The Klein Curacao (‘Little Curacao’) lighthouse was first built in 1850, on a tiny spit of land 11km off the southeastern tip of Curacao in the Caribbean Sea. It’s exactly the kind of place that Jack Sparrow would have pranced around. Now it is hollowed out, crumbling rapidly, and nominated for endangered status, despite being rebuilt once in 1879 and again in 1913. White masonry tower, red brick keeper’s dwellings. Image from Philip Stevenson Located on a barren flat of rock and low scrub.? Image from Luciano Gollini The 20m (66ft) tall lighthouse tower is abandoned, along with the two …
Abandoned Lighthouses 5. Grand Isaac Cay
The lighthouse on Great Isaac Cay, a small island in the Bahamas around 20 miles north-east of the Bimini Islands, was built in 1859 to guide trade-ships carrying exports of sun-dried sea salt from Inagua, rum from Nassau, and aragonite lime-stone to markets in the US. The lighthouse, though scoured by the sea and surrounded by the tumbledown buildings of the keeper’s house, is actually still in operation as an unmanned light. A tiny island not even visible on Google maps. Local lore tells of ghostly noises swelling about the lighthouse during a full moon- apparently the spectres of a …
Abandoned Lighthouses 4. Mogadishu
The crumbling Italian lighthouse perched on the edge of Mogadishu’s Old Harbor was built over a century ago, and abandoned some 20 years ago as trade dried up and the failed state of Somalia descended into a home for extreme jihad and piracy. Now it stands as a reminder of the spectacular city Mogadishu once was, a bullet-pocked shell left to rot as a haven for homeless fishermen and qat-junkies. A view across Mogadishu’s Old Harbor to the Indian Ocean. Image from “[The lighthouse’s] spiral staircase is in a state of mid-collapse. Its hollowed-out rooms smell of sea rot and …
Abandoned Lighthouses 3. Tillamook Rock
The Tillamook Rock Light was built in 1881 on a rock off Oregon coast called Tillamook Head. It was born in blood; with its grand opening overshadowed by a nearby shipwreck just days before its guardian gas-light was lit. 16 people died when the barque Lupatia wrecked on the rocks in a storm, proving the necessity of a lighthouse there. Tillamok Rock. Image from Wikipedia. Due to the extensive surveying and blasting necessary to build a lighthouse on the Tillamook sea-crag, combined with the erratic weather conditions, it was the most expensive West Coast lighthouse ever built. It soon became …
Abandoned Lighthouses 2. Talacre Beach
The ‘Point of Ayr’ lighthouse has stood on Talacre Beach in Wales in various incarnations since 1776, watching over ships make the trek across Liverpool Bay from the Welsh town of Lllandudno. Abandoned since 1840, it has lived through numerous cycles of disrepair and refurbishment, with the latest reconstruction in 1994, leaving it a cheery red and white candy-pole on the beach, framed by the nearby offshore wind-farm. Point of Ayr on Talacre Beach, North Wales. Image from Richard John Linnett. White and red in the distance. Beginning another cycle of decay; the white paint peels away. Image from Adrian …
Abandoned Lighthouses 1. Rubjerg-Knude
Construction of the Rubjerg-Knude lighthouse in Jutland, Denmark straddled the last two centuries, beginning in 1899 and finishing in 1900. It was built on a dune-less cliff 200m away from the sea and 60m above sea level, but as the years passed the sea drew closer, and with it came the dunes, which gradually began to swallow up the base of the lighthouse. The Rubjerg-Knude, buried in sand. Image from Milan Kuminowski. Initially it was 23 meters tall, but by 1968 only some 15 meters was accessible- the rest, including all the entrances, were stopped up and buried, finally shutting …
2011 Haikyo Calendar
I made a haikyo calendar! It’s live and available for purchase on lulu right now, 13 great haikyo images (12 months and the cover) in an 11 x 8.5 size, for only $14.99. It would make a great Christmas present, oh yes. What better gift than a lovely calendar of ruins? What better gift for yourself? BUY BUY BUY! Buy it in droves and encourage me to go ahead and (finally) publish a handsome book of all these ruins locations. Here’s a sample month, followed by a live preview via lulu. You can buy direct from this link here. Read …
The abandoned resort of Hanultari on Jeju island
Hanultari was our second abandoned resort on the Korean island of Jeju. We saw it while cruising to Ilchulbong volcano crater in a taxi, barely peeking through the mist. After climbing up the crater, which was completely covered in mist and thus invisible to us, we got our driver to take us back to the ruin. He stood by his taxi and watched (probably a bit bemused) as we clambered the hotel`s half-built skeleton and took photos of each other posing. Unfortunately, the mist and my old Powershot camera combined to make most of the pictures pretty awful. Here`s a …
The Prada store that got left behind
In the Texas desert near the little town of Marfa, on a stretch of Highway known as the loneliest road in America, sits the Prada store that got left behind. No attendants bustle behind its chic white counters, though it’s fully stocked with veblen bags and shoes. The automatic doors don`t open and no one will validate your parking, but the lights do come on at night, making its glowing glass frontage the only illumination for miles around. Photo by Jonathon Percy.
The aftermath of Oradour’s War
Oradour-sur-Glane is a village in west-central France. The original village was destroyed on 10 June 1944, when 642 of its inhabitants, including women and children, were massacred by a German Waffen-SS company. A new village was built after the war on a nearby site and the original has been maintained as a memorial. Photo by Ramos Andrade.