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.

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.

The MV Kalakala - From Icon to Embarrassment

I've mentioned before that I particularly like Art Deco related cards so when I heard about the MV Kalakala I just had to find a postcard of her.
This wasn't too difficult considering that she was once the second most photographed item in the world, with only the Eiffel Tower beating her. Not bad for what is basically a car ferry.
She was also one of the most popular exhibits at the 1962 Seattle World fair. The postcard below was sent from Seattle but many years earlier in 1946.

She was launched in 1926 as the Peralta but a fire 7 years later destroyed her superstructure. The brief for the redesign was to be distinctive and modernistic and eventually it was decided she should modelled on contemporary aircraft. The publicity was also intriguing, billboards were commissioned with simply Kalakala written on them in large letters.
The unusual design was a case of style over substance. The narrow car deck meant that she could carry less vehicles than other vessels and there were difficulties with docking due to the setback of the wheelhouse. Still, she remained popular with tourists who enjoyed moonlight cruises on the ferry.
The design faults didn't stop her from seeing heavy service in WWII where she was used to transport shipyard workers and Navy personelle. Her popularity as a vehicle  had waned by the 1950s and she gained unflattering nicknames such as the Silver Slug and Galloping Ghost.
She was retired from service in 1967 but was used as a factory ship until she was beached in 1970 and used to process shrimp. In 2004 she was sold to a private investor as her previous owners couldn't afford the upkeep. However she was evicted from her new home Neah Bay that year and the Macah people who had provided the anchorage sued the owners. I do not know the outcome of this but she was moved to Tacoma Washington.
By 2011 she was very frail and would up being sold for a nominal fee of a dollar with the understanding that the purchaser would renovate her. This did not happen and she was scrapped in early 2015.
When writing about the Kalakala I can't help picturing her as a tragic movie star, tragic beginnings,  good looks and publicity helping her get noticed  followed by rising and falling popularity. She has a brief moment in the sun again before retirement followed by lawsuits and eviction and finally ending up on the scrap heap unloved and largely unmourned apart from by those of us with a cult interest in these things. Kind of sad  really.     
If you are wondering about the unusual name she is from the Chinook Jargon trade language and means "bird". The Chinook Jargon, unlike the Kalakala, is still being used but with less than 650 speakers who knows for how much longer.
 
 

Gone but Not Forgotten- The Majestic Hotel, Hot Springs Arkansas

I've mentioned before that there are some postcards I'd like to be able to setp into and this is one of them.
I'd love to be able to see this beautiful building in its prime and I'm intrigued to know what the people on the left of the card all in white are doing.
Curiously, I've seen a couple of different versions of this same card but with cars or trams superimposed over the horse and carriages. The mysterious figures in white remain in all versions. What do you think they are doing?

The hotel, built in 1882 and originally named the Avenue Hotel had an interesting and varied life before sadly being destroyed in fire 6 years ago.
The hotel got its new name six years after being built and with the change of moiker came a lift, something new at the time.  Curiosly it's the second hotel called the Majestic Hotel to feature in this blog. I wonder if the name is cursed. I don't really beleive in curses but I might make it a side project to see how many places called the Majestic would be suitable for this blog.
The building as depicted on the card was actually built in 1903, replacing a wooden structure and becoming one of the first brick buildings in Hot Springs. Although not part of the famous Bathhouse Row, the hotel did receive many vistors who were in town to take the waters and trams would depart to and from the hotel every five minutes to guests to the bath houses.
The hotel rose in popularity in early part of the 20th century and famous guests included The Boston Red Sox, the Pittsburg Pirates and Babe Ruth.  Could the people on the card be playing baseball? I wonder. The Pittsburg Pirates did spring training here from 1901 until 1916 so that is a distinct possibility.
The sender of the card (postmarked 29th November 1910) doesn't mention meeting anyone famous, just that she wishes she'd brought warmer clothes.
Perhaps the most notorious guest was Al Capone's rival Bugs Moran. Capone spent a lot of time in Hot Springs too and the two formed a sort of truce while in town.  During WWII, the hotel was used as a redsribution centre for American soldiers, but it opened again as a hotel in 1945 and still attracted celebrity guests such as Humphrey Bogart and Liberace.
The latter half of the 20th century seems to have a been a rather uneventful period for The Majestic though a million dollar renovation did take place in 1982.  Guest numbers dwindled in the 1990s and the hotel was closed and abandoned in 2006.
Plans to renovate the building were discussed the following year but came to nothing and now sadly never will as the hotel was destroyed by fire 2010.
The hotel is still fondly remembered by many residents of the town.

Update

Here's another version of the card, with cars instead of horse and carriages taken from the abandonedar website. Looking at it again, I believe the people in white might be fencing.

Source  http://www.abandonedar.com/

Gilman, Colorado

Gilman, Colorado as with Centralia is a former mining town, also in common with Centralia it was abandoned relatively recently but it doesn't seem to be as famous as Centralia.

Now on private property it is strictly out of bounds without permission though some photographs of the town in its abandoned  and sadly vandalised state do exist.

It was founded in 1886 during the Colorado Silver Boom and centred on the now flooded Eagle Mine. The boom ended in 1893 and many towns became ghost towns in the period immediately afterwards. However, Gilman survived until 1984 even though it was nearly destroyed by a fire in 1899. As with Centralia, Gilman was quite a thriving town in its heyday with theatres, shops, hotels and schools.


The abandonment of the town was ordered by the Environmental Protection Agency due to toxic pollutions and contaminated water, but by this point the mines were not profitable either.

As you can see from the card (undated but from the 1907-1914 period) the town is rather high up. It sits at an elevation of  2,700 metres on a cliff of around 180 metres high.

The town today is relatively well preserved and includes cars and trucks left behind by their owners.

For photographs of the town today, as well as information on other ghost towns I recommend the below link.

http://www.ghosttowns.com/states/co/gilman.html

For a detailed history and some really cool photos check out the below.

http://substreet.org/gilman-colorado/

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.

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.