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This picture just reminds me of how much I dislike taking care of my yard.

A little more duct tape and that chair would be good as new!

To me it looks like the faint small image of a skull on the mattress.

It's funny that you think an adult Klan member did the graffiti. I was raised in Bessemer in the 90s and the town has practically been all black since then. No white adults go walking around that part of downtown Bessemer. Probably more likely the result of one of the few white kids still left in that town.

Matthew is very close. This fluoroscope is incomplete. The vertical panel is just to cover the mechanics (shown two photos ahead). The mechanics in back, including the x-ray tube and its housing, could be moved up or down. An arm running around the side held a rectangular frame containing the fluorescent screen which, when moved up or down, would move the x-ray unit as well. The patient stood between the panel shown and the (much smaller) screen. The entire front assembly with the screen has been removed. The screen had a sheet of lead glass in front, so that the rays didn't continue on through to the doctor. The frame usually had a handle at each end so the doctor could grasp it in both hands to slide it up or down.

Later units of this type added lead protectors behind the handles on each side, and later still, a flexible lead apron hanging below the screen; the doctor's head was typically at screen level, but these prevented his body and hands from getting exposed. Some added a stiff lead sheet above the screen. A few very late units were built after the fashion of a telephone booth, entirely lined with lead, with a tall, narrow lead-fronted screen, and required the patient to stand inside; in some cases, they'd be mounted into the wall, so that the patient entered the booth from the hallway and the doctor entered an adjacent darkened room set aside for viewing.

Some units like this one were dedicated to fluoroscopy. Others were dual-purpose units; the vertical panel could be tilted diagonally or laid horizontally, for fluoroscopy, or with the screen moved and the x-ray unit swung above the table surface, film cassettes could be inserted into the table for taking radiographs.

The screens glowed an eerie neon green color. The machines weren't always low-dose devices. Many clinics had one, and some doctors would fluoroscope a patient at every check-up. There were also the infamous shoe store fitting devices using this tech, some of which had pitifully small amounts of lead, or even none at all-- not terrible for the kid who bought shoes once a year, much more so for the shoe salesman! These usually had three viewing ports, for the kid, a parent, and the salesman, and he often operated the machine, so he got exposed countless times a day.

Pretty much all direct-view fluoroscopes were being phased out by the mid-1960s, replaced first by recording using film, then by image intensifiers which allowed the machines to run at much lower levels and let the doctor view the image remotely via TV, picked up by a camera aimed at the image-intensified screen. I know of one clinic which used an upright fluoroscope like this into the 1990s; a West Virginia shoe store used a fluoroscopic shoe fitter into the early 1980s. Some Chinese manufacturers of x-ray equipment still offer units with direct-view screens, though I have no idea who buys them!

These colors are gorgeous. Decay is such a beautiful thing!

Yes, Thats it! Ipn...A paper cut-out doll. Its not a drawing at all. you can actually see the little notches on the edges. Thanks! :)

Visit your local branch for some good reading.

Is this one of the entrances into the building? Thinking about going here. Any tips would be helpful.

Wow, what a great shot, the light is just sublime.

This is what the U.S. Army call a B.A.T.
Ballistic Aerial Target. This was used as a target for the shoulder fired Stinger antiaircraft missile to shoot at. The end of it would be packed with numerous little rocket engines. They would launch it at an angle, the gasses inside the BAT (from the rockets burning) escaped out towards the nose on fitting angled to cause it to spin like a bullet and be stable in flight. Speed would be @350mph. The Stinger flies at Mach 1.5 . There is NO weapons use for this what so ever. Just a throw away target. The 1/213th A.D.A. ( Air Defense Artillery ), 28th Division of the Pennsylvania National Guard had their Headquarters in on of the old buildings there. I was in that unit and shot one of these targets down at Ft. Drum, NY. It was the only place to shoot the Stinger missile. The Stinger's range is close to 5K/3.1 miles.This was leftover from one of our "live fires" at Ft. Drum, NY. Used as a display.

Fucking COOL!

What an ironic motto for such a place...

Awesome shot.

This is an absolutely gorgeous capture. Looks like it is out of a dream.