The ruins of America is fascinating

You'll enjoy this for sure: LINK

Congrats on the future Tetanus.

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there not many old ‘ruins’ in Texas...aside from the Alamo.

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Terlingua, Independence,and a number of locations apart from the Alamo in S.A.

About 18 years ago the City of Atlanta had to tear out a 50 foot section of street in Downtown. What most think as street level there is actually built up about 20 feet above the original antebellum street level. My company was involved in the repair work and as the sales rep, I went down to check it out. I had to drive in from about 1/4 mile away where train tracks enter and exit a small area on the edge of where the built up streets start. In Atlanta, that area is known as “The Gulch.” When I drove in under the built up area, there was a mini city of homeless shelters. I mean like drakes out parcels. Some with old couches, recliners, storage boxes, lanterns, clothesline’s, etc.. And people just chilling like they were neighbors. There was a tiny bit of light in the area coming in from the edge of where the built up area started. It was something I had never seen before and certainly unexpected. It was like “holy crap. There is actually a community of people that reside here in this underground place.”

Anyway, once I got to the area where they had punched the hole in the street above, there were piles of 40lb cobblestone pavers everywhere from whet the excavators had dug out the area to put in caissons. They had gotten to 1860s street level and that was the hub of commerce back then as all of the tracks converged there. I loaded up about 30 of them and took them home and made a small cobblestone sidewalk. The whole half day down there was eye opening.

I feel that wày about ghost towns. Just a weird draw to them.

Detroit?

A really fascinating American ruin is The Salton Sea, a former resort and man-made lake in CA that rapidly fell to ruin and is now a blighted desert wasteland. I was there with my grandparents in the late 70's when it was in steady decline, resembling a giant trailer park with some stores and boat rentals, etc. Now, it's just a puddle of garbage in the middle of the desert, but still has a few "residents."

There are several documentaries about it, but the best is this one, narrated by director John Waters.

Plagues & Pleasures on the Salton Sea

I used to love going to this old tuberculosis hospital not far from where I lived growing up. When we would go in high school, it was pretty creepy and fascinating as all the hospital beds and whatnot were still inside. It was pretty torn up and graffitied by then, but still cool to see. I always heard rumors it was being demolished, but I believe it’s still standing(though much of it has collapsed at this point).

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This hospital, originally named The District Tuberculosis Hospital, was one of the first TB hospitals to open in the state of Ohio with a capacity of 24 beds in 1911. It treated patients who ranged from seven to ninety years old, battling against the often fatal disease that plagued the nation. The average inpatient stay at Lima State was three to five years to undergo necessary treatment, and in later years was reduced to one and a half years. The original building was expanded in 1927-28, and re-modeled once again in 1957, allowing up to 138 patients. The farmland that the hospital was built on once comprised of a dormitory for nurses, a male residence, staff cottages, and a scenic pond.

In 1960 the hospital's name changed to Ottawa Valley Tuberculosis Hospital, and by 1972 the second floor was not used because of the declining number of tubercular patients. It was finally shuttered in 1973, resulting from a decision to subsidize state hospitals by the Ohio Department of Health.

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Tehuacana, Texas has the old Trinity University.

I have always been fascinated with cities that built on top of themselves. I struggle to wrap my mind around that. Malls are real estate time bombs. COVID might actually make us finally move on from them. I almost stayed with my Ukranian ex longer just to try and go to Chernobyl