With its understated exterior of beige brick, fronted with vacant retail and derelict apartments, one could not know that the historic Euclid Theater in East Cleveland, Ohio had its beginnings at the busiest street corner west of New York City.
Category: Explorations
Dubbed the “ghost ship” by kayakers and explorers for years, the USS Sachem and USS Phenakite stand abandoned on a small creek just yards from the Ohio River in northern Kentucky. The story behind this unassuming vessel fascinated me, given its historical importance, it remains forgotten.
As I drove down from a forested ridge towards the Kentucky River valley in one of the most remote areas of the Bluegrass state, I spotted a derelict, historic residence on a small knob.
Back when it wasn’t in the coldest days of the winter, I walked around the former Sue Bennett College in London, Kentucky. The college, in operation between 1897 through 1997, was affiliated with the Women’s Division of the General Board of Global Ministries, the national organization of the United Methodist Church. It began as an elementary school before becoming a two-year college.
The James K. Duke House is a circa 1792 11-room brick antebellum in central Kentucky. The site is notable for its duels and connection to early horse racing in the United States.
The American retail landscape is changing. The love affair with the enclosed shopping center peaked about a decade ago and has been waning as consumers seek out revitalized urban centers and mixed-use retail, office and residential developments.
Westland Mall is a relic of my childhood memories: of the beige floor tiles, the brown-tinted lamps and the olden storefronts. It’s also nearly abandoned.
The Cincinnati, New Orleans & Texas Pacific Railway (CNO&TP) feature 27 tunnels in Kentucky and Tennessee, many of which stand abandoned after they were bypassed. I set out to explore four of them.
In an acknowledgment of an era passed, the twin coal-fired power plants at the Indiana Army Ammunition Plant in Charlestown, Indiana, met their demise.
Olympia, a small wayside community of several dozen people in eastern Kentucky, has a fascinating history as over a span of ten minutes on March 3, 1876, red meat rained down.
The corner of East 9th and Monmouth streets in historic downtown Newport, Kentucky is still sleepy but renovations will soon be underway to bring this intersection back to life.
It was announced that Foxy Shazam is disbanding. One of their music videos was filmed in an abandoned church in Cincinnati.
Ghost towns along the New River in West Virginia are aplenty but what makes these three unique is that they lay within the New River Gorge National River. Prior to the creation of the national park in the late 1970s, much of the land was used for the production of coal and coke. Small, company-owned towns were developed for the miners and their families, and when those mines closed out—so did the communities.
I’ve been sworn to secrecy about the location of these vintage electric streetcars. But I cannot resist my excitement about these old trolleys that were once transportation staples in the United States and elsewhere.
Susan Orlean, of the New Yorker, once said that living in a rural region exposes the body and mind to marvelous things: the natural world, the “particular texture” of small-town life, and the “exhilarating experience” of open space. It’s not difficult to argue that. Located in a remote town in the hills of eastern Kentucky, Hazel Green Academy, set among the hardwoods and abutting flowing pastures, opened to students in 1880. The private school offered a good education to the under-served and boasted low tuition rates and a stepping stone to college and “a higher sphere in life.” The school’s curriculum…
While the demise of rural life in many areas is overstated, there are many areas that are in long-term decline, brought about by sustained job losses and single-focus economies. In Cannel City, Kentucky’s case, it was coal and timber.