Spreepark - The Socialist Disneyland

As I am sure you are aware, Saturday marks thirty years since the fall of the Berlin Wall. I don't have any cards of that structure, but I do have something many East Berliners will recognise.

There is definitely something about abandoned theme parks which capture the imagination and they are always popular posts on websites detailing abandoned locations. The Pripyat amusement park is probably the most famous example with the Ferris wheel in particular becoming an iconic image.
Spreepark, otherwise known as Kulturpark Plänterwald Berlin is less well known but has been the subject of some fascinating features on sites such as Atlas Obscura and World Abandoned. The swan rides are especially evocative of that eerie atmosphere and, to borrow a phrase, 'morbid charisma' empty and abandoned amusement parks create.
My card is bright and colourful but the history of the park after abandonment proves that bright and colourful does not equal happy and joyful. 
VEB Kulturpark Berlin was opened on the 4th  October 1969 . It was conceived as a Socialist Disney Land and as the GDR's only permanent theme park it proved very popular with visitors attracting 1.5m visitors a year. I wonder how many of them knew that the rides were imported from the west?
There isn't much information about the park pre-Wende, but an upgraded version of the Ferris Wheel was unveiled in October  1989 to mark the 40th anniversary of the GDR, appropriately this new version stood 40 metres high and had 40 cabins.
As mentioned earlier, the Berlin Wall fell in November that year and with more freedom of movement, the uniqueness of Kulturpark Berlin was no longer a selling point and visitor numbers fell by a third. After that, things only got worse.
In 1991 it was sold to a Norbert Witte who had previously been convicted of manslaughter after a carousel malfunction killed seven at a carnival in Hamburg. It's not clear how he was able to buy it  but it's believed he did so in his wife's name.
While he did add new  attractions  which saw visitor numbers rise again, by 1999 they had fallen once more and the park faced  debts of eleven million Euros .Two years later, the company was insolvent. Earlier the next year  Witte moved to Lima taking a number of the attractions and several colleagues with him, while he claimed that the attractions were being sent for repair he actually wanted to set u a similar park there .  The park closed later that year and has not reopened as a theme park but has been used a film location and guided tours were given until 2014, two fires that same year caused major damage to the remaining attractions and it is uncertain what will become of this relic of the GDR .   
If you wondering what happened to Herr Witte failing in this endeavour  to build another version of Kulturark in Lima ,he and his son tried drug smuggling instead, they were caught and  Witte Jr is serving a lengthy gaol term.
So there have been no fairy-tale endings for the so called Socialist Disneyland.

Manchester Memories

By the nature of this blog, many of the places featured here I am unable to visit but others are all too familiar to me. Today's post is the latter.
I was a student a Manchester University in the mid 1990s. If you're  expecting tales of drugged fuelled nights at the Hacienda then I'm sorry to disappoint you, I never went and I never did drugs either. I did get thrown out of the Paradise Factory though for following some friends through a side door as I didn't realise they were trying to sneak in without paying, oh and I once saw Dawn Acton in Jilly's Rockworld but perhaps those stories are better for if I ever cards of those particular nightspots.
I digress, today's subject matters were seen nearly every day by me for three years.  The first card is the Manchester Mathematics tower. I never had lectures here ( I studied languages) but I do remember taking a couple of exams here and finding the room labelling rather confusing. There was an urban legend that the tower had accidentally been built upside down and I can almost believe it. Like most students I tended to use the maths tower as a landmark, especially in the early days when I was new to the city. Its instantly recognisable shape probably aided many a poor student to navigate the city. I know if I saw the tower I knew I was nearly home.
The Mathematics Tower was constructed in 1968 in a modernist-brutalist style by local architecture firm Scherrer and Hicks. It was in use until merger of UMIST and The Victoria University of Manchester in 2004. It was deemed unfit for purpose and demolished the following year.  It was replaced by the Alan Turing Building in 2007. The postcard isn't dated but I've seen a similar picture in the University archive and that is from 1972 which seems accurate for the card.

The next card is of Moberly Tower and the Refectory, now I never stepped foot in Moberly Tower but I did use the refectory quite a bit and enjoyed their fish and chips and hot chocolate.  The Tower was built in 1963 and named after Walter Moberly who was Vice-Chancellor of The University between 1926 and 1934. I don't know if the refectory was built at the same time. It outlasted the Mathematics Tower by 5 years being demolished in 2010 and replaced  by the Alan Gilbert Learning Commons.  The card was sent in 1966.

Regarding the structures, now I'm the kind of person who can see beauty in most buildings but even I struggle to call The Mathematics Tower and especially Moberly Tower attractive , but I do think a refirb would have been preferable to total destruction. The towers were symbolic, and evocative for those of us of a certain age and instantly bring to mind more carefree and idealistic days .  The Maths Tower can even be seen in my graduation photographs. I visited Manchester University a few years ago as part of an alumni event and I shocked to see so few buildings I recognised (my halls of residence have also been destroyed). A lot of my memories are tied up in the look and feel of the place and I found it quite disorientating being among a mixture of the familiar and new. I almost felt as if my memories had never been real or had also been destroyed.
For those who want to see the destruction of the tower, pictures can be viewed here. As you'll see not everyone is as sentimental about the place as I am.
https://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=254283

Leipzig's Alte Messe.

I hadn't planned on blogging today but I was looking through some old photographs and noticed that it was exactly 20 years ago that I took these of the Soviet Pavilion in Leipzig.

This was  my first experience of urban exploration and it happened by accident. I'd been in Leipzig a couple of weeks by this stage and I'd noticed the shiny gold tower red star in the sky-line and was intrigued to go and visit.  I was initially quite disappointed to see that the buildings were in an abandoned state but soon enjoyed wondering around and taking photographs.
Leipzig has featured in this blog before, with the Paulinekirche being an example of cultural heritage destroyed by the GDR, this time it's the symbols of communism which are shown in a forlorn state.

Leipzig has been famous for its trade fair since the Middle Ages and continues to be so today. The old trade fair complex (Alte Messe) was built in 1913, the Soviet Pavilion being added 12 years later though it didn't get its distinctive look until 1950 taking inspiration from 1930s Moscow architecture. The Pavilion, otherwise known as Halle 12 (Exhibition hall 12) was just one part of the trade fair centre. The card below showing the full extent of the complex.

The next card dates from the mid 1950s and shows people visiting a Sports and Gymnastics exhibition. I don't have any cards depicting the inside but there are photos around on the web if you wish to look.

I don't know when the next postcard is from but I like that it acts as a contrast to my photo, showing construction rather than destruction.

The trade fair moved location in 1996 and the old complex was largely abandoned, though I seem to remember that one of the neighbouring exhibition halls was being used as a supermarket when I was there.
 The steps to exhibition hall 12 are still cordoned off but as it's a protected building it has not, in fact it cannot, be destroyed. I believe that the building is currently being sanitised and plans are afoot for the city archives to be moved there next year. I will update you on that when I know more, but in the time the gold tower and red star remain a symbol of a particular chapter in Leipzig's fascinating history.

Hotel Farr - Dream vs Reality

Have you ever had a grand plan in your mind  for something which hasn't worked out, but what you did end up with was more than satisfactory only for that to eventually come to an end?
I know I have, and John S Farr has too.
Who was John S. Farr? We'll he was a coal operator who envisaged a 14 storey, 250 room hotel in Huntingdon West Virginia.
A drawing of his plan can be seen in this vintage card below. 

However World War I meant that constructions costs increased and the hotel finished up half the size as was planned, but was still rather nice.

Just days after the end of WWI, a pottery salesman became the first guest of the hotel, setting a precedent as the hotel proved popular with travelling salesmen in the decades which followed.
The hotel  changes hands and went through a number of name changes in the 30s and 40s before closing in 1965 . From the 1970s until 2014 the building had been used as offices, business as well as apartments, but has remained empty since July 2014 when a fire damaged most of the building.
The building does actually still stand, and the original Hotel Farr sign is still visible but I'm not aware of any plans to renovate the building. In fact it's very hard to find any information about the place at all, but thanks to postcards and postcard collectors it is not truly forgotten.

Bingham Canyon - Destroyed by Success?

The first blog post of the year brings you a card from a bona fida lost place, Bingham Canyon Utah.
The card is not dated but is though to be from the 1920s.

Bingham Canyon Utah was once a busy little town which attracted a workforce from all over the world. So what happened to turn it into a ghost town?

 
The Beginnings
As with a couple of the other North America towns featured here, Bingham County was a mining town .  It's named after Thomas and Sanford Bingham the brothers who founded the town in 1848. Initially the area was farmland until gold and silver ores were discovered there in the 1860s, the building of a railway a decade later, plus a switch to mining copper helped expand the mines and consequently the town grew too.

The Boom
The early 20th century saw the Bingham Canyon continue to grow, at its peak in the 1910s  the town stretched for about 7 miles and the ethnically diverse population numbered around 15,000. It was considered a true melting pot with communities from all over Europe making up the workforce of the mine. 90% of which was born outside of the USA.

The Decline
Bingham county faced two problems. The first  being that the geography of the place made  urban development difficult. Other  townships were set up and the population of Bingham Canyon began to move out.
Ironically, it was the success of the mine itself which caused the biggest problem for the town. As it became more successful and expansive it encroached on the residential settlement also mechanisation rather than human resources were increasingly used meaning fewer jobs and fewer reasons to stay in the area. This downward its 31 inhabitants voted in favour of disincorporation.
A year later the remaining buildings were razed.


Today
Bingham Canyon Mine is still in operation. In fact it  is the largest man-made excavation in the world and is considered to have produced more copper than any other mine in history it also National Historic Monument Status.  
All land once occupied by Bingham Canyon has been consumed by the mine and no trace of the town exists today making it a genuine lost place.  
  

Buffalo Central Terminal 1929 - 1979

Some of you may have seen picture of today's subject matter in something of a sad and sorry state on a few websites which detail abandoned buildings.
This blog likes to redress the balance a little and show the places "in happier times" although I'm not sure if there were that many happy times in the timeframe of the station's existence.  The glorious Art Deco building (you must know by now about my fondness for those) can be seen looking shiny and  fairly new  on this 1940s card below.

Buffalo Central Terminal was a working station for 50 years, with around 200 trains a day coming and going in its busiest era . The station was opened on 22nd June 1929 and over 2000 guests attended. Services began the next day, only hours after the revellers had stopped celebrating. It wasn't particularly good timing for the station as the Wall Street Crash which happened only a few months later, followed by the resulting Depression had a negative impact on the number of people using the vast station. Increase in car ownership in the 1930s also meant fewer passengers travelled by train.
Activity picked up during WWII but soon declined again after the war was over. The station was put up for sale in 1956 but negotiations fell through and 10 years later dismantling of parts of it were already being dismantled.
Passengers did continue to use the station until 1979, the last train to depart from there was on October 28th 1979. Ironically ,at around the same time , in my home town 150 years of the Rainhill Locomotive Trails had just been celebrated.
The station was neglected and allowed to fall into disrepair during the 1980s and 1990s but repairs began in 2003 and tours of the place began.  Restorations have continued and many planned events are due to take place there this year. The first, the traditional Polish and Ukrainian Dygnus Day,  will be held on Easter Monday in  couple of weeks' time. 
I do hope that this is one story with a happy ending. I don't know if trains are likely to run from there again but I do like the idea of these gorgeous buildings being used for something.    
You can read about the restoration here
http://buffalonews.com/2016/06/25/central-terminal-is-given-a-temporary-face-lift-thanks-to-marshall-crew/
You can find out more the station here
http://buffalocentralterminal.org/

The Beresford Hotel, Glasgow

Today I'm looking at a building which is still in existence, in fact it's a listed building, but which has had several incarnations since being built.

It's an Art Deco building which I'm sure you all know by now are my favourites.

You probably can't read the card but it states Beresford Hotel Glasgow, Scotland's Newest Hotel. Standing proudly on the famous Sauchiehall Street it was known as Glasgow's first sky scraper and was the tallest building erected in the city during the interwar period. The designer, William Beresford Inglis took inspiration from contemporary cinemas.  

It was built in 1938 for those attending the city's Empire Exhibition which took place between May-December that year. The event attracted 12 million visitors but it's unknown how many of them made use of the hotel. What  is known is that it was a popular venue for American Servicemen during WWII.

It continued as a hotel until 1952 when demand for such accommodation began decline and for the next 12 years was Scotland's HQ for ICI (Imperial Chemical Industries) before being sold to the University of Strathclyde in 1964 to be used  as student accommodation.

I have to say I'm quite envious of the students who lived in such a lovely building. My own Halls of Residence in Manchester were a rather less lovely 1970s building though I was quite fond of the place at the time. Initially they were only open to male students until the 1980s when female students were permitted to live on the top floor.

In 2002 they were sold again and now contain 112 private flats. Again, I'm quite envious of the people who live there.

The postcard is not dated and has not been posted, but from the description on the front I'd say it was from shortly after the hotel was built.

  

Grossinger's - The Dirty Dancing Hotel.

Grossingers Resort Hotel was a  family run affair in the  Catskill Mountains, a popular tourist spot for urban Jewish families and the starting point for many Borscht Belt style comedians.
It is said to have been the inspiration behind the hotel in Dirty Dancing, a film which premiered the year after Grossinger's closed.

It was founded in 1919 by married couple Asher and Malke Grossinger but really hit its stride in the 1950s and 60s when Jennie, their daughter, acted as hostess. The emphasis was on glamour but with a personal touch and it soon gained the nickname "The Waldorf of The Catskills"

The outside of the building as shown on the postcard below (sent in 1967 by someone attending a banquet for School Business Officials) is fairly uninspiring looking.

However, the site itself was very impressive with  35 buildings in 1200 acres of land which included its own airstrip and post office complete with its own zip code.

The card (written in 1965 to someone's mum, someone with handwriting so terrible that's all I can make out) below gives some impression of the size.

The rooms such as the Terrace Lounge and The Pink Elephant Bar were bright and colourful. The former was modernised by Morris Lapidus a name synonymous with 50s and 60s hotel architecture.

There were a variety of activities the guests could enjoy, they didn't even have to wait for winter to go skiing as the hotel became the first place to use artificial snow in 1952.

There was also an ice rink and indoor and outdoor swimming pools.

  

Jennie died in 1972 but the hotel did still attract guests until cheaper foreign air travel in the late 70s and early 80s and changing tastes meant that resort hotels fell out of favour.

It was closed in 1986 and thirty years later the buildings remain decaying and abandoned. That is all except the golf course which is still active and possibly one of the eeriest golf courses around.

More information including photos of before and after can be found here

http://joe4speed.com/grossingers.htm

The Short and Tragic History of New Brighton Tower

I have to admit that when I was looking through my old cards recently, this one barely registered until I realised that New Brighton doesn't have a tower anymore.
I investigated and found an interesting and  rather tragic history.

It's not easy to tell from the postcard but when construction was completed in 1900 the tower, at 567, was the tallest building in Britain. It is said that from the top of the tower you could see the Isle of Man, The Lake District and the Welsh Monuntains.
The grounds of the tower were 20 acres and contained a boating lake, complete with gondolars ;  funfair and gardens. The tower itself contained a menagerie which included bears, leopards and the now extinct Barbary lion. (what I wouldn't do for a postcard of those.)
The contruction itself was beset with problems. 6 workers were killed in accidents and a fireman also met his death extingingusihing a fire which broke out during construction.
Sadly, the tower only enjoyed 14 years as a tourist destination as with the outbreak of WW1 it was closed for national security reasons and fell into disrepair. The dismantling started in 1919 and was completed in 1921 . The brick portion at the bottom which contained a theatre and ballroom remained until 1969 when another fire destroyed all but the shell. The site was eventually cleared and now contains a housing estate and football pitch. Plans to build a new tower in New Brighton have been rejected, perhaps knowing the history of the old one this is for the best.
The postcard itself is undated but is similar to others I have seen dated  1912. It was published by Valentines and is a devided back postcard.

Edits

This postcard isn't mine but it does show the size of the place rather well.

Also, I received a message on Facebook asking why I didn't mention the connection with Beatles. I agree that this was an oversight. The Beatles played at the Tower Ballroom a total of 27 times, second only to the Cavern club for UK venues. A Blue Plaque was erected in 2011 to honour this.

The Rise and Fall of the Lee Plaza Hotel, Detroit

I would to take a look at something which may have a happy ending.

The Lee Plaza Hotel in Detroit was once the cities biggest apartment hotel. The 15 storey building was constructed in 1929 in the Art Deco style.

Although it was originally conceived as hotel, it spent much of its life as an upscale apartment block with hotel services. The cities rich and powerful who resided in the building could choose one of 220 rooms which ranged from 1 bedroom to 4 bedrooms. They could also take advantage of a concierge, Servidor, 24 hour valet parking, beauty parlour, games room, library and a supervised children's play room.

While some people probably did stay there long-term, and who can blame them, many more used the place as a temporary residence such as the sender of our postcard who stayed there in 1941 while her place was being decorated.

Sadly the good times were not to last. The hotel changed ownership several times, was declared bankrupt at least once and guests dwindled as residential hotels fell out of favour.

In 1969 it, along with other famous buildings in Detroit, became a senior citizens' complex. However its troubles were not over and when an elderly resident was murdered there in 1987 more residents began to leave and the place was finally closed in 1997.

This century the building has been seen by many as a symbol of Detroit's decline from prosperity to poverty.

The building may yet prosper again. A Detroit native by the name of Craig Sasser bought the building in 2015 and there are plans to renovate the building and develop the surrounding area.

This is not the first time hotels have been redeveloped from seemingly hopeless cases. The King Edward Hotel in Jackson, Mississippi was empty for 40 years before restoration began in 2007. Closer to home, another Art Deco masterpiece the Midland in Morecambe underwent expensive restoration to be returned to its former glory.

For now though, The Lee Plaza remains an example of an abandoned building and symbol of the turbulent nature of the past 80+ years.

More information about the Lee Plaza and other buildings in Detroit can be found at the excellent historicdetroit.org

Centralia, PA

The above image is a postcard of Centralia, Pennsylvania dated 1914. A postcard from a place which no longer has a ZIP code.

Centralia was a mining town in the sate of Pennsylvania and although never a bustling place, it did have a sizeable population with hotels, churches and, as seen in the postcard, shops and tree-lined avenues.
The 20th century was not kind to the town, as WWI raged on, young men who normally have been working in the mines were enlisted and mining declined, there was further tragedy in 1929 when The Wall Street crash resulted in five mines being closed.
Worse was yet to come when in 1962 a coal seam fire ignited and is still burning today. This led to the town being almost totally abandoned and most of the buildings levelled. In 2013 there were 7 people living in the town and once these people leave it is unlikely the place will ever have a permanent  population again, though it remains a popular tourist destination.