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.
history under ground
doors
Looking from the main shop into the boiler shop, one of three attached buildings that specialized in certain repairs. One thing that architectural photographers have to work with is an elongated “magic hour” with ideal shadowing and coloring–this photo is a result of that lighting.
The side of the church, taken from a grungy sidewalk.
Aaron by the concentrator.
Behind the grand staircase is this beautifully preserved hallway with medieval-style arches and vivid paint.
After demolition in the mid 2000s, this interior door became exterior. I remember walking through the car shed as a teenager. It was a shortcut, if I didn’t get caught.
An automatically closing door, in case of fire or flood in the engine compartment.
Old boathouses near the dock.
The sluice room was surrounded in fine grating. The company would want to finely control when the doors would be opened so the gold could be removed under supervision. No yellow bonus for the working man…
The top floor’s old-fashioned hospital ways were too much to pass without a photo or two… with the paint falling off the walls it was as if the building was shedding its skin in an effort to become rejuvenated or useful.
A heavy steel security door, taken right off its hinges. This was likely installed after Grafton State School took over the hospital.
These stairs lead to the balcony.
This wide skyway connected two of the inner factory buildings, where parts would have to be transported to keep the operation moving, which is why it is much wider than other bridges in the plant.
The truck scale is closed at Lena, MB.
The elevator tower seems to have been built with expansion of the dock in mind.
The building collapsed except for the back room. The slats of the roof cast lines of light across the floor.
Beds line a basement room that is part way between the concepts of inside and outside. Boards and bricks were falling while I was photographing it—stay out.
Hip bump girl.
Looking toward Mitchell from its last building.
No ambiguity here… miners, check in at this office.
These tubes would bring cement to the top of the plant for storage in the silos.
The stonework was done by a local handyman of sorts, who was also a guard at a nearby insane asylum. He did a great job, it seems to me.
Dr. Muchow’s offices stand near his ‘new’ mill, but they show evidence of vandalism.
A colorful boiler is a happy boiler! RotoGrate systems remove ashes from the boiler firebox by revolving the bottom of the system to let the fly ash drop into a hopper. This greatly increases boiler efficiency.
The bathtub fell into the basement, ala The Miller’s Tale. That’s right. Chaucer.
The large domed rooms were surreal.
Redlining is the practice of shutting certain races out of neighborhoods, and it is still a big problem today. Such behaviors were a big factor in creating the need for these projects.
Sliding fireproof doors and an old hydrant at Harlowton’s old yards.
The incinerator’s hardened steel door… useless, but still sexy in a heavy-industrial kind of way.
The largest room was the diesel laboratories, which tested various devices and fuel additives to make it safer to mine underground with diesel trucks and other machinery, such as at White Pine Mine, Michigan.
Some of the internal staircases were fitted with cages that wound round down the stairs to deter suicidal patients from taking a dive.
A portrait of the second school of McConnell, built in 1937.
When I first visited the chapel, it had a projection TV, two organs, Bibles, and more. Now these are mostly ruined, except for the tapestries, which have somehow survived.
Prize Mine has been the victim of erosion. Its north wall is pushed in by rockfall and its south side is far from ground level.
The mostly-empty distilling room is easy to spot from the outside because of the distinctive round window.
An employee lunchroom with every door and window covered in vented steel.
One of the few doors.
Here, the concentrated gold (and silver, and zinc, I would guess) would be loaded into trucks bound for the smelter.
A damaged roof channeled rain onto the adobe walls, cutting them in half. In the distance, a preserved house and the ruins of the Colmor School.
The historical entrance.
Outside the locker room without the sandwiches and beer… plenty of glass shards, though, if you feel like it.
The west portal of the tunnel is open, and if it wasn’t for the rough track, I would think by looking at it that a train could be coasting up behind me any moment. Mamiya 6/Portra 160
A side door for the brick factory.
Dominion was acquired by UGG, which designated the elevator ‘M’. Their offices still have safety signage.
A window for light and air pokes above the big arch in the hallway. Most of the interior ceilings were broad brick archways.
This building cleaned the barrels that transported ingredients through the plant.
A switchboard to control the flow of electricity into the plant from the city and generators.
The individual ovens are skinny to allow even and fast heating of the whole interior. Numbers are cut into signs because no paint could withstand the heat or corrosive emissions from the coking process.
Note the severed skyway–that led to a set of grain elevators that have since been demolished.
Heavy steel doors to isolate the underground magnetic separation mill from Eagle Mine’s main tunnel.
The factory’s first aid room and laboratory. Sure makes me wonder how safe the lab was!
Many of the higher floors were more or less demolished–usually more. These would have been condos had ‘The Arcade’ project come to fruition. Now there are simply wide open floors punctuated only by pillars and meaningless hallways.
A steel powder keg serves as a door prop on the static-proof wood core floor. Note the ‘XXX’ marking to the left of the double door.
My first view of the tunnel was in the dead of winter. In spite of being in the middle of the forest, it was totally silent. Mamiya GA645 / Kodak Pro 400
A common room with a big bay window that overlooked the main entrance of the hospital.
A blue chair in a blue room
The front door to the auditorium.
The grain-centric buildings had automatic fire doors.
Offices above the labs. Note all the air handling equipment. I love the utilitarian design.
The city has taken steps to prevent the curious and the desperate from going into the elevators, including piling rocks against the doors and windows.
A photo from my first trip, although very little has changed in this area of the building except for the level of graffiti. I love skylights, don’t you?
Devan setting up his 4×5 camera.
A decaying door of the Medical Director for the unit. Because this is from one of the outbuildings and not Administration, I doubt that this was the Medical Director of Norwich State Hospital’s office.
Inside the main entrance to the depot. Through the ‘To Station’ door, you can see some of the news stands. Look at the floor!
One of my favorite photos of the ADM-Delmar #1 skyway, when it stood. Taken at sunset, with the reflection of the overcast sky in the remaining windows.
The top floor of the Chateau was the original surgical suite. Later, hydrotherapy took place here. When Nopeming was converted to a nursing home, it was a place where residents watched movies. Portra 400 on Voigtlander Bessa.
In the corner of most of the factory floors, freight elevators flanked restrooms to leave more central space for machines and their masters.
An insurance office.
The view into one of the asylum rooms of Norwich Hospital. A long time ago, a window broke, letting the vines crawling up the bricks outside to move indoors and across the floor.
What I make out to be the dining room or great hall of the castle, as seen through of the side rooms, which appeared to be a very ruined library. Teenager graffiti looks cooler in French.
As my friend Jonathan would say, “on a human scale.”
A small bunker and blast wall between shell-loading buildings would have provided shelter during disasters, such as tornados, accidental explosions, and perhaps even enemy attacks.
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!
Looking out at the abandoned neighborhood around the house.
Behind one of the kitchens is one of the few pieces of furniture remaining. Beside it, a small electric space heater–small by 1970s standards.
Miners would sit in this room before going into the mine. The boards on the right indicated whether every single miner was “in” or “out”.
Unloading boats had the option to take on fuel at Taconite Harbor. This building, among other things, pumped fuel to the dock.
A series of interconnected offices that look like they hadn’t been painted in 40 years.
The modern morgue, a replacement for the original morgue which has since been turned into a kitchen area.
A skyway 100 feet above this office crumbled one day. This is what happened when those two met. High-impact love.
A typical room in Birtle.
Heavy wood doors for keeping people in.
The top floor of the apartment seemed so empty without the furniture that once adorned it. Instead, my eyes were drawn to the worn paths in the floor between the rooms.
A heavy steel rail door to help funnel explosions upward, rather than outward.
The floor IS the machine…
David Aho pictured.
A view of the hallway outside of the auditorium.
A look at another “Belt-o-Vator”. I like the sign.
Inside the office was a small furnace and a collection of mechanical belts. You can see “SERVICE AT COST” and “POOL 168” in the background.
Shag carpet is fabulous, and I hope it makes a comeback.
There were a few large houses on the Old Crow property where employees would live. The glen had little housing.
Beautiful doors separated the boiler room and the sugar mill. Can you imagine the gracefully curving steps in a power plant today?
Some of the doors had sliding plastic windows, but most of the older ward doors simply had these peep holes drilled through them. The inside was always marked and worn more than the outside.
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.
Between the Old Crow and Old Taylor bonded warehouses are some of the fouled barrels, now the only ones left, which were left to rot in the elements. Nearby in a loading bay that has obviously been disused longer than the rest of the property, terra cotta roofing waits in crates.
The office was redder than the rest of the building.
The doorframes become more askew every year as the buildings slip downward into the gulch at different rates. This seems to be the part of the mine ruins where transients leave their marks. The graffiti dated back to the 1970s, at least.
Looking across the catwalk attache to the elevated control room, in charge of the train dumping part of the operation.
This is one of my favorite images of the year because of the color, light and textures. Someone told me once that the medium of photographers is not film or digital sensors, but rather shadows. This photo is evidence of that.
These houses was built by hard rock miners in the early 1900s.
This old ward, not a victim of remodeling, still has metal screens over the open windows of the doors. It should be obvious why glass were not used.
2013. A perfect summer day meets a beautiful old roundhouse on the edge of town.
Rocket propellant and coolant were stored underground adjacent to the missile silo. This is the hallway that connects the missile area to the propellant area. Walking in this area was nice because the floor was dry.
The end of one of the scrapped turbines. Judging by the aborted attempt at cutting it in half, the scrappers had some trouble with this one.
A rare door left on the workhouse. The stairs to the left led down into a flooded basement. Kodak Portra 160/Mamiya 6.
One thing I like about the oppressive globalist-wrought future is the idea of numerically subdividing spaces; my geek side sort of wants to live in a flat that can be sorted by as Dewey Decimal-like code.
A small stage in one of the barracks.
This spiral staircase isn’t doing Lemp much good–maybe they’ll let me have it! I do love, though, that there is a door going to it–without walls–and it ascends to a second floor that doesn’t exactly exist anymore.
Safety signs decorated every floor, machine and, yes, door. This message spoke to me for reasons my coworkers will understand; suffice to say, I need to take this message to heart.
The steam plant at Nopeming is an iconic (and crooked) smokestack. Kodak Pro 400 on a Fuji GX680.
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.
Call me angsty, but I like it. Found in the Auxiliary Hospital.
Looking into the engine works from the concrete addition.
On the extended engine bay…
Looking out from what little remains of the second floor at the poor house, which was in terrible condition. No roof and no floors. Soon to be ruins.
Looking down into the lunch building of an Atlas D, near the motors for the retractable roof. In this design, the roof separates to allow the missile to be erected into launch position.
A better look at the rails in the floor, installed to help move heavy equipment around the building.
Part of the unremodeled hospital, above the Service Building, where employees would stay sometimes.
Presumably, in a nuclear blast the antenna would be blown flat and pop back up, allowing communication even after a near-direct hit.
The portal facing Taconite Harbor (at a healthy distance) is mostly closed. Some kids put bullet holes in it. Shooting down a long tunnel is extremely dangerous, and you should not do it, obviously. Mamiya 6/Portra 160
Old parts catalogs litter the floor. The office overlooks empty shelves. Graffiti glue peeling paint in place.
The back wall of the ballroom, showing water-warped floors.
Raab
The bottom of the elevator which seemed too modern for the building. The top of the elevator opens into open air, as the second floor has long since collapsed.
Not ghosts. Slow-moving explorers’ shadows create a ghostly effect in the ‘Old Ward’–the second floor of the Service Building.
Part of an ongoing series on found American flags in shuttered factories.
A warped mirror in the rock crusher at the rear of the complex.
I can confirm the existence of the long-rumored Federal Rectangle Research Institute labs.
The pits have long since been filled so the roundhouse could be used for storage.
After climbing the elevator shaft to the illusive second level, a new pallet of colors were revealed.
“Place Tripod Here” my friends would say. But for me, it’s the money shot. Note the painting around the inside of the skylight.
2016. A section of the third floor that has changed a lot over the years. Compare to 2006 shot.
An elevator to bring big somethings into the basement, it seemed. Nearby were the plant firetrucks, still ready to go. I hope they were saved.
Different doors for different vehicles, I would guess. White Pine Mine used tire-based vehicles, rather than track-based, making it pretty different than other mines I’ve been to.
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.
This picture tells half the story about the size of half of the complex. For Port Arthur, it’s average, but this would be a fantastically large elevator if it were anywhere else!
Fire doors separate the buildings.
From the bottom of the skyway I looked back, my eyes tracing the vines from the marsh up the smokestacks to the perfect Midwestern sky.
The roof could be vented when locomotives were running inside.
This dock goes between loading bays (see glass brick walls) and the railroad.
This is what I believe to be the Masonic Cottage, where infected Freemasons would be treated together and enjoy some simple luxuries because of their social connections. Freemasonry is still popular in North Dakota.
The side of Stelco and its scrubber-stacks. This is demolished now.
This picture shows all three areas of the substation. In the foreground is the transformer room, the tallest space. The darker room in the middle is the motor generator room. The room at the end through the door is the control room and office area.
Pocket door and light switches in the upper control room, at the top of the spiral staircase.
Note the wood and rubber wheels on this powder cart.
Easier-to-demolish parts of the power plant were torched apart. Catwalks to nowhere meant lots of dead ends.
A big door into the fire pump room.
The right passageway is a carved staircase that winds upward to an old entrance. The left portal is one of the bigger and well-carved rooms… I would guess it’s part of the original caves.
Connecting the Administration Building to the wards fanning out. Historical photos show cots lining this hallway when the hospital was severely overcrowded. Lit by lightning outside the grounds during a huge thunderstorm.
The old way to get to the elevator from the mill.
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.
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.
One of the cupola air intakes, rattled loose by the demolition downstairs, hangs stranded on the second floor. You can see that the floor I’m standing on in this picture used to extend all the way to the right wall. The blue paint on the wall made the climb absolutely worth it.
The floor in this building (now demolished) was very rotten. This picture was taken through a window from very firm ground.
The small door leads to the offices, the large door leads to the shop. My back at this time is to the corrugated steel wall. At the time I wondered why there was just one steel wall, not knowing that 40 years before there was another spot for an engine here. This section of the roundhouse has become a sort of town dump–car seats, cans of paint and tires are piled into its corners.
Office manners dictate that one must tip their file drawer back upright once it is knocked through the wall.
The tallest dock structure is an equipment elevator that connects the many dock levels.
Looking from the ‘crack’ that shows a collapsed tunnel into the dry house, in the direction miners returning home would walk. Note smoke lines above door.
This is the former air compressor house–one of them, at least–which turned steam power into air power to drive machinery across the production line.
In one of the hundreds of bunkers across the busy highway from the empty plant ruins. Most did not have doors, but I got lucky on this one.
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.
The gauges on left of frame are the steam pressure indicators for the various steam-powered components around the ship, like the steering engine and windlass motors. Below the gauges are a case of tiny wooden parts drawers… note the ancient oiling can on the locker near the upper-right corner of the frame.
Almost all of the doors and windows on the ground floor have been boarded, leaving the ground level very dark.
It was a strange choice, although I appreciate it, for the firm reusing the shops to brick up the doorways while leaving the doors.
A sheik mustard-yellow paint scheme across the roofless engine house goes great with the industrial moss and rust.
A view of the government presses, with pages of law across the floor covered in footprints.
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.
Before each warhead was crated, it was inspected.
A Merrill Piano from Boston, in the Recreation Room of the Front Dorm.
Miscellaneous math and strange instructions remain all across the shipment section walls. Sadly, this section likely fell into disrepair before the others.
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.
On the top floor of the former casket building is the finishing line for the coating section; on this section the final spray of plastic would hit the wood before a small furnace would seal the plastic permanently to the surface, making it more resilient, I assume.
Inside the main entrance is a whiteboard and mirror, then it branches into discrete spaces.
Lost words over the auditorium entrance.
Note the maps still left on the wall.
A big sliding fire door opens onto a train dock.
A typical narrow hallway at Birtle.
The bottom of the stairs leading from the work floor to the cafeteria.
Bayard Sugar Mill, as seen from the old power plant
Gaskets still organized on nails beside the power plant. This used to be a maintenance room, but since its roof and walls were torn down, it’s not any kind of room.
Gary Methodist was a filmset for Transformers 3 in 2010.
The piano must have been a nice distraction; there is very little to do in Roberts.
A single metal emergency slide rusts away at sunrise.
I love these heavy rolling doors in the old tobacco processing building.
Everything is texture.
You can tell from the marks on the wall that there used to be pipes running the length of this square hallway, which connected a loading dock with explosive mixers.
At sunset the light skips from puddle to stagnant puddle across the whole foundry room, playing with the classic sawtooth roof with half-hearted shadows.
A fallen branch smashed out this skylight years ago, and since then the bees have found this tiny toilet a perfect home. This is part of the hotel where employees slept.
The Blacksmith Shop (right) was connected to the Bunk House (left) via this narrow walkway. This is likely due to the fire risk in each building. The left building had a cooking stove and furnace for heat and the right building had a small industrial furnace to repair mining equipment. A little walkway would mean that a fire on one side would be easier to fight from the other.
There’s a roof problem above the surgical suite.
This ornamental stair is cast iron and used to connect all floors of the Administration building. Now it connects the first and second floor, then the third and fourth floors, with a strange cinder block and drywall barrier separating the new and old sections of the building. Note the insulation on the floor to seal heat into the lower floors that were used as offices until the hospital closed. On the corners of the staircase are lions, on the corners of the suspended section of stair are down-hanging pineapples. Set in the stairs themselves are shield motifs with slate tops.
Looking to the chapel addition from the Chateau.
Numbers on a pillar counted tank capacity for a removed water container; an unhinged door in an unhinged factory beguiles those looking for an exit.
The blacksmith shop is pretty rugged looking. Through the door you can see the collapsed walkway that might have once connected to a building covering the Santiago Tunnel adit.
The arches of the Twohy building, before some of the signs and sills were painted in 2015.
The first floor hallway between conference rooms and the diesel lab at the center of the facility
A dead work truck rusts near an outbuilding. Everything is marked with a code. Modernity.
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.
Rubber dock boots still sits under the desk in the dock office, near keys to rusted locks and files of fired employees.