2750 Gosworth Road, Victoria, BC

After coming across the link to the Google Maps street view of this house, I was curious about its current state, since the street view photo is from three years ago. So I biked by today, and instead of a house, there's just an empty lot. Since eventually Google will update their photos, I wanted to post some screenshots from the current street view so that there's still some record of the house out there. Couldn't find anything about it online, sadly, although I may have the wrong address since I'm just going by Google. 

ETA 5/30/15: So I just found out that Google keeps their old street view images available, and you see them easily--just click the little clock next to the date when you're in street view mode. Since I published this post they've updated the street view pics to May 2014 (when I first posted, the current ones were from September 2011), but you can go back and see both the 2011 images (found in this post) and ones from 2009--super fascinating to me, because the house was in way better shape then, so it's cool to see what it looked like before this. Anyway, I'll leave this post up, and might still do posts about lost buildings occasionally, even if Google does have its own record of them.

ETA 8/5/15: Finally got around to adding a screenshot from 2009's Google Maps to this post--see below! I also found out some actual information on the house. I had the address wrong originally (2759 instead of 2750), which probably didn't help.

Anyway, according to this Facebook discussion, what went wrong was that "The owner attempted to lift the house to put in a basement. Basically he and a bunch of helpers began to jack it higher windows began to blow out and the house became unsafe. Friends live next door and watched and listened as the house was twisted apart."

Other people (in that discussion and another) were saying what a nice old house it was: "The fireplace had two faces in the two main adjacent entertaining rooms and [was] covered in an awesome royal blue tile which looked original with intricate metal work. It had side pillars denoting the dining area from the front lounge. The stairwell was quite grand. Farmhouse kitchen. And a tree growing partially inside the bathroom from the neglect." Someone who lived there in the 80s said it wasn't in the best shape even then. 

Here's a photo from January 2008, with a little more info in the comments. All I have otherwise is that a Mrs. P McGill lived there in 1917--so obviously it was built before then.

Below, the rest of the 2011 screenshots from the original version of this post.

in context

left side

front again

right side

better view of the right side

back

Goodyear Water Tower, Williamsville, NY

This place isn't technically abandoned since it's obviously maintained and I believe still in use, but it is an interesting/unusual structure that I've visited, and the area around it is abandoned, so it's getting posted.

According to this pamphlet on Amherst, NY's historic properties (which is the only website I can find that mentions it, besides Town of Amherst board meeting minutes), it was built between 1915 and 1925 as part of the Josephine Goodyear Convalescent Home campus. The pamphlet notes that it was also used as a fire watch tower, and that it's the only known octagon-shaped water tower in Erie County (I like how they acknowledge that there could be other octagonal water towers in the county that they're just not aware of).

I found the pamphlet online while looking up other historic buildings in the area and was intrigued. After locating the tower on Google Maps I planned to visit it sometime if I could (especially after seeing it from Sheridan Drive while passing by once, which made it seem like it would be easy to get to), but didn't actually make it there until a week or so before I left the area. I found that you can't actually get to it off Sheridan but have to go into the little development on Hampton Hill Drive. It was weird parking on the street by a cluster of identical houses and striding off into what felt like their backyards. It was also weird seeing this white tower rising up above them.

view from Google Maps

There was a "Town of Amherst - No Trespassing" signs nearby, but it was by a road leading into the area rather than right by the tower, and there was no fence or anything to stop people from walking over to the tower, so I wasn't too concerned.

See how close it is to the houses?

There was a sign by the tower about video surveillance, but that didn't scare me too much.

As for the rest of the area, maybe it's just what's left of the convalescent home, since this site says it was sold after World War II. I couldn't find anything about who it was sold to or what was done with the area after that, but I did find this newspaper from 1936 with a cute article about Christmas for the kids in the home.

The person in the distance is my mom, who came with me.

There was a small network of roads and parking lots. Here's the area from above on Google Maps.

And some more evidence of its abandoned state.

After we left we found that we could see it from the parking lot of an office building on Main Street.

It's a simple but unique little building, something pretty to look at in contrast to the development and all the nearby office buildings.