The top of the giant arched windows facing the Mississippi and the swing bridge.
history under ground
archways
Here’s the church, and here’s the steeple; Open the door and see all the people; Here’s the parson going upstairs; Here he is saying his prayers…
Sarah below Cascade Park. This space was destroyed when the park flooded.
The left cave is the largest of the three, and shows the most evidence of expansion.
A delivery alley that cuts straight into the middle of the brewery complex.
Although the caves deviated little in their year-round temperature, it was common to use blocks of ice to cool beer immediately before shipment. This is the ruins of the ice chute.
One of the large barracks. All of them are overgrown like this.
Zachary Taylor’s very own Scottish castle, spring-side in the Kentucky backcountry. Boarded and waiting, but in surprisingly good condition, considering the decades. I especially love the tower on the right side of the frame.
A sign facing the city on an exterior wall–a sort of motivational poster.
An unplanned skylight. It’s unclear why some parts of the building had wooden roofing, while others were highly reinforced with brick.
This load of lime seems to have been left right where it was loaded.
The clock, which was sold after Amtrak dumped the building, was returned to the Waiting Room in 2005.
Judging by the bed, this room was used by employees in its later years.
“GREETING FROM BEAUTIFUL GARY–WISH YOU WERE HERE!” My postcard shot.
In the barracks.
One of the few doors.
“WORK HARDER”
I love this original brick archway, near the narrow gauge shop. Gorgeous!
In the far back of the cellars there are some old bottles. This arch shows an old entrance to the cellars, now collapsed.
The top of the barracks staircase.
Behind the grand staircase is this beautifully preserved hallway with medieval-style arches and vivid paint.
Left: A medium storage chamber with access to an interconnecting steam tunnel at ceiling height. This room also has various smashed toilets. Why? Because dead toilets–all of them–always find a home in a cave. Center: Steps go past a +-intersection, left goes deeper, right goes to utility tunnels for the brewery, forward used to go to the brewery basement… it’s now backfilled. Left from the backfill is a small hallway; see ‘Backfill Self Portrait’. Center-Right: Utility tunnels tie knots between the brewery’s demolished basement and its caves. Right: Most of the storage volume is in large chambers down this causeway.
Police tape marks were kids got hurt in the past… probably from falling from the unstable catwalk above.
Designed by Taylor himself, the spring house was the site of many parties in its day. You can imagine sipping fresh-tapped whiskey here with your Sunday clothes with soft music and the sounds of the river mixing in the background. Note the key-hole-shaped spring hole.
There’s no way an explorer, much less a choir, could stand here now. Since this picture was taken the roof has collapsed onto the loft.
A window for light and air pokes above the big arch in the hallway. Most of the interior ceilings were broad brick archways.
In the power house corner is this gratuitously gigantic doorway. It used to be even bigger, too, as indicated by the brick arch another foot over the top windows.
This corner of the building was the coal room, used to feed the two big boilers inside. The steam equipment has been replaced with electric, so this section may not have changed much in the past decades.
Windows provided the 250-some workers with fresh air and light, and helped to keep flour dust from building up in the air, helping to prevent explosions. Today, machines control air flow better without windows, so they were bricked.
The wings of the church had a lot more water damage than the rest. The organ on the balcony was in decent condition when I arrived.
The great entrance to the Service Building shows the detail once present in the old hospital.
At this junction where Brewery Creek gets a breath of fresh air stands a kid holding a paintbrush: a Banksy (famous graffiti artist) ripoff.
The grand staircase with little balconies leaning over it. All the stone stairs are broken and graffiti marks every wall.
The sexiest feature of Kurth is this steel arch over the silos on its south side. The manholes in the floor open to the silos directly, and flimsy grates might catch a hurried worker. Grates were removable so that workers could descend into the concrete tubes, so a few are missing today.
A mix of brick and stone construction where the stock house meets the cellars. The caves brought well water to the brewery and drained the refuse away, and the various sewer connections are visible here and tell the story of the company’s expansion above.
The arches of the Twohy building, before some of the signs and sills were painted in 2015.
A few of the stalls in the older section of the roundhouse, the noon sky peeking in.
Taken on a short trip where the whole floor of the roundhouse and engine shop was covered in fresh snow–thanks to the holes in the roof and open windows.
Pillars painted red indicated firefighting supplies. Fire was a very common enemy of early rail facilities, and many roundhouses burned down because of a combination of dry wood, hot, fire-breathing machinery and countless oil-saturated surfaces.
Where the drain changes shape from round concrete to arched brick.
Looking at the entrance of the powerplant from its lowest catwalk.
An old fashioned lift.
The front of the school overlooks the town of Birtle, Manitoba. It replaced a circa-1894 building which was a little farther down the hill.
An exit from the concourse.
Like many mill-style buildings of the time, the Twohy’s loading doors (in this case, the delivery wagon doors) opened to an elevator shaft. This design cut down on loading time, as long as the elevator was operational. Of course, if it was otherwise occupied, there could be no traffic through the exterior doors!
The basement of the asylum was a strange place. Take, this fireplace, for instance, in an otherwise barren room. Random cinderblock (left) has created a little room behind the fireplace. To round out the strangeness, a toilet was plumbed into the middle of the space. Note the stone foundations.
An iron gate separates vaults below the barracks.
The historical entrance.
No more bailouts. No excuses.
It was a strange choice, although I appreciate it, for the firm reusing the shops to brick up the doorways while leaving the doors.
Chester Creek Infall, near Duluth’s old Armory. The creek will not emerge again until it is near the Lakewalk.
An old nurse’s station (you can tell because of the half-door with table) with torn-up tiles. Notice through the curved doorway that even the ceiling has a curvature.
In its last years, the church had a congregation of only about 100. It opened with 1.700…
The powerhouse was notably older than the rest of the complex. I’m still not sure if it was build just for the cooperage, or whether it preceded it.
The back door into the old distillery building. Not castle-like at all, sadly.
Sometime soon, maybe in early 2016, someone will have this view from their office or condo.
Generations of Two Harbors teens smoked their first weed in this abandoned building, in my estimation. Comment if I’m right!
A side door for the brick factory.
Serve [unknown] Build… What do you think the middle says? Tell me in the comments.
The nurse’s station on this floor, a ward still in its original design, featured a half-door where patients could get their medicine. Portra 160.
One of the most beautiful exterior features of the hospital are these turret vents, highly stylized and beautiful to behold.
A street side exposure of the original 1914 section of the orphanage. Turned into black and white to deemphasize all the graffiti across the front steps.
The third floor corridor is not so welcoming, as it requires visitors to walk along the support breams without the luxury of a floor. I didn’t mind, but I can’t see the family with young children that was also exploring Noisy doing the same.
The side stairs were worn smooth by use.
Beautiful doors separated the boiler room and the sugar mill. Can you imagine the gracefully curving steps in a power plant today?
Vents in the boards over the windows helps prevent mold and animals from getting too crazy inside.
There is a cool old air compressor in the corner of the powerhouse.
The newer tunnels were fitted with these fluorescent lights, although some skylights (block glass embedded in skywalks) let in some natural light during the day.
A depiction of historic Liège, known for its rivers and hills.
Small rooms in the basement of the asylum were seemingly too tiny to be used, even for storage.
A gateway for St. Louis as seen through a gateway (of sorts) in East St. Louis.
A typical room in the barracks, reinforced from mortars and light shelling, possibly.
This building was 99 years old when it was demolished for the coal mine.
This is one of my favorite doorways (yes, I have favorites) for a few reasons: 1.) You can see how the once-arched door has been squared-off for rectangular doors to fit; 2.) you can see one complete historic door and one ruined door, and the chain that used to hold them together before someone kicked-out the security, and; 3.) I like the texture of the bricks and design of the radiators in the room beyond–the blacksmith shop. Just do.
Inside the main entrance to the depot. Through the ‘To Station’ door, you can see some of the news stands. Look at the floor!
It’s not hard to see how Germany could turn these into a prison overnight.
From atop a concrete slap that seals the old path of Mine Shaft #3, I loop up into the hoisting room.
On the other side of the hole through this wall was a printout with the Kool Aid Man on it.
The historic entrance of the mill, alongside the (relatively) new Great Western offices.
My favorite shot of the 17-story Art Deco office tower attached to the train station.
Jet Lowe is my inspiration.
Van Dyke Cab Company and Yellow Cab served the terminal in lieu of a streetcar loop downtown, which was planned but never built.
The spiral staircase ends in the basement, where two oil tanks (for the lantern) and a freshwater tank (for the Keeper) were stored. The basement consists of two long arched vaults like this.
The shed in the front was full of worker supplies–namely goggles and heavy leather gloves. Molten copper isn’t a friendly thing to handle.
The basements of the barracks were often stone and brick, and many of them were connected by short tunnels.
Sadly, this picture is dated from the fact there’s a single piece of glass unbroken. Since this was taken, the entrance to the church has been vandalized even more.
A tunnel between the outside gate and the courtyard shared by the barracks.
The organ and bits of glass that have lost their way. Try not to see the upside-down wooden cross dangling from the stained-glass-crown on the church’s front side. Of course, it’s to keep the loose panes from falling out onto the road in wind, but at the same time…
Construction in 2014 reveals a lost stone sign.
Part of the Laundry Building with an ugly archway between rooms. Note that even this building had a nurse’s station with shatterproof windows. Laundry was done by supervised patients as part of their Occupational Therapy and the staff took no chances.
The quenching water was reused over and over.
The stone chapel sits beside the main house and received a particularly heavy dose of gothic architectural touches.
300 tea lights illuminate what Greg Brick calls the Rotunda, under the brew house proper, which was part of Christopher Stahlmann’s natural cave.
An outfall for 43rd Avenue Creek. Let’s rename it Substreet Creek; isn’t that a better name?
The Arcade itself, a predecessor of the indoor mall. Don’t you love those arches?
At the bottom of the stairs to the caves is this collection of brick arches. I wonder what this area looks like now that a new tenant has taken over this building.
In the ward for the criminally insane, this door was the most-worn. Nail scratches mark the area around the peep hole, the wood is gouged everywhere from thrown chairs and hard kicks, and a ominous blood-colored stain is visible where it dripped in the second inset from the bottom. Aside from the damage, the coloring in this section was very vibrant, though it was probably little reprieve for those who had to work here.
It would be a shame if this building is not preserved. Word is (as of 2015) that construction may start on this section soon.