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Abandoned America: The Age of Consequences
Throughout the ages, mankind has been fascinated by the ruins of previous societies. The desire to gain a greater understanding of our past has driven archaeologists, artists, and scholars from across the world to study the vestiges of lifestyles that have vanished in an attempt to capture their mystique and beauty.
Originally intended as an examination of the rise and fall of the state hospital system, Matthew Christopher’s Abandoned America rapidly grew to encompass derelict factories and industrial sites, schools, churches, power plants, hospitals, prisons, military installations, hotels, resorts, homes, and more. Through his collection of writing and photography, Christopher has spent the last decade documenting the ruins of one of the greatest civilizations the world has ever known: our own. Exploring sites like the charred remains of the Hotel Do De, the rusted cells of the Essex County Jail Annex, the sublime majesty of the Church of the Transfiguration, or the eerie and dilapidated remnants of the New Castle Elks Lodge, the work spans architectural treasures left to the elements and then all too often lost forever.
Originally intended as an examination of the rise and fall of the state hospital system, Matthew Christopher’s Abandoned America rapidly grew to encompass derelict factories and industrial sites, schools, churches, power plants, hospitals, prisons, military installations, hotels, resorts, homes, and more. Through his collection of writing and photography, Christopher has spent the last decade documenting the ruins of one of the greatest civilizations the world has ever known: our own. Exploring sites like the charred remains of the Hotel Do De, the rusted cells of the Essex County Jail Annex, the sublime majesty of the Church of the Transfiguration, or the eerie and dilapidated remnants of the New Castle Elks Lodge, the work spans architectural treasures left to the elements and then all too often lost forever.
240 pages, Hardcover
First published November 7, 2014
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May 21, 2022
My interest in abandoned sites and ruins in the U.S. came about recently and obliquely, when I viewed video game analyst Chris Franklin's YouTube video about the game Broken Reality, whose aesthetic and soundtrack are based on vaporwave culture from a decade or so ago. At around 10:37, Franklin mentions Dan Bell's Dead Mall Series, which uses vaporwave music and video footage from the early '90s to set the mood for his explorations of dying and abandoned malls built from the '60s through the '90s. From there, it didn't take long before I found Matthew Christopher's Abandoned America site, with its treasure trove of photographs of abandoned sites of all kinds: churches, prisons, power plants, schools...
In a way, I was lucky to have discovered Bell's and Christopher's work first. Both treat their subjects with utmost respect. They don't break in to access the premises to explore; they only enter through unlocked doors. They rarely move, and never remove, the objects they might find along the way. They don't break things or tag them. Sometimes, despite their benign intentions, they are chased away by security staff or police. Bell's videos are somewhat more sensational at times when they focus on the creep factor of dark, empty places, but he and Christopher both evoke melancholy in me as they make their way through buildings that were once teeming with activity and life, and are now only visited by small animals, and by explorers such as themselves. (and others with less savory motives, which we'll get to in a bit.)
The age of the internet has drawn attention to these places, in many cases to their detriment. Scrappers strip any piece of metal they have the strength to take away (and sometimes die when they sever live wires o.0); relic hunters steal decorations and other portable items; vandals leave their mark in destructive ways, whether through graffiti, or literally breaking and tearing things. In this book, Christopher anonymizes sites that are abandoned and unprotected, whether by preservation groups or the owners of the property, so that creeps have to look a little harder to find them.
In some cases, vandals have transformed a lovely old building into nothing but a set of walls with piles of trash inside it, but there are often other forces at work. Nature will have its way, ivy, trees and mold growing with nothing to convince them otherwise. Rain will come in through broken roofs, hastening the rotting of wood. Municipalities and building owners will thwart preservation efforts, whether through indolence or greed. (It's a lot easier to argue for demolition when a building has become a broken-down husk of its former self.) In many cases, Christopher is almost literally rushing to photograph a site in front of demolishers.
Before any of those things happen, there have to have been other forces at work to make it close down in the first place. In the case of factories and foundries, labor is outsourced overseas, making the facilities redundant. Churches are abandoned when a neighborhood's demographics change and there aren't enough parishioners to support its upkeep. Prisons, lowest in priority for repair, become so dilapidated there is little choice but to abandon them. Smelters run afoul of environmental regulation and can't both fix their problems and stay afloat. And so on.
The overall tone of Abandoned America is elegaic. A number of the sites in the book are given names and locations because they are gone, and are therefore no longer in danger of vandalism. Photographs and memories are all that is left. It's hard to express what an experience this was as a physical book. The website is great, but having these beautiful photographs on physical pages created a mood close enough to reverence as to be near indistinguishable. Our current national preference seems not to be for permanence or aesthetics, but for easy profit. And for easy destruction, as well--who cares if yet another indistinguishable strip mall or big box store gets torn down? If a building isn't lining a billionaire's pocket, it doesn't deserve to exist.
Here are some of my favorite sites from the book. I will provide the links to Abandoned America's website to encourage you to look at Christopher's stunning photography for yourself.
Carrie Furnaces: somewhat unique among the featured sites in having had a preservation effort that actually succeeded without there also being some kind of development effort for condos, a business park, etc. This one was also striking in being the first large-scale industrial site in the book. I would love to visit this one... majestic is the word that keeps coming to mind. In addition to the facility itself, its surroundings look gorgeous.
Garman Theater and Hotel Do De: this was a particularly sad one. The community seems to have been quite fond of it, but between a fire (determined to have been arson) and an encroachment of black and white mold throughout the organic parts of the structure, reconstruction was determined to be impractical. Especially sad are the photos of personal items in the apartments in the Hotel Do De, which show that they were in current use when the fire broke out.
Holmesburg Prison: I include this one not so much for the facility itself, as for Christopher's descriptions of the horrible things that went on there: from the literal cooking of a hundred prisoners in a confined area (leading to four deaths), to medical experimentation by J&J and others. This occurred as recently as the 1970s. Some of the wall art (by the prisoners) was removed from the walls and presented in an art exhibit, but preservation efforts for the prison as a whole have, as of yet, not been successful. This corner of the Abandoned America website reminds us that the U.S. isn't as civilized as we'd like to believe, even to our fellow citizens.
Bell Labs: designed by none other than Eero Saarinen himself (of St. Louis Arch fame), this is, bar none, my favorite entry in the book. A research facility could so easily have been nothing but a brutalist set of boxes, but every photo of Christopher's puts me in a liminal place where anything is possible. I am so glad that this one didn't get torn down or trashed like over 3/4 of the other places in this book. Since it's still around, it's on my bucket list to visit.
New Jersey Zinc: this one caused some conflicting feelings, to say the least. One can certainly argue that its being a Superfund Site where even bacteria couldn't live (thereby rendering the "decay" part of the circle of life literally impossible) indicates that its abandonment was a good thing, but it was also an employment cornerstone of its community that provided a lot (a LOT) of the materials that keep our modern world going.
Whether you read all the way through this, or skipped to the end, I highly recommend this book, and the website it was collected from. I will be paging through this book again and again in the future. While I am hardly fit enough to visit sites like these myself, nor am I a good enough photographer to do them justice anyhow, I will continue to explore these abandoned and ruined sites at second hand, and continue to hope that at least some of our unique past will continue to exist into our perhaps not-so-unique future.
In a way, I was lucky to have discovered Bell's and Christopher's work first. Both treat their subjects with utmost respect. They don't break in to access the premises to explore; they only enter through unlocked doors. They rarely move, and never remove, the objects they might find along the way. They don't break things or tag them. Sometimes, despite their benign intentions, they are chased away by security staff or police. Bell's videos are somewhat more sensational at times when they focus on the creep factor of dark, empty places, but he and Christopher both evoke melancholy in me as they make their way through buildings that were once teeming with activity and life, and are now only visited by small animals, and by explorers such as themselves. (and others with less savory motives, which we'll get to in a bit.)
The age of the internet has drawn attention to these places, in many cases to their detriment. Scrappers strip any piece of metal they have the strength to take away (and sometimes die when they sever live wires o.0); relic hunters steal decorations and other portable items; vandals leave their mark in destructive ways, whether through graffiti, or literally breaking and tearing things. In this book, Christopher anonymizes sites that are abandoned and unprotected, whether by preservation groups or the owners of the property, so that creeps have to look a little harder to find them.
In some cases, vandals have transformed a lovely old building into nothing but a set of walls with piles of trash inside it, but there are often other forces at work. Nature will have its way, ivy, trees and mold growing with nothing to convince them otherwise. Rain will come in through broken roofs, hastening the rotting of wood. Municipalities and building owners will thwart preservation efforts, whether through indolence or greed. (It's a lot easier to argue for demolition when a building has become a broken-down husk of its former self.) In many cases, Christopher is almost literally rushing to photograph a site in front of demolishers.
Before any of those things happen, there have to have been other forces at work to make it close down in the first place. In the case of factories and foundries, labor is outsourced overseas, making the facilities redundant. Churches are abandoned when a neighborhood's demographics change and there aren't enough parishioners to support its upkeep. Prisons, lowest in priority for repair, become so dilapidated there is little choice but to abandon them. Smelters run afoul of environmental regulation and can't both fix their problems and stay afloat. And so on.
The overall tone of Abandoned America is elegaic. A number of the sites in the book are given names and locations because they are gone, and are therefore no longer in danger of vandalism. Photographs and memories are all that is left. It's hard to express what an experience this was as a physical book. The website is great, but having these beautiful photographs on physical pages created a mood close enough to reverence as to be near indistinguishable. Our current national preference seems not to be for permanence or aesthetics, but for easy profit. And for easy destruction, as well--who cares if yet another indistinguishable strip mall or big box store gets torn down? If a building isn't lining a billionaire's pocket, it doesn't deserve to exist.
Here are some of my favorite sites from the book. I will provide the links to Abandoned America's website to encourage you to look at Christopher's stunning photography for yourself.
Carrie Furnaces: somewhat unique among the featured sites in having had a preservation effort that actually succeeded without there also being some kind of development effort for condos, a business park, etc. This one was also striking in being the first large-scale industrial site in the book. I would love to visit this one... majestic is the word that keeps coming to mind. In addition to the facility itself, its surroundings look gorgeous.
Garman Theater and Hotel Do De: this was a particularly sad one. The community seems to have been quite fond of it, but between a fire (determined to have been arson) and an encroachment of black and white mold throughout the organic parts of the structure, reconstruction was determined to be impractical. Especially sad are the photos of personal items in the apartments in the Hotel Do De, which show that they were in current use when the fire broke out.
Holmesburg Prison: I include this one not so much for the facility itself, as for Christopher's descriptions of the horrible things that went on there: from the literal cooking of a hundred prisoners in a confined area (leading to four deaths), to medical experimentation by J&J and others. This occurred as recently as the 1970s. Some of the wall art (by the prisoners) was removed from the walls and presented in an art exhibit, but preservation efforts for the prison as a whole have, as of yet, not been successful. This corner of the Abandoned America website reminds us that the U.S. isn't as civilized as we'd like to believe, even to our fellow citizens.
Bell Labs: designed by none other than Eero Saarinen himself (of St. Louis Arch fame), this is, bar none, my favorite entry in the book. A research facility could so easily have been nothing but a brutalist set of boxes, but every photo of Christopher's puts me in a liminal place where anything is possible. I am so glad that this one didn't get torn down or trashed like over 3/4 of the other places in this book. Since it's still around, it's on my bucket list to visit.
New Jersey Zinc: this one caused some conflicting feelings, to say the least. One can certainly argue that its being a Superfund Site where even bacteria couldn't live (thereby rendering the "decay" part of the circle of life literally impossible) indicates that its abandonment was a good thing, but it was also an employment cornerstone of its community that provided a lot (a LOT) of the materials that keep our modern world going.
Whether you read all the way through this, or skipped to the end, I highly recommend this book, and the website it was collected from. I will be paging through this book again and again in the future. While I am hardly fit enough to visit sites like these myself, nor am I a good enough photographer to do them justice anyhow, I will continue to explore these abandoned and ruined sites at second hand, and continue to hope that at least some of our unique past will continue to exist into our perhaps not-so-unique future.
July 31, 2017
Why do I do this to myself? What compels me to seek out such morose books as Abandoned America: The Age of Consequence? Matthew Christopher’s beautiful photographs display the wrecked and dilapidated remains of hospitals, businesses, theaters, churches and other buildings that once brought their inhabitants and their communities so much life and joy.
I think the answer lies in coming to grip with my own mortality. Looking at the plaid suits hanging in the vacant and moldering Lebow Brothers Clothing Company, or seeing the crumbling offices of the Packard Motor Car Company is like looking into the eyes of death itself. “Hey, there,” he seems to be saying, “I’ll be seeing you soon!”
Christopher has a skilled eye—his photographs convey a sense of what the abandoned buildings must have been like when operational while at the same time revealing the demise of some pretty impactful institutions. Most of the areas are cluttered and poorly lit, and must not have been easy to capture, but Christopher brings a sad elegance to his pictures.
The accompanying text is well researched and gives a history and context to the pictures. Abandoned America is thoughtful and provoking and more than a little gloomy.
I think the answer lies in coming to grip with my own mortality. Looking at the plaid suits hanging in the vacant and moldering Lebow Brothers Clothing Company, or seeing the crumbling offices of the Packard Motor Car Company is like looking into the eyes of death itself. “Hey, there,” he seems to be saying, “I’ll be seeing you soon!”
Christopher has a skilled eye—his photographs convey a sense of what the abandoned buildings must have been like when operational while at the same time revealing the demise of some pretty impactful institutions. Most of the areas are cluttered and poorly lit, and must not have been easy to capture, but Christopher brings a sad elegance to his pictures.
The accompanying text is well researched and gives a history and context to the pictures. Abandoned America is thoughtful and provoking and more than a little gloomy.
November 30, 2014
In addition to excellent photos (is there any recent book on abandoned places that doesn't have excellent photos?) this volume benefits from short essays for each place. These words are full of detail, both about the place itself and the photographer's experiences with it. And throughout, there is a palpable feeling of loss for people, places, a way of life (see, for example, the Scranton Lace Factory).
February 1, 2017
The author documents abandoned buildings: churches, factories, prisons, hotels, hospitals, theaters, and schools. Some are gorgeously, breathtaking, beautiful, all strong and impressive when they were first built in the 19th and 20th centuries. All have fallen into disrepair and ruin, vandalized or just neglected. Some have been completely demolished. Author and photographer Matthew Christopher fills his book with text and illustrations of this sad plight/blight and adds historic and social comments that are both interesting and informative and at the same time incredibly sad.
June 30, 2015
What an amazing collection of pictures and a really great account of each location, its history and future. I picked this out simply to look at the pictures and ended up getting lost in the descriptions written by the author. AWESOME.
December 18, 2015
Beautiful pictures, but even better are the essays that detail the history of the locations and the cultural and financial shifts that led to their abandonment.
October 31, 2015
My low rating has more to do with my own disappointment in the selections rather than the artful offering up of a pictorial treatise on an opulent past now not only forgotten but never to exist again.
By far my favorite part of the book is the FORWARD written by James Howard Kunstler. He opens with this statement: "Matthew Christopher's sojourn through the ruins of America has produced a document plangent with sadness and nostalgia that amounts to a beautifully composed farewell letter to Modernity."
Five (wonderfully written) paragraphs later he continues: "Beyond the sheer architecture of all these shcools, theatres, hospitals, prisons, and churches (built 1890-1930) is an equally impressive armature of institutional support that suggests the tremendous organizational and vocational competence of our grandparents' day. The big, gorgeous American high schools of 1905 were fabulously well-run enterprises that turned out graduates with more skill and intellectual range than the PhD programs of the elite universities do today, burdened as they are with feel-good social engineering and half-baked psychotherapy that have been embedded in the curriculum like enervating parasites."
Two paragraphs later he summarizes the work: "Mr. Christopher's photos of the ruined workplaces, the knitting mills, menswear factories, motorcycle shop, steel furnace, coal-breaking works, the power stations, are ghostly reminders of the way the USA produced real goods representing immense real wealth, as opposed to the matrix of rackets that the financialized economy amounts to today, with its empty promises to pay future obligations in exchange for creaming off the last remnants of genuine capital. These rackets, by the way, led by the Too Big to Fail (or Jail) banks and their corrupt handmaidens in government, will lead the way in our journey out of Modernity to a new dark age."
He finishes with: "This book is both a warning about the sad transience of things assumed to be permanent and testimony to the spectacular artistry of humankind, which abides in us even when it goes dormant for a while."
By far my favorite part of the book is the FORWARD written by James Howard Kunstler. He opens with this statement: "Matthew Christopher's sojourn through the ruins of America has produced a document plangent with sadness and nostalgia that amounts to a beautifully composed farewell letter to Modernity."
Five (wonderfully written) paragraphs later he continues: "Beyond the sheer architecture of all these shcools, theatres, hospitals, prisons, and churches (built 1890-1930) is an equally impressive armature of institutional support that suggests the tremendous organizational and vocational competence of our grandparents' day. The big, gorgeous American high schools of 1905 were fabulously well-run enterprises that turned out graduates with more skill and intellectual range than the PhD programs of the elite universities do today, burdened as they are with feel-good social engineering and half-baked psychotherapy that have been embedded in the curriculum like enervating parasites."
Two paragraphs later he summarizes the work: "Mr. Christopher's photos of the ruined workplaces, the knitting mills, menswear factories, motorcycle shop, steel furnace, coal-breaking works, the power stations, are ghostly reminders of the way the USA produced real goods representing immense real wealth, as opposed to the matrix of rackets that the financialized economy amounts to today, with its empty promises to pay future obligations in exchange for creaming off the last remnants of genuine capital. These rackets, by the way, led by the Too Big to Fail (or Jail) banks and their corrupt handmaidens in government, will lead the way in our journey out of Modernity to a new dark age."
He finishes with: "This book is both a warning about the sad transience of things assumed to be permanent and testimony to the spectacular artistry of humankind, which abides in us even when it goes dormant for a while."
April 4, 2017
In Abandoned America, Christopher visits deteriorating buildings in the States, some of which are in all but total ruin and others of which could be saved...if someone were willing to fight for them.
It's quite a mix of buildings, from factories to hospitals to a resort. There's an incredible amount of waste involved: not just the buildings themselves, but the things in them. In one garment factory, for example, hundreds and hundreds of coats hang, enrobed in plastic, on hangers. The factory has been trashed, but the coats are pristine. Photos of other places show the basic trappings of life left behind: bathrobes and furniture and books. What makes a company leave everything behind?
Christopher's coming at it from a preservationist bent. He'd like to see all of these buildings restored, used anew, or at least preserved. It raises some interesting questions. Where is the building's worth? Does it lie in its history, or in its future potential, or in its architecture? Some of the buildings had relatively short lives before being allowed to collapse in on themselves. I'm also intrigued by Christopher's admission that he might be looking for something very specific in terms of what to photograph: I look back now and think I should have taken more pictures. Like many places I've seen trashed over the years, I start to tell myself that the place I am visiting is too far gone, that with all the vandalism it's not worth it. The question then becomes whether what I'm looking for is a "pristine" ruin, whether there is merit in photographing an often-photographed place, and perhaps what the usefulness is of showing what really happens as time wears on. (27)
Most of the buildings here won't be brought back—some, Christopher says, have development plans, but many of those plans have stalled; few have seen real progress. It's an odd beauty here, isn't it? There's an elegance to the decay, but of course that decay will only continue.
It's quite a mix of buildings, from factories to hospitals to a resort. There's an incredible amount of waste involved: not just the buildings themselves, but the things in them. In one garment factory, for example, hundreds and hundreds of coats hang, enrobed in plastic, on hangers. The factory has been trashed, but the coats are pristine. Photos of other places show the basic trappings of life left behind: bathrobes and furniture and books. What makes a company leave everything behind?
Christopher's coming at it from a preservationist bent. He'd like to see all of these buildings restored, used anew, or at least preserved. It raises some interesting questions. Where is the building's worth? Does it lie in its history, or in its future potential, or in its architecture? Some of the buildings had relatively short lives before being allowed to collapse in on themselves. I'm also intrigued by Christopher's admission that he might be looking for something very specific in terms of what to photograph: I look back now and think I should have taken more pictures. Like many places I've seen trashed over the years, I start to tell myself that the place I am visiting is too far gone, that with all the vandalism it's not worth it. The question then becomes whether what I'm looking for is a "pristine" ruin, whether there is merit in photographing an often-photographed place, and perhaps what the usefulness is of showing what really happens as time wears on. (27)
Most of the buildings here won't be brought back—some, Christopher says, have development plans, but many of those plans have stalled; few have seen real progress. It's an odd beauty here, isn't it? There's an elegance to the decay, but of course that decay will only continue.
December 31, 2016
When I was a kid, there was this old abandoned dairy building across the river from my house that I used to just love to go to. It was no place a kid that age should be traipsing around in - filled with broken glass, rusty protrusions of various types, and Lord knows what else (sorry Mom) - but somehow I felt drawn to the place, and I never really knew why.
Today, when I go to a state park or building or other public place that is deserted, I am often captivated by the atmosphere and wonder about the stories that originated there.
No surprise, then, that Abandoned America really resonated with me in a way no other art book has. Beyond the quality of the images presented, their subject matter was, to me, uniquely captivating and thought-provoking, the latter of which - it seems to me - is the very purpose of art. I really appreciated the history the author presented for each location shown. This enhanced the experience of the images a great deal.
The author clearly cares about the subject matter, and he clearly has a point of advocacy and personal commentary reflected in the text of the book. You can either agree or disagree with it, but I think you'd find it thought-provoking regardless.
Four Stars.
Today, when I go to a state park or building or other public place that is deserted, I am often captivated by the atmosphere and wonder about the stories that originated there.
No surprise, then, that Abandoned America really resonated with me in a way no other art book has. Beyond the quality of the images presented, their subject matter was, to me, uniquely captivating and thought-provoking, the latter of which - it seems to me - is the very purpose of art. I really appreciated the history the author presented for each location shown. This enhanced the experience of the images a great deal.
The author clearly cares about the subject matter, and he clearly has a point of advocacy and personal commentary reflected in the text of the book. You can either agree or disagree with it, but I think you'd find it thought-provoking regardless.
Four Stars.
April 15, 2015
Magnificent, as I knew it would be. I have been a fan of Christopher's work for years, through his website and Facebook page, but the book gave a different and deeper feel to the images. His introduction and commentary were a must read to better understand his photography sites. The pictures were beautiful, but often melancholy and haunting. He seemed to capture the essence of the location, and I would often think about the pictures long after I had closed the book. Two sites were especially compelling to me- St. Bonaventure Roman Catholic Church and the Carrie Furnaces. The shot of the broken and gaping cathedral ceiling of the church with a chandelier still grimly hanging on was outstanding, while the Carrie Furnaces also had a shot that implied an empty chancel. Plants overtaking structures always appeal to me in a strange way, so I enjoyed the pictures of some of the outbuildings at CF and the whimsical antlered deer made out of wire. I definitely look forward to this photographer's (and author-for his writings enrich his photos)next book.
February 5, 2017
Previous photo compilations I've browsed have focused specifically on asylums. This book goes beyond that to include schools, churches, businesses, and industrial locations.
The text is a thought-provoking complement to the images as the photographer shares some history of the location, the current status, and his feelings about it. His primary purpose is to shed light on the amazing architecture destroyed by neglect because society has abandoned the cause.
I was stunned at how bad conditions were in some of these sites. I was also stunned to see the expanse of what had been left behind without finding another purpose. It seemed so wasteful and so sad. I did find his almost unwavering declarations that every building should be preserved somewhat in disagreement with my own feelings. Some of these places were clearly beyond repair. And some could serve no useful purpose even as a monument to the past.
The text is a thought-provoking complement to the images as the photographer shares some history of the location, the current status, and his feelings about it. His primary purpose is to shed light on the amazing architecture destroyed by neglect because society has abandoned the cause.
I was stunned at how bad conditions were in some of these sites. I was also stunned to see the expanse of what had been left behind without finding another purpose. It seemed so wasteful and so sad. I did find his almost unwavering declarations that every building should be preserved somewhat in disagreement with my own feelings. Some of these places were clearly beyond repair. And some could serve no useful purpose even as a monument to the past.
July 20, 2016
My latest read is Abandoned America: The Age of Consequences by Matthew Christopher. This is really a coffee table book as it is a pictorial tour of different ruins in America. Included next to the drawings are descriptions of the history of each place. I grew up in the Rust Belt, so I automatically think of abandoned factories when I think of deserted places, and yes, Christopher's book does contain plenty of pictures of industry's past, but what I found even more heartbreaking were the deserted theaters and prisons: theaters because of all of the great art that was once present and prisons because of the human cruelty that once took place in the cells and staircases. While I have seen many contemporary artists try to find beauty in American ruins, I truly enjoyed Christopher's exploration of time, history and place.
August 14, 2017
What happens to a building when it's no longer useful? What happens in the time between the construction of a place and its destruction?
Photographer Matthew Christopher documents the latter part of this process: when a building has outlived its usefulness, when it is a shell that tells a story. The photos are intriguing, mysterious, beautiful, lonely--all documenting the ways in which our society has changed and made the buildings obsolete.
Each set of photographs is accompanied by an informative essay about the place--its history, its cultural context, its path toward reclamation by new businesses--or by nature. In some cases I wished there were more photos focusing on elements Christopher highlights in his essays, or that there were just plain more photos of a place I'd love to explore--but that's what his website is for. (abandonedamerica.us)
Photographer Matthew Christopher documents the latter part of this process: when a building has outlived its usefulness, when it is a shell that tells a story. The photos are intriguing, mysterious, beautiful, lonely--all documenting the ways in which our society has changed and made the buildings obsolete.
Each set of photographs is accompanied by an informative essay about the place--its history, its cultural context, its path toward reclamation by new businesses--or by nature. In some cases I wished there were more photos focusing on elements Christopher highlights in his essays, or that there were just plain more photos of a place I'd love to explore--but that's what his website is for. (abandonedamerica.us)
October 27, 2017
2017 Reading Challenge: A book recommended by a librarian.
I made a comment to a friend/coworker (we work in a library) about loving to look at photographs of old abandoned areas, particularly hospitals, jails, and amusement parks, and next thing I know she's giving me a book she ordered through Interlibrary Loan for me to look through, so I'm counting it as a recommendation. Yes, I know, I have amazing friends.
Back to the book. Wow. Not only are the photos beautiful and heartbreaking, but the author added so much more to the book than just pictures of old buildings. Yes, knowing the history of these buildings is fascinating, but also reading about how much the author respects and loves what he photographs was an added bonus.
I made a comment to a friend/coworker (we work in a library) about loving to look at photographs of old abandoned areas, particularly hospitals, jails, and amusement parks, and next thing I know she's giving me a book she ordered through Interlibrary Loan for me to look through, so I'm counting it as a recommendation. Yes, I know, I have amazing friends.
Back to the book. Wow. Not only are the photos beautiful and heartbreaking, but the author added so much more to the book than just pictures of old buildings. Yes, knowing the history of these buildings is fascinating, but also reading about how much the author respects and loves what he photographs was an added bonus.
August 26, 2016
Forgive the pedantry of the Forward. J.H. Kunstler means well.
Moving on, we get an Introduction and then commentary and background from Matthew Christopher on each site he photographed. Churches, foundries, mills, schools---a long list and heartbreaking pictures. Heart pounding stories, too. Stories which demand rage and outrage, Stories which inflame.
But the pictures. The pictures are each worth a thousand words, some ten thousand. Beauty and tragedy, immense ugliness, wonder at how quickly and surely majesty can become encrusted with rot.
Stories, both in words and forms, requiring reflection, thought, reaction.
Highly Recommended
Moving on, we get an Introduction and then commentary and background from Matthew Christopher on each site he photographed. Churches, foundries, mills, schools---a long list and heartbreaking pictures. Heart pounding stories, too. Stories which demand rage and outrage, Stories which inflame.
But the pictures. The pictures are each worth a thousand words, some ten thousand. Beauty and tragedy, immense ugliness, wonder at how quickly and surely majesty can become encrusted with rot.
Stories, both in words and forms, requiring reflection, thought, reaction.
Highly Recommended
January 31, 2015
I came across this AMAZING book of photography at a new bookstore in Sag Harbor! I am so glad I did. Matthew Christopher doesn't only celebrate the beauty of these weathered, abandoned places, but the passages provide detailed information about the history behind each site. Both the images and details made it easy to close my eyes and visualize each place in its prime. Now proudly displayed on my coffee table in front of the fireplace, I am happy to enjoy it over and over again as well as share it with those who visit!
February 1, 2016
I've seen urbex images that were more poignant and thought-provoking--Mr. Christopher recorded abandoned factories, prisons, asylums and churches, not castles or farmhouses--but the combination of his photos and evocative text makes this noteworthy. In fact, and this is rare for me to do with a coffee table book, I actually read this one cover to cover. A lovely work.
July 9, 2016
Beautiful photographs of abandoned buildings across the eastern United States. The photos are sad, haunting, eerie, and beautiful, and the descriptions of the properties are well researched and poignantly written.
March 23, 2015
Gorgeous photographs, interesting subject.
April 16, 2015
Interesting, worthwhile read.
December 25, 2015
If you have a fondness for wandering through abandoned buildings (schools, churches, hospitals, factories, homes...), you'll love Abandoned America - The Age of Consequences.
January 27, 2016
It's nice that the awesome photos are accompanied by research into the history of these abandoned places.
January 30, 2016
Haunting. Great photos. Especially intrigued by Lebow Brother's Clothing Company. All that fabric and all those coats...abandoned.
February 22, 2016
Amazing photos and I love the (sometimes) sarcastic commentary describing the locations and history.
August 5, 2016
Ruin-porn, with many featured locations in Philadelphia or within a few hours drive of here.
September 5, 2016
Excellent photography, really well made, and informative text. The foreword by Kunstler is a highlight for sure.
June 21, 2023
This serves as a review for both photographer Matthew Christopher's Abandoned America works, Dismantling the Dream (2014) and The Age of Consequences (2016), which compile images of abandoned architecture from across the US (and especially Christopher's rust-belt home state of Pennsylvania) shared previously on his website. Providing an informative summary of each of the locales he photographs, from prisons to factories to hotels, grounding each loss in its own context, his work is respectful of these places and the people who once lived, worked, or played there, from the tragic to the wistful. Interested in preserving and capturing these images before they disappear, Christopher is critical of a society that wasted so much.
Throughout both works, there is a melancholy ambiance, both in the photography and the prose, and it occasionally feels altogether gloomy, with the photographer himself referring to his work as not only a “showcase of abandoned buildings in America but also … to what I believed to be the abandonment of America itself- it’s ideas, its way of life, and its future.” The forward of Dismantling the Dream by the peak oil reactionary doomer James Howard Kunstler exemplifies this, describing the work as “pungent with sadness and nostalgia that amounts to a beautifully composed farewell letter to modernity.”
As a whole, this feels a little hyperbolic to me, and though many of the places that Christopher showcases are victims of toxic policies of a system more interested in profit than in human life, societies have always left behind or built over buildings no longer considered useful, though perhaps, with work like Christopher's, this sad process may be more visible then ever.
I continue these thoughts at Harris' Tome Corner discussing Dead Malls: Nostalgia in the Ruins.
Throughout both works, there is a melancholy ambiance, both in the photography and the prose, and it occasionally feels altogether gloomy, with the photographer himself referring to his work as not only a “showcase of abandoned buildings in America but also … to what I believed to be the abandonment of America itself- it’s ideas, its way of life, and its future.” The forward of Dismantling the Dream by the peak oil reactionary doomer James Howard Kunstler exemplifies this, describing the work as “pungent with sadness and nostalgia that amounts to a beautifully composed farewell letter to modernity.”
As a whole, this feels a little hyperbolic to me, and though many of the places that Christopher showcases are victims of toxic policies of a system more interested in profit than in human life, societies have always left behind or built over buildings no longer considered useful, though perhaps, with work like Christopher's, this sad process may be more visible then ever.
I continue these thoughts at Harris' Tome Corner discussing Dead Malls: Nostalgia in the Ruins.
July 1, 2020
The photos are lush, faded yet colourful, dead with the barest hint of lively colour, like piles of dead leaves in autumn. The Rust Belt ruins this book comprises are the worn husk of a long-gone American industrialism. Some are monuments to many Pennsylvania towns built around anthracite coal, others the amenities for the dwindling communities that lived in those towns. It's easy for me to get romantic, imagining myself like the speaker of "The Ruin," brushing my hands along dusty looms and rusty machines, scaling a Beaux Arts edifice and staring down collapsed staircases. But it's more bleak than that: the book packs a lot of research about the ugly municipal politics that overturn these areas and often the book mentions the sites have since been demolished. Fallow ground, sometimes with a parking lot built over top, the ofermōd of American capitalism. In a few ways, as James Howard Kunstler's caustic foreword points out, these buildings were never built to last.
Takeaway:
"I don't see progress. I see such insatiable greed that it consumes all things in its path. I see a project that could have saved a landmark building and revitalized a polluted area but is now derailed by corruption and fraud, another casualty of urban governments that prioritize stuffing their pockets over the well-being of their citizens. I could rattle off a depressingly long list of similar stories that ended with the erasure of important places that could have been vibrant and distinctive destinations for city residents and visitors. More often than not, the cycle just repeats itself over and over, until so many great places are lost that it's hard to even count them all."
Takeaway:
"I don't see progress. I see such insatiable greed that it consumes all things in its path. I see a project that could have saved a landmark building and revitalized a polluted area but is now derailed by corruption and fraud, another casualty of urban governments that prioritize stuffing their pockets over the well-being of their citizens. I could rattle off a depressingly long list of similar stories that ended with the erasure of important places that could have been vibrant and distinctive destinations for city residents and visitors. More often than not, the cycle just repeats itself over and over, until so many great places are lost that it's hard to even count them all."
April 27, 2022
The compilation the author/photographer put together of abandoned buildings showed a compelling glimpse at the vastness of American land and history. Glancing at these decayed centers of once lively institutions and their contextual backgrounds paints for the reader how cruel and immense outside factors can affect a population's livelihood. Practically all of the captured buildings played critical roles in communities; High Schools, hospitals, churches, hotels etc. Seeing them all horrifically neglected painted how vulnerable institutions are to changing times. On another note I was surprised at just how ill-planned and ultimately wasteful American enterprises can be. They build and build with no thought to safety nets for the people they employ and absolutely do not think about whether said building actually has usefulness. There are enormous factories, power plants, and prisons that blot acres of the American landscape. Fitting that they are actively being taken back by nature. The book overall is a great read with excellent photos of structures that give off 'backrooms' vibes. This book as kindle a sort of urban explorer itch in me and might make me actually visit the abandoned locations in my own neighborhood.
November 18, 2018
Abandoned America: The Age of Consequences – Matthew Christopher – the stunning view of abandoned areas of America bring an ugly truth of society to life. Christopher pairs beautiful photography with detailed history of his locations discussing each one’s history, future and possible impact on local citizens. Sometimes included are stories of his enthusiastic guides who share their passion for the property. The Age of Consequences exposes readers to locations including the Scranton Lace Company, St Bonaventure Roman Catholic Church and Bethlehem Steel among other locations including theatres, manufacturing plants and more. Readers will be drawn in by the beautiful photos and will stay for the compelling stories of loss.
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