Id like to thank my aunt and although who also helped quite a bit in setting this up. My publisher and the Preservation Alliance for their donation and olivia who has been wonderful and theres been my support throughout all the. Im sure theres a lot of other people i want to thank all of you as well but i know youd like to see the presentations i dont want to take up the whole time so thank you. But again im grateful you all came out tonight. It means a lot to me. So basically in terms of how ive done presentations for those of you whove seen in the past, i enjoy doing things that offthecuff and talking about the places that ive been too. What i would like to do is just show you a little bit of what some of places are not in the book and tell you a little bit about them as we go. So the first place i wanted to show you is the packard plant which is in detroit. Its probably one of the most famous and also the largest abandoned site in north america. Its sprawling. Its been out of commission since the 1950s 1960s. Its just kind of a stunning campus. Its enormous. There are places where you go to the top of the buildings and you look out across and its hard to imagine theres a part of the world that is not abandoned. Very interesting set of buildings, and also right now basically this cannot happen after the book went to print a developer had bought them and apparently theyre starting work on trying to rehab in which is kind of in the things i know a lot of people are skeptical about including myself a little bit but i think it would be amazing if they could return them to use because theres just these beautiful, iconic buildings. This is a Motorcycle Salvage shop in new york. And this basically was one gentleman who rent a motorcycle repair business, and collected just an ungodly amount of motorcycles in it. Its very interesting place in part because after he lost control of the place and then later passed away, all of these bikes were still in it. The floors were just atrocious. That was a really frightening place to be because there were these huge holes all over the place, and particularly up on the second floor and think as a photographer and being into building my concern was that not only would i go through the floor and then punched through the floor below that put them all the bikes would fall on me. And actual its interesting because one of the things, i think actually one of the nicest things that kind of having a big social media radius i guess you would say is that i get to hear from people that had their stories in these places and that theyve been part of their lives. One of the things that was really cool about that was one of the guys who unfortunately many of these bikes were scrapped, and one of the gentlemen who was involved with unloading the bikes from their contacted me about it. It was cutting interesting because i said im surprised you didnt die. I was just going around and taking pictures and he was actually moving all the bikes and machinery around. And he said that he fell through the floor two different times that at one point when he was taking some of the pieces off some of the bikes that he was working in one spot all day, came back the next and whole section have fallen through the floor. So yeah, just a very interesting place, their unique. And at this point it not only was cleaned out but didnt get burned. Its not really there to see anymore. This is more of a regional one. The landsdowne theatre which are developing a view of the money with but if youre not you should be. Its one of the last golden age theaters in philadelphia, and particularly after that destruction of the boyd. Its important think in terms of sort of preserving our theatre heritage because we are really lacking behind a lot of other major cities in that area. The guy who spearheaded the preservation effort has done a tremendous amount to keep this building open and to get renovation done on it. Its Pretty Amazing to wonder the recent i included this place in the book is because i wanted to have a balanced so that wasnt all just doom and gloom and always places got turned down and burned. I wanted to show why theyre so important also that there are people out there that are fighting for them and a lot of them are kind of battlegrounds of sort. Anyway actually the theater is one that if you go onto Facebook Page you can periodically say they will have events for things like that like fundraisers. I would encourage all of you if you get a chance to go and check it out sometime because really is a beautiful building. This is one of my favorites. The church of the transfiguration. I think this is at 56th and cedar. It is, all the places i photographed i think it would probably be on my top 10 or top five list of places i love the most but is also when i hear the most about from people, people contacting about this quite frequently. There are a lot of people who are parishioners and their parents were married to their or their baptized there, they went to school there. It was just a very meaningful place, a beautiful building. One of the things that is interesting about it is that you know that like what is it, the seven degrees kevin bacon game you know what im talking about . This would be my three four degrees to Anne Hathaway, because she actually, her boyfriend for time was a guy named raffaello who is a con man and the best that this scheme that he was telling people he was going to get all these Church Properties and then rehabilitate them, return them to use and whos going to do all these great things like insuring the uninsured and students artist, housing all these great things. He took gobs of money from rich investors, including the owner of the Pittsburgh Penguins and then just, you know, had a great time with Anne Hathaway and then he got arrested. He went to jail and for stealing millions of dollars, he served as shocking penalty of four and half years in jail. Hes out now but im sure hes very remorseful about it. [laughter] but i didnt explain, the thing is that this transfiguration was one of only three churches he was actually successfully able to get and that was part of the reason why it sat there. Once he went to jail and the council to somebody else, they just wanted a School Building and they tore down and actually is a garbage strewn lot right now. I should have planned that out. So this is a little boat Brothers Clothing factory, this was in baltimore. Love boat brothers. Basically they went under the crown cork and seal company was with the building original was in the beginning clothing factory. Just really interesting past. They went under in part because of the fact that people guys dont wear likes of jackets to work anymore. Thats not really sort of part of our culture the way it used to be. The demand was there but the ritual me very highend clothing and one of the things that people always ask me about this place, is how is it that all these codes were left of the . Their hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of codes. I mean, it was pretty minor boggling. Delivery wading through an ocean of codes. A lot of them so the slip covers on them are still in good condition. Negative gone through that cycle and become the thing that is interesting about that is that basically when the site goes bankruptcy proceedings they often will shutter the place and keep everything in there so that it can be sold off to pay off the debt but things like coats are kind of nickel and dime stuff to a bank, and particularly if the place that own them wasnt able to sell enough of them anyway, what bank is going to want to do that . So thats part of the reason why theyre left there for years and years. I could talk on and on about a lot of these places but just want to give you an overview. That one has actually been rehabilitated into a school. This place im going to use a pseudonym of harmony house for and harmony house was a really interesting restore the basically was formed by the textile union. Actually the original people who purchased it, some of them are the survivors of the triangle shirt waist fire which i thought was kind of interesting to do a number of people than that when it kind of went from being a regional textile seem to be sold at the larger textile union when that happened there was a lot of philadelphia Textiles Company that were involved in this place as well. And so a lot of people that were really kind of like al gore was looking to speak to. They were put a progressive place in terms of probably approached race, how they approached womens rights. Their labor views. They were a more left leaning place but that this sort of radical notion that people that were bluecollar workers should be able to go out and stay visually nice resort and see great entertainers and read and hear authors and things like that. You know, so one of the things that i think that is kind of important into the overall is to look at things not just as the death of one fiscal place but also the ideology that is behind it. So when you look at a place like that, what i see is theres also this ideal of the bluecollar workers about the textile plants being able to enjoy sort of the finer things in life at an affordable rate they could go to with her family. I dont know really that our generation has that. Certainly the textile workers in bangladesh probably dont. This is another hotel that was basically area was originally a very sort of highend like a mineral spot. So a lot of people go there like the rockefellers, macys went there, oscar wilde had gone to that town. This wouldve been before this hotel was built but this is give you an idea of what significance of the place was but it was kind of highend, and then pass the sort of cycles with a welltodo go, there though other places they wanted to go instead and that town kind of slumped a little bit but it had a resurgence with a lot of jewish vacationers actually that were kind of unfortunately shunned at other resorts. So they went out and this was one of the buildings that they used and so they were synagogues and kosher restaurants and everything in the town. This was one thing id like to point out with this picture that is kind of veering off the historical into things is one of the reasons youll see them at work that im so fussy about Straight Lines in making sure everything is really balance is because when you look at a picture like this what i would like you to do is that i just didnt have my camera kind of cockeyed. That definitely is a lift in the staircase and it was actually pretty scary to go up. [inaudible] i am, first of all not going to tell you where places are if i dont mention it. And second of all, please let me take questions at the end. So this be the Grand Staircase year, i this also is at an angle. The building is in pretty atrocious shape, and basically im not surprised if it will collapse at sometime very soon. This is a regional site. This is homes very present in pennsylvania. Its the same radial kind of style. This would be i believe, and they cant say with 100 certain but i think this is one of the newer additions that youre looking at because the older editions have this kind of but therell baldaccini like that, just like eastern state pennsylvania penitentiary. They have the slipped where the light of god could shine down on you and make you think about all the awful things that you get. So yes theres quite a bit in the book about homeless bird had an appalling pass. Holds berg. A lot of medical testing that when i go into in greater detail their weather tested just about anything you would want to be tested with they probably tested on people. They also had a bunch of riots and some of them were really grow. One, the deputy and the warden of were murdered. Im sort of working from the present back but one of the early incidents was a Hunger Strike with the people were unhappy about the quality of food and so they took the strike leaders and put them into buildings that no longer exist called the klondike that a bunch of radiators and steam pipes. They changed into the wall close the windows and basically boiled them alive. And so the governor actually came out and was really upset and shaken by it. Its just a terrible thing. They did do would do much of anything about it after that but it was a terrible occurrence even if there wasnt any repercussions for anybody about it. This is one of the ones i put in. I tried to put somebody kind of all the more off the map or a note that i tried to put some that are kind of really iconic sites that Everybody Knows about. This would be one i think many people if youre from the pennsylvania area particularly to go along the central p. A. Court or at all, probably have driven by on route 81. When you go by that area that the 11 story behemoth is looming up out of ashley pennsylvania. It was an iconic place. I think close and 76 with the abandoned a little longer than ive been alive. I always expected it would continue to be there but unfortunately, or fortune fortunately i guesstimate which we look at it, it was torn down for scrap earlier this year. Basically the breakers are, you think coal, steel and textiles are really what made pennsylvanias economy to pick someone else said like the railroads and yes the railroads but in this particular case, coal breakers were an enormous part of insulin usage and this was one of the biggest ones and theyre all but gone to the other one, saint nicks there was right by there is in the process of being stripped apart for scrap as well. So this idea of having an 11 story machine that breaks apart goal as a coast and is something that i think is going rakes apart coal. Only exist in picture to this is what i would want to put it in the book. You dont always get what you want but i am sharing it with you. This is then rank in pennsylvania just outside of pittsburgh. I would love to you all little stories about these different places but it just so we can move along to get to the today. One thing i would tell you is first of all, read about it but the other thing is that one of the things about this is they do tours after. You can go out and can walk around it. You can climb up on the crane or whatever but some the stuff like the blast furnaces you can actually see. I think thats important, to show that theres a positive into things where would i believe to be Cultural Treasures can be shared with other people. Betamethasone always have to be torn down. I really believe that kind by sharing and appreciating these places it doesnt always have to be something where they are torn apart. Is actually quite a lot in the past about leaving ruins for the sake of being ruins without having to make them redeveloped or whatever. Thats one of the few places that is lucky enough to kind of be able to be what it is and what it is an that have somebody say okay, we are going to make a Shopping Mall out of it, which is what happened to the rest. So this is the westport power station in baltimore, was. This has been torn down. This was at the time those built the largest reinforced concrete building in the world. Reinforced concrete was then fired up with a good basically consolidated all of the gas and electric for baltimore. This place was just enormous. It had these huge turbine halls all over. There were three different turbine halls our at least as big if not bigger. And then an enormous a with all the furnace. Is just a beautiful building. On top of the building there was a small oil road that went around taking coal to the furnaces which was a first for me. I dont see anything like that that was real shock is a very dreamlike thing but also just one of i think they need is surprised ive ever had when it went into building. I certainly was not expecting it. This is the new castle oak lodge in newcastle pennsylvania, not new castle delaware. That was the dumb luck fund. Sometime people ask me about how fireplaces im usually say Research Networking or dumb luck and this would fall in the dumb luck. I just drove by category. It was an interesting building a this was the ballroom at the top and you cant really see here. Ive a better picture in the book but on the floor and all the while they still had the alcan on the far in but it was really creepy. Health had. I was expecting to win. So not on what i got to the point where i could really see where the elk head was and looking at it in looking at it and pour into my foot my foot went through the floor, too. But this was one of the pack back areas behind the ballroom. Interesting thing about this is that i dont know what is real ferns and water like fake flowers they came to the city. I think there are both. This is 1940s coal powered plant those just south of pittsburgh and that was torn down and i think 2010. If you look you thats the turbine hall. I think one of things i really love about powerpoint is just how enormous the spaces are in them. The scale is just kind of unheard of in other places. I was very lucky to get to go through this place with an engineer as well whose able to tommy about how everything worked which probably just a lot the other side of my head but it was interesting while i was there. And the other thing that was cool he actually fired up one of the furnaces again. I have a picture of it not in the book but hes sitting there with this kind of crazy 80s action movies looking cigar out of his face lighting a cigar with one of the Little Things that they were sticking to light the furnaces up. This is another power plant. This is one of the want that is under a pseudonym that i wouldnt tell you where it was but it is actually very historically significant building, enormous building as well, and one of things thats interesting about it is like many of these places, in fact was for would be another one like this. The more you read about these places the more you see about how much corruption hampers places like, for example, when westport was torn down and we mediated it was supposed to be something that is waterfront development, and that never happened. The city and bunch of other people dumped all this money into it and just nothing happen. This is kind of the same thing where there was a lot of just sort of corruption in terms of people putting money in to rehabilitate this building. Nothing ever happened with the. In fact, the mayor of the city its in is getting handed his hat and this is one of the reasons. Its just interesting but a lot of times people ask why buildings are left abandoned and there are many reasons as there are buildings that often times corruption is pretty good want to fall back on when its anything that the city has control over. This is and i dont know how were doing so dont want to talk too long s