I’m a little obsessed with abandoned places. I even have a Pinterest board dedicated to it. If I see an old abandoned house in the middle of nowhere all I want to do is stop and look around.
Last night Boo told me the story of Pompeii. I’m just warning you…..it’s a depressing story. I guess she learned it at school. I know I can’t technically call Pompeii “abandoned” since the reason no one is there is because they all died tragically, but close enough. I had to write down every word of Boo’s version:
When the volcano exploded, their roofs came off.
They didn’t have carpets….so they had to paint the floors.
They didn’t have any beds.
They had to lay on the ground with no blankets and they were cold….forever.
There was no sun. And no sky. Just dirt for the sky.
Even girls lived at Pompeii.
About 100 girls and 100 boys died.
Pompeii is a really sad place.
I wish no one lived at Pompeii.
It was like she wrote a poem about Pompeii. At the end she started crying. And then I started crying.
A few of my favorite “abandoned” sites:
Amazing photos of ruins and abandoned eery places
I found this site about 10 years ago after hearing about it on public radio: she rode her motorcycle through Chernobyl.
An abandoned but perfectly preserved Japanese school.
Documenting historic abandoned places. Creepy and cool.
Update 1: Reader Trish sent me this link of photos she took from an abandoned house in Michigan….who leaves a casserole in the oven! Were they abducted by aliens? This gives me anxiety.
Update 2: I asked Boo how they found the people of Pompeii if they were all buried under ash. She replied (in a tone that made me feel inferior for asking): they used calculations.
Update 3: The Ruins of Detroit. Thanks Carrie for sending this along.
Awww! What a heartbreaking take on Pompeii… not that it wasn’t already a sad tale to begin with. It’s beautiful to walk through, though, and poignant when you recall that these unsuspecting townsfolk had hardly any notice before the lava overtook their city.
http://northbrotherislan.blogspot.com/
Abandoned hospital on an island off of NYC
It actually was the ash, not the lava that overtook the city so quickly. My best friend is an anthropologist and visited Pompeii last year, she had ‘backstage’ access, it is surreal! It was so fast and so sudden, the people where forever preserved doing everyday things. They where also genius with having street signs, the first restaurants, mosaic floors, etc. But because of the ash falling so fast, so much history has been perfectly preserved that would have otherwise faded……
I photograph abandoned places here in Michigan. There are a lot of farmsteads in Northern Michigan that are abandoned. Everything is left in place as if the people just left for the day and decided never to return. Breakfast dishes in the sink, a casserole dish in the oven, a jacket hanging on the door. It is so eerie and sad. Some have been abandoned since the 40’s up to the 60’s. One that I visited as recent as 1991 or at least that was the date of the calendar on the wall. These places fascinate me. I want to know their stories.
Here is a link to a few pf my photos if you’re interested. http://www.flickr.com/photos/trishelizabeth86/sets/72157629688507803/
Boo is right. Pompeii is such a sad story. I cried when I read about it in my 6th grade textbook.
Those are incredible Trish! It’s like they just disappeared from that first house…..I want to know what happened!
Thanks. The first house intrigues me the most also. Where did they go and why? Also, the eeriest thing about that house was that I didn’t even have to get creative to get inside (ie. Climb through windows or up through broken floors) the front door was just unlocked… like maybe they were expecting a visit 🙂
Maybe they witnessed a mob hit, were hiding as witnesses, but then the mob found out where they were, but then they found out that the mob knew before they could get to them, and so they ran. Like my sentence.
My DH’s side are a bunch of MI farmers, so I might be able to get you back stories and more places to photograph – but girl, be careful!! I know people that have gotten injured in abandoned houses!!!
Ooh, where at in MI. I usually explore Manistee area but its a bit of a drive. I have been searching around south central Mich but they are few and far between. I have been exploring abandoned houses since I was a kid, with my cousins. You get to a point where you know how to judge a structure and when to pass one up no matter how intriguing. But it is dangerous and you have to have rules and limits. So far my worst experience was being chased by a badger. 😉
Around Lansing. Glad to hear you stay safe 🙂
Lansing? Really? I am just south of there!
Creepiest place in new orleans is the abandonded six flags amusement park. Google those pictures, super crazy but yet I am drawn to look at them from ti e to time.
Those photos are stunning, beautiful and sad at the same time.
What a sweet, sad little story she wrote. And such fascinating pictures/links.
That little Boo is going to be an amazing author! She has such emapthy for everyone and everything. She must have a fantastic mother!
I went to Pompei with my Mum when I was 5 years old. It had such an profound impact on me. I remember seeing that little child and families curled up together as they had died. It was heartbreaking and beautiful and I felt like an intruder peeking into their lives and their deaths.
She also took me to Hiroshima and Nagasaki and those places also had a profound effect on me but for entirely different reasons.
I came away from that trip an entirely different child with a deep sense of empathy for the suffering that humankind has and does endure. I think Boo is lovely and it is beautiful that she cares so much for others.
The Japanese school article triggered the thoughts of a movie I watched more than a few years ago now..but thought I would mention it.
A Japanese movie called “Afterlife” – 1998
a very thought provoking movie – and so was your blog today. Thanks! : )
http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9a03e0de123ff931a25756c0a96f958260
here is a review link –
I live in Arkansas and there is a long since closed/abandoned military base called Fort Chaffee a few hours from me. It is an interesting place and some ghost hunters show went there last summer and taped an episode of them going through it alone at night. Scary, freaky. But it was cool to see the pictures of it in its heyday juxstaposed with its current state. If I remember POWs were held there at one point.
going on hour 3 of your recommendations. Just sayin.
just finished the KiddofSpeed.
Unreal. Absolutely haunting. Crazy.
The Waldo and the old psych ward were cool too.
The other one with the various weird abandoned thing was pretty cool.. It sort of lost me when it with the statue of liberty and the plaque that was of another realm? Yeah. Anyhow, thanks for sharing those. They were very interesting. I also very much enjoyed Boos description of Pompeii.
My husband’s parents lived on St. Thomas in the Caribean before we were married. We visitied them there once and took a ferry to a little nearby island that had an old abandoned resort on it. Parts of it had been destroyed in a hurricane but much of it was intact so we spent a long afternoon exploring. It was so amazing- things like the reservation book for the tennis courts was still there totally intact at the front desk but much of the elevator shaft had come down. We had so much fun looking around but it was so eerie too.
Really interesting!
I’ve been to Oradour twice and it is really moving. It’s an village town left in ruins as a memorial and even the cars are still exactly as they were when the villagers were killed. All the visitors walk around in complete silence – you can’t help yourself
The story of Pompeii (and Herculaneum) is very sad, but the places themselves are absolutely beautiful. It always makes me think though…If the wind had been blowing the other way more might have gotten out safely, or If lava had just gone in a slightly different direction Naples would have been buried instead. Pompeii was so advanced for it’s time, I wonder how things would have progressed differently if it had still been around.
i love love old empty houses, churches, barns and all that! i like to sneak in (only if its not marked private bc i dont wanna get arrested and be the crazy girl taking pictures in an abandoned shed). i have a small collection of my own pix and i also find them on etsy!!
I loooove abandoned places!! I get that same urge to explore!! I used to have my college storage unit in an old Nike bunker….now that was a neat abandoned place to explore!!! I most regret not getting a pic of thos abandoned church in a field…old broken piano and all…and at the doorway two full bloom lilac bushes!!! I went back a few months later and it was gone! 🙁
Ps here’s one on our way tO ca……
http://bitesnbrews.com/2011/07/rock-a-hoola-waterpark/
Very cool
I love abandoned places, too! They provoke some emotion in me that resonates, it’s just hard to pinpoint exactly what it is. Half of my home town is abandoned, it’s an old navy town and from what I can find online, it seems city taxes ran a lot of businesses out and toward newer developed nearby cities. Driving through is crazy, so many places I remember as a kid 30 years ago have overgrown weeds, faded signs, empty parking lots. Even entire empty strip malls! I can’t wait to sift through the sites you listed and the flickr account from the comments. Thanks for sharing.
Oh what a coincidence! I teach about volcanoes and when I do, we always read a piece called the Dog of Pompeii. It is a tear jerker. I tell my 6th graders I’ll read to them until a certain point, and then they need to finish it themselves, because I know I’ll just bawl.. We need lots of tissues. It’s historical fiction, and is not very long…probably can find it on the web.
I agree, that was like a poem. Touched my heart. Thank you for that, it kinda gives you another look at what was Pompeii.
I was so afraid that something was going to jump out at me…
Poor Boo. Hope she’s ok! Sounds so sad. Interesting what they think is appropriate to teach kids!
I have to share my story with you. When I was younger I had a pen pal from Ukraine. We wrote many letters and it was such a wonderful experience. I had not heard from her in a while so I wrote again. I received a letter from her parents thanking me for my friendship with her but she had passed away due to complications from Chernobyl. It was heartbreaking to me. There are a lot of sad things that happen to young children, like Pompeii. I am sure you are proud that your daughter has such a caring heart. The apple doesnt fall far from the tree! Keep encouraging her, and tell her to never lose that empathy for people. You are always in my thoughts!
The “Ruins of Detroit” photos always make me feel like crying… I’m from near Detroit, and it makes me so sad to see those places like that. My dad used to be in that train station every day (to catch the bus), my grandma went to the East Methodist church for a while, and I grew up loving to drive by all of the old brick house that became more abandoned and more collapsed as I grew older. The only one that doesn’t make me sad is the one from Cass Tech; it actually suffered a fire and they rebuilt a new building (and tore down the old one) so it’s not as sad to me.
I love that you posted this! I am obsessed with abandoned places. Ghost towns, old hotels, old houses in a field, etc. But, then I am also prone to nightmares about empty places, like hospitals, shopping malls, tenements and creepy bathrooms (have to thank the scary movie Candyman for those two).
I was moved to tears when I visited Pompeii, but there is also a place with such a recent history, it hits home even harder. I went to Greek Cyprus for my honeymoon. There is a place in Cyprus, a suburb of Famagusta called Varosha. In 1974, Turkish military tanks invaded the city and Greek citizens in Varosha had to flee the Turkish invasion in terror. Greek Zcypriots in the north were forced to move south of the divide and Turkish Cypriots from the south were forced to move north. They left breakfast on the tables, washing on the line, bath water running. Many believed they would be able to return but they couldn’t. It was at that time, Cyprus was split in two between Greece and Turkey. The Turks sezed the empty city and wrapped it in fencing and wire, forbidding anyone from entering it even to this day.Famagusta remains a kind of no mans land between the two, I think owned by UN with Turkish military patrolling. There are viewpoints dotted around and through telescopes we peeked into the ghost town and saw a little of the city and imagined how vibrant it once was. Photographs are not allowed. It is believed that there is a car dealership with 1974 cars in its showroom. Can you imagine one day living in harmony with your Turkish or Greek neighbours and then not being allowed to even see them again?You now need a passport to go into the north from the south and vice versa. I cannot imagine how earth remaking invasion is especially if it carves up such a beautiful island. I have since been to Turkish Cyprus ( after bing moved so much by Greek Cyprus, I vowed never to go), and found that too to be the most amazing and beautiful place , again filled with people who scratch their heads in wonder about what went on on their doorstep.xx
I have been following your blog Ashley and am delighted that you are feeling so muh better and kicking cancer in the butt. You re an inspiration to us all. Xx
If you love abandoned photos and they creep you out, check out the six flags park in new Orleans. Its the eeriest thing I’ve seen. I live in new Orleans and had been to the park a few times before hurricane Katrina shut it down for good. I know someone who actually went and explored them, something I’d be too scared to do myself. Here is one link to some photos but there are a ton out there if you google it. Enjoy :).
I just suddenly remembered a place on my “must visit” list that I wanted to share. It’s the ships graveyard in Maritania
http://www.artificialowl.net/2008/12/probably-one-of-the-largest-boat-graveyard.html
So sad!!! but absolutely hilarious!