Crumbling on U.S. 50

Sign outside abandoned building
Originally uploaded by surly monkey

There is something about abandoned buildings that catches my attention. It's hard to say what it is about the relics that attracts me. I suspect part of it is growing up in Indianapolis and seeing the decaying remains of the Rust Belt. There was this abandoned factory on the downtown side of the Kentucky Ave. bridge that I was alway curious about. One of the last times I was in Indy, I could barely find the bridge and that factory was long gone. There probably aren't that many abandoned buildings left in Indy anymore, with all of the revitalization that city has experienced since I left.

Some of this could have come from living in Muncie as well. That city was smack dab in the middle of the manufacturing decline in the U.S. Once one got away from campus and the residential neighborhoods, it'd be hard to throw a rock without hitting an abandoned factory.

It seems to me that these crumbling buildings have stories of their own. Stories about the people who built and work inside them. And in a way the ghosts of those people still inhabit these crumbling structures. Not in a "ooohhh a scary ghost" way but in the way the energy that people expended inside places like this still lingers in those bricks. There is a sense for me that our history is in buildings as well. It strikes me that at one time (not that long ago) factories were very much American cathedrals. They were at least built as lofty at times.

All I know is that when I see an abandoned and crumbling building, I want to remember it or at least take a photo of it.