I'm back!
I have just got back from my latest American adventure, I flew out the Wednesday after the meet up which seems so long ago now, so that's where I've been in case you were missing me. I had a most splendid time covering the most ground since my first trip two and a half years ago - 26 explores across five states, some epic, others not quite so much. I made a point this trip of visiting and exploring in new cities and the first batch of reports will come from that mecca of dereliction Detroit, which I finally made it to after five previous trips.
Detroit gets a lot of bad press, yes it's a very dangerous city to be in if you're not careful - you never, ever explore a derelict house there and always need to keep aware of your surroundings for instance - but I love it. I instantly bonded with the craziness of the city, the awesome food, brilliant people and a never ending supply of explores. A lot of the Detroit natives say that most of the best derelict sites are now gone and this is kind of true much the same as the older explorers over here say the same. But there is always new stuff popping up and sealed things opening up again in a never ending cycle and a non-stop race between explorers, scrappers and taggers to get there first. Areas of the city are going through massive regeneration, whole city blocks of derelict houses have been cleared and the city is trying to pick itself up after decades of neglect which is actually great to see.
There are enough abandoned churches in Detroit to spend an entire week exploring them, I only scratched the surface of them with a handful of the nicer ones. I was pretty wary to begin with inside my first one but soon relaxed and got on with the job. Once you start focusing on taking photos the worries leave you.
This one was a fairly recent closure, it is surrounded by abandoned burned out houses on three sides of an intersection with only one occupied house nearby. I'm not sure whether it closed because of declining attendance or whether the entirely collapsed roof of the community hall brought a sudden closure about because there is everything left inside as if it closed very quickly.
Thanks for looking - more here https://www.flickr.com/photos/mookie427/albums/72157682987559756
Loads more to come as I sort my photos out
I have just got back from my latest American adventure, I flew out the Wednesday after the meet up which seems so long ago now, so that's where I've been in case you were missing me. I had a most splendid time covering the most ground since my first trip two and a half years ago - 26 explores across five states, some epic, others not quite so much. I made a point this trip of visiting and exploring in new cities and the first batch of reports will come from that mecca of dereliction Detroit, which I finally made it to after five previous trips.
Detroit gets a lot of bad press, yes it's a very dangerous city to be in if you're not careful - you never, ever explore a derelict house there and always need to keep aware of your surroundings for instance - but I love it. I instantly bonded with the craziness of the city, the awesome food, brilliant people and a never ending supply of explores. A lot of the Detroit natives say that most of the best derelict sites are now gone and this is kind of true much the same as the older explorers over here say the same. But there is always new stuff popping up and sealed things opening up again in a never ending cycle and a non-stop race between explorers, scrappers and taggers to get there first. Areas of the city are going through massive regeneration, whole city blocks of derelict houses have been cleared and the city is trying to pick itself up after decades of neglect which is actually great to see.
There are enough abandoned churches in Detroit to spend an entire week exploring them, I only scratched the surface of them with a handful of the nicer ones. I was pretty wary to begin with inside my first one but soon relaxed and got on with the job. Once you start focusing on taking photos the worries leave you.
This one was a fairly recent closure, it is surrounded by abandoned burned out houses on three sides of an intersection with only one occupied house nearby. I'm not sure whether it closed because of declining attendance or whether the entirely collapsed roof of the community hall brought a sudden closure about because there is everything left inside as if it closed very quickly.
Thanks for looking - more here https://www.flickr.com/photos/mookie427/albums/72157682987559756
Loads more to come as I sort my photos out