City Methodist Church, Gary, IN

I drove through Gary, IN on my cross-continent move from Buffalo, NY to Victoria, BC and didn't get to spend nearly as much time there as I would have liked to. But I was there long enough to see that, as I'd read, it really is a half-ghost town. 

From Wikipedia: Gary "was founded in 1906 by the United States Steel Corporation as the home for its new plant," but "in the 1960s, like many other American urban centers reliant on one particular industry, Gary entered a spiral of decline [...] brought on by the growing overseas competitiveness in the steel industry, which had caused U.S. Steel to lay off many workers from the Gary area. [...] Owing to white flight, economic distress, and skyrocketing crime, many middle-class and affluent residents moved to other cities in the metro area such as Chicago." The population is now around 80,000, and "as of 2013, the Gary Department of Redevelopment has estimated that one-third of all homes in the city are unoccupied and/or abandoned."

And it's not just homes; this massive church has been empty and unused for almost 40 years.

I stopped by this one specifically after seeing it mentioned online. If you're interested, here's an article detailing its whole history; the article also has a lot of photos, past and present. It sounds like the building was in okay shape until a 1997 fire, which destroyed part of the roof.

When I was there (August of this year) you could walk right in, no fences or boards on the doorway, and I would have loved to explore it, but since I didn't have the time (plus it was kind of creepy), I contented myself with just walking in a little way.

And it's actually a good thing I didn't spend too long or go in any farther, because this website (which also has an awesome virtual tour) says you need a permit from the city to explore and photograph abandoned buildings. Luckily I didn't get in trouble for any of the photos I took.

This sign was outside, but I'm not sure why since it's got the wrong name...

At one point the city had plans to turn part of the building into a ruins garden, which would have been awesome, but there wasn't enough funding. It does get used, though, by photographers and also in movies (including, recently, Transformers 3), so unlike abandoned buildings that just get boarded up and left to rot, it is still serving a purpose. 

2321 Cook Street, Victoria, BC

I noticed this place while driving by recently, and today I biked there to get a closer look and take a few photos.

Googling the address revealed that it had much more of a story than I expected. It was built in 1913 and used to be the Caldwell Apartments, where a murderer lived; he killed someone over a drug debt in 2005 and turned himself in a few days later, after police seized evidence against him in a raid on the house. Shortly after that the building's residents were ordered evicted, although it wasn't fenced or fully boarded up until 2013. This is the Google street view photo, which was taken in June 2012. 

Before that, and possibly after too, squatters lived there, although in June of this year there was a fire (photo at the link, and several more here) which left the building structurally unsound. Because of that, it's impossible for it to be inspected to determine the cause of the fire. Here's a photo I took of the right side, where the fire damage is more obvious.

And a photo from the Times Colonist:

source

It's a shame that it wasn't sold, fixed up, and put to use again before it was too late.
_____________________
Edit on December 9, 2014: Walked by today and the top back half is gone. According to this article it's finally being demolished, although they say demolition was scheduled to be completed by December 5th, which obviously hasn't happened. No one was working on it today at all, although the backhoe from the article's photograph was sitting in the driveway next door. Didn't get any pictures, but I'll have to go back and take a few before it's completely gone.
_____________________
Edit on May 16, 2015: Quite late, but I'm finally adding the photos of it half-torn down, which I took on December 12, 2014. 

this little boarded-up cabin in back is intriguing... not sure if it got torn down too or not

Next time I drove by it was completely gone. Today I found this photo from the 1970s (and was super excited), which would have been cool before but is even more meaningful now that the building no longer exists.

Found here.  You can see the little cabin in the background!

Also, a bunch more links which I apparently missed before:

• Most interestingly, photos of the inside taken by a Flickr user in April 2014 (there are a lot, but it's definitely worth looking through them all)
• More photos of the fire taken by the same person
• On page 3 of this pdf, a photo taken circa spring 2006.
• A photo taken in 2012 (quite similar to Google's).
• A listserv message recounting how the tenants were given less than 24 hours to leave (and a long related rant by the same person)
• Victoria's Ad-Hoc Committee to End Homelessness at one point recommended the building as one possibility for conversion into affordable housing
• This letter gives it as the address of a disabled veteran in 1927
• And here it's given as the address of a solider (and his wife) who enlisted in 1916
• Ad from when the owner was trying to sell it
• Apparently in 2013 a heron was nesting in the "inaccessible" second floor
• People discussed it briefly on a message board in 2013 (in the context of buildings possibly eligible for heritage status)
• Victoria City Council documents from 2014 officially declaring the building "a nuisance" and stating that it needs to demolished; also recounts its unfortunate history since becoming unoccupied and notes that, in July 2014, "further collapse of the building [was] likely should there be a substantial wind storm". The "Notice of Remedial Action Requirement" sent to the owner is also included (page 6), as well as a letter sent to the owner in June 2014 from Victoria's Acting Chief Building Inspector after his post-fire inspection (8), and a letter describing the fire damage in detail (9). This letter recommends that "Danger: Keep Out" signs be placed on the fence, which apparently didn't happen, and that the building be demolished before October to avoid the risk of significant snowfall causing further collapse--which seems laughably over-cautious since we only ever got one slight dusting. Finally, the pdf also includes some post-fire photos (11-13).
• More recently, City of Victoria's bid details for the demolition of the building. The page says there was a meeting about it (a mandatory site viewing) on January 7, 2015, which is weird because demolition had already been started (and I believe completed) at that point. This pdf references a meeting on January 7, 2014, though...
• Also, see my post on 1176 Yates for some quotes from the owner (Robin Kimpton) regarding the two properties.

Can't find anything about the future of the site. I'll have to bike by again sometime soon and see what it looks like now.

Prudhommes Landing Inn, Ontario

Seeing this place was probably one of the highlights of the ill-fated trip to Toronto that my husband, a friend, and I took about two months ago. Road closures, high prices, a parking ticket, and bad traffic all made the trip more of an unpleasant than pleasant experience, which was unfortunate because I'd been looking forward to visiting Toronto for a long time. But while we were still on our way, blissfully unaware of how many hours we would spend sitting in an unmoving car or how much money two days in the city would cost us, we stopped for a bathroom break at a Tim Hortons near St. Catherines, Ontario. And to the right of the Tim Hortons just happened to be this place. 

I was super excited because I love abandoned buildings but had never actually gotten to look at one up close before (one that hadn't completely fallen apart, that is). So while my husband and friend were in Tim Hortons, I walked over and did what exploration I could in the short time that I had, which consisted of walking partway down the building and peering in each window I passed.

Here's how the pool room used to look:

photo from TripAdvisor.com

When I Googled it later, I found that there actually used to be an amusement park behind the hotel (if only I'd known when I'd been there; I would have loved to explore what remains of that, even though from what I read online there isn't much at this point). The hotel only closed a few years ago, I believe, but the amusement park--Wet and Wild--had been closed for a while before that. The comments on this article and this one are interesting, with people reminiscing about working at the park and discussing why it might have been closed (a string of unexplained freak accidents is one theory). This page has then-and-now photos of the park ("now" being 2008), and here's a link to the location of the Tim Hortons on Google Maps; the hotel is the big building to the right of the pin, and you can see the amusement park's old go-cart track behind it. As of 2012, the whole property was for sale. 

A few more photos:

the "AAA approved lodging" sticker is ironic

this also-abandoned establishment is next door

Alvira, PA

Edited version of a post I wrote on this blog in March 2011. View original post

I recently visited, for the third time or so, the former town of Alvira (near Allenwood, PA). The short version of the story is, in 1942, the valley where Alvira was was chosen as the site of the Pennsylvania Ordnance Works, a TNT manufacturing plant meant to supply the US army. The residents of Alvira and the surrounding area were forced to sell their land for low prices and find other places to live. While the government promised them that they would be able to buy the land back when the plant closed, hardly anyone actually got their land back even though the plant only operated for eleven months. All the town buildings were destroyed, and today there are just old foundations, rubble, and tons of TNT storage bunkers. Most of the land is now state game lands, although some of it belongs to the Allenwood Federal Prison Complex. This is a good article to read if you're interested in the long version of the story.

Today, you can go to the game lands and see the site of the former town. I was there a few times when I was younger and appreciated seeing it again now that I understand why it ended up like this.

 One of the many bunkers; most are locked up now.

 Looking down an old well...

 ...which is inside here.

 The Montgomery Area Historical Society put up markers where all the houses were.

Another old well...

...with what looks like newsprint on the stone? I'd love to know how it got like that.

Someone found and left all this old glass.

The most intact structure from the former town that we saw; it might've been a church?

This open bunker was set back from the main road.

Kind of spooky inside, and really echoey; my sister had a lot of fun.

The entrance to Washington Cemetery.

It's in pretty bad shape.