234 Comments Posted by rich_edwards79

Jeez.

The phrase 'rotten as a pear' springs to mind...

This place is in pretty bad shape.

I'm also of the opinion that it's immensely disrespectful to destroy these places. They should be venues for eye-opening exploration and maybe sombre reflection, but certainly not for wild parties and drug-fuelled vandalism. People might actually learn something if they weren't so keen to smash up sanitaryware and tag every available surface.

Of course, that kind of destruction also results in increased security because of the potential for injury lawsuits etc, making it more difficult for genuine explorers to gain entry, as well as the damage and destruction making theeventual re-use of the building that much more uneconomic...

Wow - this is amazing. I have to say that if I was wandering around an abandoned building and found a room with all the lights on and a computer ready to go, I'd probably get the hell out, in case someone came back...

How weird that this is still lit up as if for a normal working day. I can understand battery-powered emergency exit markers staying lit years after the building crumbles around them, even fluorescent tubes still connected to a supply in a still-inhabited hospital campus, but this is just too weird for words.

How long has the building been derelict?

Closeby there are other comments on this site from people who also worked at Pennhurst and claimed it wasn't all that bad. Maybe the word 'worked' is important here. it would be interesting to know the truth about the place but if a court case and God-only knows how many testimonies couldn't uncover it, maybe it will never be fully known.

The thought that some of the people in the place were 'fully-functioning' is very scary and depressing - even if it was the happiest institution on earth surely they shouldn't have been there! But I've heard it was once not so difficult to get a badly-behaved child or an oddball teenager sent to one of these places.

Perhaps this place should not be bulldozed for a parking lot or a Walmart, but be opened to the public as a museum and memorial, a reminder of terrible times past. And maybe, as Lynne has said, a section on modern standards of care and techniques should be included - to make it clear that this place represents a period in history and not the way things are done now... but also as a warning as to the results of a lack of funding and unhealthy social attitudes towards those who are different and feared.

Haha it does look like a light fitting -but it's kinda, erm, in the wrong place :-)

Heheh Lynne I see what you mean.

Mighty funny place for a light fixture :-D

Thanks for clearing that up!

This is a fantastic set. I've always been fascinated by shipping. Dead ones are not something us landlubbers often get to see at close quarters.

I was fascinated by this page:

http://members.aol.com/ssus2/more3.html

It would be so cool to see your take on a really, REALLY big wreck, like this one...

100 years old! Makes me wonder if this ever tugged anything glamorous in her day - the Titanic or Queen Mary for instance? To think she's probably been sitting there for a good proportion of that time too...

These tugs are a sad sight - I've seen pictures of really big ships abandoned or awaiting scrapping, which are sombre in themselves, but somehow little tugboats are 'cute' in a way that no liner or frieghter can ever be.

I'd love to see shots of an airplane graveyard. Though I can't imagine that in the post 9/11 paranoia, they're especially easy to gain access to, and I suppose if you were caught sneaking around one you'd be looking at a lot more than a telling-off from a security guard.

Here's a couple I found:

http://www.modern-ruins.com/ruins/boneyard/
http://www.surrealcoco ... herncal/mojave.htm

Wow Bakelite city!

I wonder how old it is? It reminds me of a book I read as a child on the discovery of the Titanic, which had boilers just like this one (as did most turn-of-the-century ocean liners).

There's something very ecclesiastical about this one - a huge stained glass window, a scale much bigger and more dramatic than that of everyday domestic architecture. Battersea Power Station has been called 'a temple of power' and a cathedral to the God of electricity, and the comparison is a valid one. IN the early days electricity must have fascinated and awed people in equal measure, and the sound in this room, of massive generators and turbines, must have been biblical in itself.

That baby really should be in a museum. Talk about time-warp.

I wonder if you can get Sky TV on that thing :-)

At first I thought it was odd that this installation couldn't be re-used for some other non-military communications function, but then I guess in spite of it's hi-tech appearance it's probably as antiquated as an Apollo rocket would be today.

Here in the UK old structures like this from the early years of the communications age are being listed (protected by law) and renovated.

This so reminds me of the dish in Return of the Jedi which Han Solo & Leia destroy with the help of the Wookies!

Must just be the way it points above the trees like that. Geek moment over...