3,698 Comments Posted by Motts

Thanks; I believe those lights are from the Carteret industrial zone, across the Arthur Kill in New Jersey. It could be reflected off the creek, tough to tell... although I don't recall being able to see the water from here.

I agree that this would be an ideal plan to re-purpose the facility, and I have seen this happen in Europe, but in this country the dollar is king. I would imagine the cost to rehab these old buildings up to code and maintain them far exceeds any kind of mental health funding that currently exists... it seems to be hard enough to keep the current facilities open, let alone restore these structures and educate the public (who I believe would prefer keeping their knowledge at the ignorant horror movie level, but I digress).

Sadly, I think the best we can hope for is some kind of re-purposing of these buildings in any kind of way (usually they just get bulldozed and dumped in a landfill), and maybe there would be some kind of plaque installed to tell its tale.

Ah, I see it now:
https://goo.gl/maps/oKwN3RmkJEC2

I must've been enthralled by the castle and missed that little guy.

Thank you for the update - I will append this to the history.

I'm guessing that would be the octagon-shaped building immediately to the right of the distillery, if you were looking at it from the road?

Unfortunately I do not... it was connected to the main building by a little overpass, but it was all boarded up pretty tight, and for some reason, it seems to have evaded all of my exterior photos!

I'm guessing some bored kids tossed it down the stairs, but who knows, maybe someone tried to scrap it from the basement and gave up at the hard part!

Pink seems to have been the older color; although the gender of the residents of this ward is questionable.

I'm very glad it has connected people back together!

Yup that's me shining my tiny flashlight around.

Nah the board-up job done when it was closed was hastily done with cinder block; the masonry here looks to be done by a professional at an earlier date. There's probably a shaft for an elevator or dumb waiter behind those bricked up windows.

The black spots are from paintball guns; there were a bunch of leaning pieces of fencing or other debris to hide from the opposing team.

Yup the bent thing on the right is a poor little sapling.

Yes, they're called Structural Terra Cotta. They are lightweight and hollow inside, and yep the grooves are to help adhere plaster and stucco (you wouldn't normally see these tiles in a finished building).

http://historicbldgs.com/terra_cotta.htm

Yeah I was alone on this particular night; not really worried about vicious animals on Staten Island, and the benefit of being there at 4AM is that most people are fast asleep.

The colony has always been kind of a low key place in my mind; if anyone is there, it's usually some bored teenagers. I would keep an eye out for stray paint balls during the day though!

I think it all just comes down to money. Detroit is bankrupt (in debt by an astonishing $18-20 billion dollars), and selling homes to people who can't pay the property taxes or fix them up would just cost more.

My friend was messing around with colored strobe lights that night, so he stood in the doorway shining it while the shutter was open.