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Author Topic: Abandoned American Resort Towns (photo essay)  (Read 1916 times)

Rajan Parrikar

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Abandoned American Resort Towns (photo essay)
« on: September 08, 2017, 02:31:03 am »

"These mountain resorts in Pennsylvania and New York, once thriving vacation spots, are now ghosts of their former grandeur."

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/photography/proof/2017/09/poconos-catskills-abandoned-resorts-photos-spd/

mbaginy

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Re: Abandoned American Resort Towns (photo essay)
« Reply #1 on: September 08, 2017, 04:07:47 am »

Reminds me of a walk through the Robinson Barracks PX (Post Exchange) complex in Stuttgart, Germany, before it was demolished.  Empty shops, snack bar, APO post office, commissary, American Express Bank, and other places I visited as a high school student in the late 60s and as a soldier in the 70s.  All gone now.

I visited more posts I knew from the 50s through 70s and had similar experiences.  Camp Kilmer in New Jersey no longer exists.  Fort Dix is there, but I had no access.
Spooky.  Like a dream or a nightmare.  I know the place, know where everything is (or should be) located and even know the people, but only skeletons remain.  Sometimes even less.

A few more places I'd like to visit, but I'm hesitant.

Interesting photos and reading.  Sad, actually.
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francois

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Re: Abandoned American Resort Towns (photo essay)
« Reply #2 on: September 08, 2017, 04:44:47 am »

Stunning and interesting. If you asked me where those shots came from, I would say Chernobyl/Pripyat.
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Francois

Alan Klein

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Re: Abandoned American Resort Towns (photo essay)
« Reply #3 on: September 08, 2017, 02:27:10 pm »

I remember the Catskills NY when I was a youth.   Its loss now reminds me of my vulnerability and temporary stay here on earth.   But you know,  you can't go home again.   

Eric Myrvaagnes

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Re: Abandoned American Resort Towns (photo essay)
« Reply #4 on: September 08, 2017, 04:06:10 pm »

I drove around Grossingers about ten years ago, while attending KlezKamp (klezmer music and dance) at another nearby resort that had been recently refurbished by Korean owners (South korean, I'm pretty sure). It was obvious at that time that Grossingers had been closed for at least a few years, but the outside condition wasn't too bad yet. I didn't try to venture inside.

That is a fascinating photo essay.
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Rob C

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Re: Abandoned American Resort Towns (photo essay)
« Reply #5 on: September 09, 2017, 05:00:41 am »

Perhaps cheaper long-distance travel has something to do with it, but I suspect that it's something that runs even deeper than that: maybe a feeling that enough of the organized life, already!

I remember when the so-called package tours came out, and people would sign up to all the day-trips, barbecues etc. offered by the company tour guides in the resorts. The percentages from those local "experiences" made a handy profit for the travel companies, but today, even the tour guides have been reduced to almost nothing, with somebody meeting you at the airport and pointing you to the bus taking you to your hotel, and then the same backwards when time to quit "your" room. People become blasé; they have seen it all on their first trip; they know the local event's just a low-value scam where they get served rotten food and wine, and pressured to buy something they don't want. One section doesn't want to move out of the hotel or the bar or the disco, and another want's to live on the beach. Crashing out means many things. To some, it means getting as far away from your own countrymen as you possibly can, not herd with them on your only chance of escape.

Perhaps the best thing to be said for the concept of the package is that you are unlikely to be left behind or abandoned should your transfer bus to the airport become delayed. After all, as long as you bought the ticket as part of the package deal... sometimes independent travel ain't the clever option.

Where independent travel is both affordable and you are physically up for it, I'd suggest packing a lot of underwear and jumping into your car and just following its nose. The idea is not to have a destination, but to have a trip. That was how we began our love affair with France, except that yes, we did have destinations in both directions.

I just don't see how you can experience anything much new by locking yourself up in a resort. I'm fairly confident that's why some of those places finally failed. Also, I think surviving resorts of that nature can carry a sort of social stigma today, not that St Moritz need worry any time soon.

GrahamBy

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Re: Abandoned American Resort Towns (photo essay)
« Reply #6 on: September 09, 2017, 06:06:55 am »

The French persist in doing this, in more exotic and sunnier locales via Club Med. I think it depends on the early-life socialisation, which also sends people off to the same camp-ground every summer, with the same neighbours. Maybe there is some discrete dalliance to explain that...

I wonder how long Club Med will manage to continue though, even if the demand remains, the viability of constructing sealed enclaves in north and west Africa is becoming more challenging.
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farbschlurf

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Re: Abandoned American Resort Towns (photo essay)
« Reply #7 on: September 09, 2017, 06:25:55 am »

Reminds me of holiday resorts that seem to have been common in the former eastern part of Germany. (I never saw them when they were still used, came "too late".) Obviously the reason for those were very different, but just looking at the pictures - the old and the new ones - it seems they share quite a bit ...
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Robert Roaldi

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Re: Abandoned American Resort Towns (photo essay)
« Reply #8 on: September 09, 2017, 06:58:11 am »

Throw-away clothes, throw-away jobs, and throw-away towns. The owners just walk away and leave the structures there for some future taxpayer to have to clean up. It's amazing to me what our culture puts up with. Good for ruins photography, I guess.
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Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: Abandoned American Resort Towns (photo essay)
« Reply #9 on: September 09, 2017, 09:52:56 am »

Throw-away clothes, throw-away jobs, and throw-away towns...

True. Add cameras to that.

But I noticed something else: unnaturally crushed highlights in the opening photo (swimming pool). The historic shot (on film) had it much better. And it is not about film vs. digital, it is more about badly-done digital.

JoeKitchen

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Re: Abandoned American Resort Towns (photo essay)
« Reply #10 on: September 09, 2017, 10:10:33 am »

Throw-away clothes, throw-away jobs, and throw-away towns. The owners just walk away and leave the structures there for some future taxpayer to have to clean up. It's amazing to me what our culture puts up with. Good for ruins photography, I guess.

There's a really great outdoor shopping center just outside of Philly called Peddler's Village.  The original structures were first built dating back to the 1700s, so everything is very well made and made to last.  Even the new structures are obvious very well built. 

I visited a resort town that someone told me was along the lines of Peddler's Villages.  Nope, just the facades were; the real structures were all stick built, and poorly at that.

It's sad that this type of construction has become so common people can just "throw it away" without much regard for their investment. 
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Rob C

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Re: Abandoned American Resort Towns (photo essay)
« Reply #11 on: September 09, 2017, 10:25:21 am »

The French persist in doing this, in more exotic and sunnier locales via Club Med. I think it depends on the early-life socialisation, which also sends people off to the same camp-ground every summer, with the same neighbours. Maybe there is some discrete dalliance to explain that...

I wonder how long Club Med will manage to continue though, even if the demand remains, the viability of constructing sealed enclaves in north and west Africa is becoming more challenging.

Or the wan hope Pirelli will use them again, just as you happen to be a guest...

Rob

RSL

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Re: Abandoned American Resort Towns (photo essay)
« Reply #12 on: September 09, 2017, 10:26:24 am »

It's haunting stuff, Rajan. I have a couple books on the subject, but I can't lay hands on them at the moment because my bookcases are blocked by the furniture from our porch, moved in in preparation for the arrival of Irma. The one I remember most vividly has pictures of the ruins of places in Detroit such as theaters I used to know as a kid when they were in their heyday. I also remember walking through Sampson Air Force Base many years after I'd gone through Air Force basic training there. Flew in in a gooney bird with another guy who had some business to take care of on base. While he was at it I visited the deactivated and deserted area where I used to stand at a brace and march. I also went into my decrepit old barracks and had some discussions with a bunch of ghosts. Time marches on.
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