I-71 Rest Stop

This is a former rest stop along Interstate 71 South in Carroll County, Kentucky. There is no evidence left of the former building, however from the site layout it is clear that this was an interstate rest stop similar to what is in existence today.

All images are viewable here. 

West Hall safety chute

West Hall, built in 1915, was the second building built at Western Michigan Unversity. It was originally built as the Science Building, then used as a Health and Personnel Building before housing the Speech Pathology department until 2005. I'm not sure who (if any) the current occupants are.

I was a student in the 1990s when the Speech Pathology department was still there. However the building already appeared abandoned at the time. It looked to be in bad shape and was not fully occupied -- which was the case with most of East Campus.

My friends and I liked to explore this neglected part of campus on occasion. Unlike East Hall, which was often unlocked at night, West Hall was best entered by this rusty metal chute which I would later learn to be a former safety chute. Please leave me a comment if you know of any other existing chutes like this.

This is essentially a spiral slide inside of a tube. The inside was pitch black, except for occasional pin holes in the metal that looked like lightning bugs. Neither of my trips inside the chute were premeditated so there were no flashlights involved. we just decided to climb up by bracing ourselves against the walls and slowly climbing up. If you were lucky, the door on the second floor would be open, if not you had to try the third.

These photos were shot on a return trip to Kalamazoo in 2002.





Basement photos. Even while in use the building looked like an abandoned storage area.

Columbus City Center Mall (1989-2009)

Columbus City Center Mall, which opened in 1989, is slated to close next week on March 5th, 2009. The once upscale mall has been in decline for the past several years and had only three tenants left as of last week. The building will be demolished in favor of a mixed-use development which will also include a large downtown park. See the Wikipeda page for more info about the mall.

I have mixed feelings about the closure. While I've never been a fan of the suburban-style shopping mall in an urban setting, it was nice to have a shopping destination downtown that I could walk to. Unfortunately the suburban-style design, with very few connections to the surrounding neighborhood, hastened its demise.

Here are photos from February 18, 2009 during the liquidation sale.

Mannequins waiting to be sold.

First level fountain area.

Inside Jacobson's department store which had been closed since 2002.

A box of phones at Jacobson's.

Store fronts that had been boarded up years ago were reopened for the liquidation sale.

Escalators down to the High Street entrance. The location of the former bridge to Lazarus is boarded up.

Third level concourse.

Overlooking the pit and stage area from the third level.

Outside of the former Victoria's Secret store.

Mannequins for sale near the would-be entrance for the fourth anchor store that was never built.

Southwest Michigan Tuberculosis Sanatorium

I "discovered" this site when I lived in Kalamazoo during the mid-1990s. I was intrigued because it was a abandoned modern-style institutional building situated in the middle of an older residential neighborhood.

The building opened in 1954 as a Tuberculosis Sanatorium. It was turned into a Mental Health facility in 1970, and eventually closed in the late 1980's. Despite several potential plans for reuse, nothing has yet happened with this building.

Click here for a rear photo and a more detailed history of the site.

Click here for a 1957 photo from a similar angle.

The entire site was fenced off sometime between 1997 and 2002, when these photos were taken.

P.S. Don't climb to the second floor and enter the building. You could set off the silent alarm and get arrested.