I always love views into the unseen, decaying side of our urban existence. They speak to so much of our psychology: the fallout from the excesses of modern living. These photos from the Guardian website are just stunning.
‘Detroit in Ruins’ at the Guardian
That reminds me of this blog, which I used to follow fairly regularly when we lived in Baton Rouge:
http://abandonedbatonrouge.typepad.com/abandoned_baton_rouge/old_south/
It’s all just pictures of abandoned buildings in Baton Rouge.
Wow, that’s beautiful Heather… I really love this idea of exploring the forgotten landscapes… they’re so much more honest than the gentrified Main Street. They speak the truth – to those who seek it!
This reminds me of a building in my ‘ancestral’ home town… a tiny rural farming community in central Wisconsin where my father and grandparents were raised by German, English and Norwegian immigrants. There is a lovely little high school… all brick, three stories tall, that was closed 40 or 50 years ago when demographics changed and the schools were centralized. I visit the building every time we are there and feel so attached to it for some reason. It is all boarded up and I fantasize about moving there and renovating it as a senior center. The town is all elderly people now, most of whom attended high school in that building. Like these photos, you can almost feel the ghosts there.
:) Claire, I think that’s really what ghosts are. We see (accurately, if you look at it deeply enough) that those who have died have become – and are perceptible as – part of the landscape around us. The mind inscribes love onto the buildings that used to contain their lives. It’s a beautiful idea.