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Who ever tagged the walls had guts
If you ever seen the old state school at night it sceamed PHYSCO

Don't you think its a bit harsh?

The detail that got my attention was the pieces of paintwork falling off the ceiling to the left.

Definitely one of my favourites on this site. Absolutely fantastic.

I can't even wrap my head aroud this photo. The building itself looks totally computer-generated (especially with the crisp, clear architecture), and the background looks like an impressionist-style painting. Phenomenal shot, Motts.

I agree with JR's comments (god I'd love a loom, a have a friend who weaves the most beautiful scarves himself) but I also think it's worth noting that it's the stuff they left behind that makes these places interesting - if all these places were totally empty and stark inside (aside from the peeling paint) it wouldn't be nearly as interesting to explore through them, or to spend all the hours we do looking at these photos :p The stuff left behind gives us a glimpse at what these places were like during their operation. Literally a snapshot of history itself.

ROFL Keith. I find some of the soap dispenser comments to be getting quite old but that was quite unexpected :)

In all fairness, the buildings in question in Europe generally have 200+ years of history and near continual use in them rather than, oh, ~100 like this one. Not having what anyone would call a stable aristocracy, the US doesn't have the right environmental pressures to maintain all sorts of old buildings, especially when said old buildings (which are prized) conflict with things like health and safety regulations (also prized). A lot of tenement blocks went down because they were honestly unsafe places to live, history be damned.

I'm not really against your argument, Karch and Jenn, but playing devil's advocate here. As it stands it looks like the people in charge don't have the finances to fix the place up and those that do have no interest. That and I severely doubt that Wal-Mart, no matter how unpopular a scourge and symbol of rampant globalization it may be, will be replacing this building in any way.

EVERYONE IS TAKING THIS PIC. LIGHTLY, THIS IS ONE OF THE SCARIEST SPOTS, WALK DOWN THAT IN PITCH BLACK WITH YOUR LIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU AND ITS HARD TO TELL IF SOMEONE IS BEHIND ANY OF THOSE WALLS ON YOUR TWO SIDES!

It /is/ a skull. He's usually depicted with a cross, lilies, and a skull because:

1) Cross: Duh. Show me a saint who isn't.

2) Lilies: Flowers such as posies and lilies were considered to be prophylactic against the plague. Doctors in those days would wear masks with huge noses to stuff flowers into to protect them from the plague, and it's where the line "pocket full of posies" comes from. It didn't really work so well.

3) Skull: The plague again, that and he did essentially martyr himself tending to plague victims before succumbing himself.

THIS IS THE WORST SPOT TO WALK DOWN!!!!!!!!! PITCH BLACK, FLASHLIGHT POINTING IN FRONT OF YOU WONDERING WHATS BEHIND THE WALLS THAT STICK OUT ON EITHER SIDE!!!

JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT YOU HAD BEEN IN EVERY ROOM A NEW ONE POPS UP!

Hmmm. With those glue patterns on the board, it's quite possible that one chalkboard, or maybe a whiteboard that since has gone missing, was (for whatever reason) glued on top of this one. Why I think this is because back when I was a sophomore in high school (eight years ago) they switched from blackboards to whiteboards and just glued the latter onto the already-present former. We all wrote our names and such on the board before they came to put the new boards in.

Yeah, my parents' house had 1970s wood paneling in the basement and dark grey carpeting that was molding up underneath due to leakage after heavy rain through a foundation fracture. What did they do?

Strip out the carpet down to foundation concrete, paint the floor white, and paint the paneling a yellow color. Now they can just mop up any leakage and the whole basement's just brightened up dramatically.

A pigeon graveyard, then?

If a muck, then a gravyard?

Ewww.