Concluding a journey through the Rust Belt, the exploration of a temple, observatory, and factory en route to Cleveland, Ohio, provided a fitting conclusion to the trip.
Tag: Business
In the secluded community of Valley View, Kentucky, lies an old, long-closed general store. My visit there revealed a surprising inhabitant.
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 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.
Eric Frein, who stands accused of killing Cpl. Bryon Dickson and injuring Trooper Alex Douglass outside a state police barrack in Blooming Grove, Pennsylvania, might be hiding in an abandoned resort located in the Pocono Mountains in the northeastern part of Pennsylvania.
A minor fire in at the Waldo Hotel in Clarksburg, West Virginia yesterday evening did no damage to the historic building.
Memorial Hall in Ironton, Ohio, originally constructed in 1892 to honor Civil War veterans, is undergoing partial demolition.
In the 16th installment of Tom Explores Los Angeles, Tom ventures inside the abandoned Hawthorne Plaza mall in Hawthorne, California.
On a melancholy February afternoon, I embarked on a sojourn through the knobs of Kentucky, meandering along the back roads that whisper of bygone eras.
The Penn-Lincoln Hotel is an abandoned hotel in Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania that is scheduled for demolition.
Years ago, I often went to the mammoth Huntington Mall in Barboursville, West Virginia. It was the largest shopping center in the largest in the state – and also its busiest. The mall was dated, coated with speckled brown tiles inside, ribbed paneling outside and other trendy lights and accessories that made this center a poster-child for the late 1970’s and early 1980’s.
The Cavanaugh Company was a hardware wholesale supply company that supplied cast iron pipe, corrugated pipe, road machinery, metallic paints, terra cotta, windows and fireproof doors, among many other items in Youngstown, Ohio.
The Wick Building is located at 34 West Federal Street at North Phelps Street in Youngstown, Ohio. Completed in 1910, the 13-story building was designed by the renowned architect Daniel Burnham into the Chicago School and Romanesque-revival architectural style. It was the city’s tallest building at the time of its erection and was home to the Wick Brothers Trust Company among other Wick family enterprises.
In a turn of events that serves as a sobering lesson on the perils of shortsighted development, The Foundry at South Strabane, a retail development near Washington, Pennsylvania, faces an ominous fate – demolition.
The Paramount Theatre is located in Youngstown, Ohio and was originally known as the Liberty Theatre. Designed by Detroit architect C. Howard Crane, with Stanley & Scheibel serving as associate architects, the vaudeville house opened on February 11, 1918 with the production of “A Modern Musketeer.” The late Neo-classical, Ecole des Beaux Arts exterior featured terra cotta ornamentation, while the interior featured ornate plaster detailing and 1,700 seats.
There is a lot of commonality between Youngstown, Ohio and the Ohio River valley that I grew up within near Ironton. Both are areas that have experienced major employment losses, either due to a declining steel mill or other heavy industries; both are areas that have experienced population declines in the cities; both are areas that are impoverished. But the severity of Youngstown’s losses are hard to compare to.
Instead of seeking out nature’s splendors amidst the highlands of West Virginia or the horse farms of Kentucky, I embarked on a journey to document the derelict abandonments scattered across our region. There is an undeniable beauty to be found in these forgotten structures, a visual poetry in the peeling paint and rusting machinery that echoes the grandeur of stately trees and grazing livestock.