detroit, I doubt the city has the money to demolish the building, so maybe it's safe LOL. Of course if some developer comes along with some cash and wants that site I wouldn't be surprised to see them get it and what they'd do with it is anybody's guess, but it wouldn't surprise me if they razed it in order to build a mall or another casino or whatever, which would be a shame, but I don't have any additional information regarding it's fate, sorry...

Re: OT: Urban decay...
 

Perhaps they've already demolished most of what's worth looking at in the city... ;)

http://detroityes.com/index.html has some photo tours of the city. Click "Tour the ruins" to view them.

Detroit is usually credited for being the place were "techno" was pretty much born, created by the guys like Juan Atkins and Derrick May. The city is also the home of Underground Resistance, aka UR, a more or less famous techno collective.

Shrinking Cities has some information about that sort of development, very prevalent in post-industrial areas. It's a cultural project (with a somewhat confusing website):

http://www.shrinkingcities.com/index.php?L=1
http://www.shrinkingcities.com/standorte0.0.html?&L=1
http://www.shrinkingcities.com/kultu...en.0.html?&L=1

Yep...

Thanks for the post: it's good to hear from someone who actually lives there. :)


-Methem

Re: OT: Urban decay...
 

A few photos more or less suitable for this thread:

http://www.student.oulu.fi/~miputkon/photos.html


-Methem

Re: OT: Urban decay...
 

http://www.student.oulu.fi/~miputkon...m_mill2007.jpg

what a great building.

thanks, Methem.

Re: OT: Urban decay...
 

When I first saw it, it was love at first sight, so to speak. There is something special in these old red brick buildings.

Some background and other photos of this particular building can be found on http://www.dm-exp.org/gallery/oulu_m...ulu_mylly.html

For an excellent site with photography of old industrial buildings (some real classics), see http://www.hfinster.de/ by the way.


-Methem

Re: OT: Urban decay...
 

fabulous links! now all I need are several days to browse...

:D

Re: OT: Urban decay...
 

Or much more:

http://www.hfinster.de/StahlArt2/Links-en.html

:p


-Methem

Re: OT: Urban decay...
 

oh man.

my life as I know it is over...

Re: OT: Urban decay...
 

Hopefully not. But there's indeed quite a lot of material related to old architecture and "urban exploration" available on the Net, it seems. An interesting resource I've totally forgotten to post is the collection of links on the Infiltration.org site:

http://www.infiltration.org/resources-links.html

There's a map, and you can browse sites by location. Too bad many locations/states/countries only have like one or two links available. Also some of the web sites having to do with urban exploration really can be a bit, well, childish.


-Methem

Re: OT: Urban decay...
 

more great stuff.

I've been spending some time today thinking about "why do I like this stuff?"

not sure that I have an answer, but it sure does fascinate me.

it's like modern historical dinosaurs, or something...

Re: OT: Urban decay...
 

I don't have an exact answer either. One of the reasons for liking this sort of stuff is that I'm sometimes interested in history in general, and old buildings, whether industrial or something else, certainly have something to tell about the past. And then there's just something fascinating, and at the same time scary, in seeing these old, abandoned places and how the nature is slowly reclaiming them. Probably the dinosaur thing you're talking about...

Old buildings, old cars, and other old things in general are often more sympathetic than their modern counterparts, from the aesthetic point of view. All these corporate "glass palaces" nauseate me; new cars largely lack personality (for rather practical and good reasons of course, but anyway); people think CDs obviously don't quite have the same feeling as vinyls (plus turntablists can scratch with vinyls, not with CDs :p); and so on. I also think liking these old things might be some sort of counter reaction against the current hectic life and what often seems to be so blind, short-sighted progress. Things are changing too fast for many people to adapt. I'm not a conservative, but you need at least some stability, some "roots", something to attach to (hopefully not to harmful extent though). Just like you need certain people and their characteristics and want those people to remain around as long as possible. Something like that...

I'm not against progress, but we need to consider our moves carefully, not the way a certain bloated corporation develops its software.


-Methem

Re: OT: Urban decay...
 

Added a couple of photos I had in store to my page. Nothing special though.

-Methem

Re: OT: Urban decay...
 

some great stuff here:

http://www.hebig.org/photos/

Re: OT: Urban decay...
 

Thanks for the link. Will take a detailed look at it.

There seem to be quite a lot photos related to steel industry on those pages. I spent three summers working at a large cold-rolling mill. I never visited the melting shop or the hot-rolling mill in that particular factory though, which I've since regretted. But of course the cold-rolling mill alone was very interesting. Both impressive and somewhat scary, considering all the big machinery and automation there.

Here's a rather poor photo from the same mill:
http://network.ilehti.com/midcom-ser...02tornio_2.jpg

showing some coils (usually around 18000-20000kg), automatic guided vehicles and a crane.


-Methem

Re: OT: Urban decay...
 

Speaking of classic buildings, this one in Belgium has obviously fascinated many:

http://users.pandora.be/a-p/binche.htm
http://www.canet.be/galerie8-8.htm
http://www.studio51.be/Pictures/Aban...nes/index.html
http://www.sammo.be/pix/peronnes/index.html

An impressive "skeleton" really. Interesting architecture for an industrial facility. "It looks like the architect dropped some heavy LSD before he started to work on it." comments the last web site.


-Methem

Re: OT: Urban decay...
 

wow. that place is massive. and wild.

Re: OT: Urban decay...
 

Thought I could post this as well:

http://www.bobhenneman.info/Breakers1.htm

Photos of old battleships and other such vessels being scrapped... The first ship seen is HMS Warspite, "The Old Lady", the battleship that saw action in the both world wars.

http://www.bobhenneman.info/Breakers4.htm
"Run up on the beaches of India at high tide, old vessels are cut up in horrific working conditions." Handy and cheap for the western world to ship the shit to the "third world".

---

An interesting historical photo showing Gangut, a Russian/Soviet battleship, in an urban/harbour environment, somewhere:

http://web.ukonline.co.uk/aj.cashmor...2/gangut2.html

like at least 80 years ago, I guess.

---

Will try to post something softer next time, whenever that is... :) Perhaps a link to some resource about old wooden buildings. And they don't even need to be abandoned or massive in size.


-Methem, who's been listening to some cold and industrial electro lately - not for sophisticated prog. ears:
http://people.cc.jyu.fi/~jatka/mp3/d...ons_of_war.mp3

Re: OT: Urban decay...
 

Some new photos:
http://www.student.oulu.fi/~miputkon...s.html#tre2007

What, by the way, is the American car, from the late 1950s or so, in
http://www.student.oulu.fi/~miputkon...houses2007.jpg ?
Probably an easy one, and I too might have recognised it some 12-15 years ago, when as a teenager, I was somewhat into that sort of stuff.


-Methem

Re: OT: Urban decay...
 

If you love old buildings you will love this..
http://www.mrps.org/

Its the old Mansfield Reformatory..

Re: OT: Urban decay...
 

Thanks for the link. I'll take a good look at it.


-Methem

Re: OT: Urban decay...
 

looks like a 1959 Chevy Impala.

holy shit, check out this page: takes awhile to load...

Re: OT: Urban decay...
 

My buddy at work and i May go down there in November for there ghost hunts.

Re: OT: Urban decay...
 

You're right. I didn't pay too much attention to this particular car but figured it had similar back lights: http://www.plan59.com/images/JPGs/ch...9_green_00.jpg

I actually had Impala in my mind, but that was mostly just because I can't remember too many model names from that era.

Thanks. Some great car-casses on that page. :)

Speaking of wrecks, the photo of the 1895 train accident in Gare Montparnasse, Paris is pretty dramatic:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gare_Montparnasse


-Methem

Re: OT: Urban decay...
 

awesome pic of the train wreck. I'm into trains, but had never seen that photo.

and looks like you nailed the Impala. great old advertising shot!

Re: OT: Urban decay...
 

I see no reason to get into any weird deviant practices :notsure:

Anyway...

I should take pictures of my weekly drive through the inner city - the one that would really be interesting is the American Brewing Company that's been dormant for years, and the dilapidated vacant housing...

ok no need to - here's a link...

http://www.kilduffs.com/American_Brewery_Baltimore.html

Note all of the green that's growing on the building. What it doesn't show is the surrounding decay and the drug trafficing. The person walking in front is a brave soul.

Re: OT: Urban decay...
 

Another interesting place, it seems.

http://www.kilduffs.com/BEER_7_Balti...kBeerLabel.jpg ... Pretty fierce. With appropriate modifications the head would make good material for a typical black metal album cover, he he.


-Methem

Re: OT: Urban decay...
 

A few recent, hastily taken photos showing how it looks on the inside:

http://www.student.oulu.fi/~miputkon...007_inside.jpg
http://www.student.oulu.fi/~miputkon...7_inside_b.jpg
http://www.student.oulu.fi/~miputkon...7_inside_c.jpg

Pretty sad.


-Methem

Re: OT: Urban decay...
 

shoulda known you would have picked up on that, Rick....

nice to see you in this thread, though!
:smoooch:

Re: OT: Urban decay...
 

came upon this site today:
Web Urbanist

lots to explore!

Re: OT: Urban decay...
 

Thanks. Just started checking some of the stuff on the site.

http://weburbanist.com/2007/10/10/3d...s-and-mosaics/ , for example...

Not bad works.


-Methem

Re: OT: Urban decay...
 

Some photos from an old sawmill / ship building area here in Oulu:

http://www.student.oulu.fi/~miputkon...skila2007.html

Not very exciting or unique, but some of the photos perhaps somehow reflect your "modern historical dinosaurs" concept, Roger.

Bones left:
http://www.student.oulu.fi/~miputkon...ea2007_008.jpg


-Methem

Re: OT: Urban decay...
 

indeed. thanks.

Re: OT: Urban decay...
 

those first 17 pics of the Detroit Central - what an absolute crime to let a gorgeous place like that go fallow, let alone allow the animals to alow the two legged animals piss all over it!

Re: OT: Urban decay...
 

more Detroit

crazy.