Photo: "Peeking"

Top floor in the Walker Building

The Walker Building at Central State Hospital was constructed in 1884 and abandoned nearly 100 years later. The last 30 years have not been kind to this building. Days like this, humid and rainy, have taken a toll on the wooden elements of the building, causing much of the roof to collapse onto the floor of the third level. 

(Print - http://smu.gs/18H8VsH) 

Photo: "Break In the Darkness"

Hartsville Nuclear Plant

The Tennessee Valley Authority never imagined that construction on this plant would end a few short years after it began, in 1983, with thousands of government dollars wasted, creating a paradise for people like me. 

Walking around this plant, I felt small. Being surrounded by a massive world of nuclear concrete that is slowly being overtaken by nature, after being abandoned for three decades, is an experience you can't easily forget. 

These places are my home. It's hard to convey how much life lies within the places most people consider to be dead. The walls of these buildings speak many words as long as you're willing to listen and embrace the history. I don't believe in ghosts, if they existed I definitely would have seen them in some of these places, but I believe in the countless stories and memories the patients and employees left behind. 

Photo: "Roost"

When construction began on the Hartsville plant in the late 1970's, the Tennessee Valley Authority never imagined less than a decade later, they would be canceling construction of the plant. 

In 1983, when the plant was canceled, the reality set in that the needs for nuclear power were not as great as many predicted years before. 

Now the plant sits abandoned, a home for vultures and small birds nesting in the building's orifices.  

Photo: "Admin Offices"

Former administrative office, Babcock Building 

The administration section of the Babcock Building at the South Carolina Lunatic Asylum was the last section of the building to be constructed and was completed in 1885. 

Within the central building was a central hall, with offices on either side, and a connector hallway to allow for passage from between the north and south wards. The second floor contained operating rooms as well as residences for the doctors and supervisor. 

(Print - http://smu.gs/13HnQzN) 

USS Mount Hood AE-29 Hull Cleaning

On Wednesday, August 21, the USS Mount Hood was removed from the Suisun Bay Reserve Fleet and transported to Mare Island to receive a hull cleaning before making the long trek through the Panama Canal to be recycled in Texas. 

The USS Mount Hood, a Kilauea-class ammunition ship, was the second ship to be named after the Oregon volcano. Her hull was laid down in May 1967 by the Bethlehem Steel Corporation in Sparrows Point, Maryland and commissioned in 1971. Her homeport was Concord, California, a short distance from where her hull is being cleaned. 

She was decommissioned in Bremerton, Washington in 1999, and transferred to MARAD and placed in Suisun Bay shortly thereafter.  

Photo: "Corridor, Forensic Building"

Corridor inside the forensic building at Mayview State Hospital in Pennsylvania. 

This building was responsible for housing the criminally insane, those guilty by reason of insanity, which is one of the reasons the building is very stark and mundane.   

Sadly, this campus was demolished earlier this year.  

 (Print - http://smu.gs/13FVc27)