Inalternativement camp. Booktv, 48 hours of books and authors. Television for serious readers. Next on booktv from the gershman y in philadelphia Matthew Christopher presents photos from his book, abandoned america. Mr. Christopher spent ten years documenting ruined institutions throughout the country from schools and churches to factories and military installations. This is about an hour and ten minutes. [inaudible conversations] all right. Sounds like the mics on. Thank you so much for coming out tonight, folks, on behalf of hidden city philadelphia. Id like to welcome you to this event, this celebration of Matt Christophers new book abandoned america the age of consequences. Before i forget, id like to point out that this event is actually being recorded by cspan. Everything that happens tonight will eventually appear on booktv. Now, what they need you to do is turn off your cell phones. Its like going to the ritz. [laughter] and to remember that were going to have a q and a session after the event. I mean after matt is done speaking. And then also when you have a question during that q a well be around with a microphone for you. So, you know, dont be that kid calling out in class. [laughter] you know i, ive known matt for a while now, and the first time i really understood kind of, you know just how good he was at what he does is when we made plans to go see the willow steam plant which is this really monstrous brick and rusty smokestack building which is on 10th and callow hill street which is maybe two miles away from here. And i was actually late arriving. It was my idea. And when i arrived, matt wasnt there. And so i, you know, i get out my cell phone i give him a call and say, hey, matt, where are you at . Hes like oh, im already inside. I was like, wow, this guy looks pretty mild mannered but hes actually pretty hard core. Hes really got his stuff together. You know, hes not scared, hes willing to, you know, go and explore these amazing places and bring back these wonderful images for us to enjoy. Now, theres a lot of folks who go out and explore the city, explore abandoned factories, schools, asylums but what makes matt different is that hes always been interested in presenting the Historical Context of these places. Hes interested in sharing with, you know, his readers on his web site and also the folks who take his workshops and also sometimes, you know, on our welcome back site, the hidden city daily, you know, the back story, what makes these places important and how they got to be in the state that they are today. I think thats really the difference between matt and what has come to be called ruin porn. And i wish that wasnt the term that has become popular but it is. But thankfully thats not what were talking about here tonight. And so, you know matts been doing this work for ten years, and this book is the culmination of all, all that work that incredible archive and the passion that hes brought to this project. And, you know, were really pleased to be able to present this event with him tonight. Thank you, matt. But im actually going to give it over to olivia to talk a little bit about matt next, okay . Thank you, guys. [applause] thank you so much pete. That was wonderful. Id like to thank hidden city for being one of the presenting organizations tonight. Hello and welcome to the gershman y. My name is olivia ant job sis and im the director of the philadelphia jewish Film Festival a Signature Program of the gershman y. Before i introduce Matthew Christopher, i would like to briefly tell you about the organization to hosting tonights book launch event. Tonights book launch event. The gershman y began as the Young Mens Hebrew Association in 1875 and served as a social, educational and cultural meeting place. In the 1960s and 70s, the y earned the reputation for bringing the avantgarde scene to philadelphia. Being the first to present the work of andy warhol, klaus oldenburg, poets e. E. Cummings and lawrence berlin getty and legendary rock musicians the velvet underground. And a little bit of local trivia, it was on this very day, december 11th, 1966, in this very building that lou reed first rocked out in philadelphia. [laughter] so Matthew Christopher is in good company presenting his book launch at our historic institution. Speaking of matthew, it is such a pleasure to introduce him as the author of abandoned america the age of consequences. As someone who is both very close to him and who has been following his photography for years, i know the incredible amount of work that went into making this book a reality and im so proud and impressed by what it has meant and continues to signify for so many fans of his work around the world. Whether it is a personal connection to one of the places that matthew has photographed or a deep concern for the preservation of american Historic Sites or a love of the photographs themselves hearing from readers as far as australia, germany u. K. , pretty much any country around the globe as well as the people as close as this room the feedback we have received has really meant a lot to matthew. Now for those in the audience who are not familiar with his work, i will provide a little bit of background. Matthew christopher began documenting abandoned sites a decade ago while researching the decline of the State Hospital system. While he originally had no formal education in photography, he has since completed his mfa at Rochester Institute of technology. He has had gallery shows across the u. S. , been featured on nbc nightly news, whyy lectured on abandoned spaces and Mental Health history for the Pennsylvania State museum, preservation pennsylvania Milton Hershey Medical Center and others and his work has been in Media Outlets including the Weather Channel Huffington Post buzzfeed, New York Daily News the International Journal of arts and humanities, United Nations chronicle and many more. His web site abandoned america has gained International Attention and is considered one of the leading collections of images of abandoned spaces on the internet. Now without further ado, it is my pleasure and my honor to introduce Matthew Christopher. Enjoy the evening and join us afterwards for more book signings, more food and more socializing amongst yourselves. Thank you so much for being here. [applause] hi everybody. Thank you very much for coming out tonight. Its really a pleasure to be here with you. Um first things first, id really like to thank a handful of people that have made this what it is tonight, because i certainly could not have done it on my own. First and foremost my family has really helped out a lot with this. I mean, in terms of the food, you know, the tables out there and everything, this is my family members that have really helped set this up and run it. Hidden city, obviously, has been a fantastic and pete and isabelle in particular have just done a great job on this. Pete is actually, little known fact, i did my first photography workshop because of pete at the navy yard. So that was, you know, all the work that i did with that kind of came as a result of his work in setting that up. Also would like to thank the gershman y for allowing us to use this space. I dont know if you notice, but out at table where the books are sold, theres a raffle for two different prints and for a 25 bruno brothers Gift Certificate that you can enter and that is that goes back to the gershman y which, you know as olivia points out is a wonderful Arts Organization as a thank you for allowing us all to be here tonight. Id like to thank my aunt and uncle who also helped quite a bit in setting in this up my publisher and the Preservation Alliance for their kind donation of some wine, and olivia who has been wonderful and has been my support throughout all of this. So im sure there are a lot of other people and i wanted to thank all of you as well, but i know that you would like to see the presentation, so i dont want to talk up the whole time with thank yous. Again, im really grateful that that you all came out tonight and it means a lot to me. So basically in terms of how ive done presentations more those of you who have seen them in the past, i kind of enjoy doing things that are off the cuff and kind of talking about the places that ive been to. So what id like to do is kind of just show you a little bit of what some of the places are that are in the book and tell you a little bit about them as we go. So the first place that i wanted to show you a little bit about is the packard plant which is in detroit. Its probably one of the most famous and also the largest abandoned site in north america. Its sprawling been out of commission since, you know the 1950s, 1960s and its just a kind of a stunning, stunning campus there. I mean, its enormous. There are places where you go to the tops of buildings and you look out across, and its hard to imagine that theres a part of the world thats not abandoned. Very interesting set of buildings and also, you know right now theyre basically you know, this kind of happened after the book went to print but a peruvian developer had bought them and apparently, theyre starting work on trying to rehab them which is kind of one of those things that i know a lot of people are skeptical about, including myself a little bit. But i think it would be amazing if they could return them to use because theyre just these really iconic and beautiful buildings. This is the coles Motorcycle Salvage shop in lockport, new york. And this basically was one gentleman who ran a motorcycle repair business and collected just a ungodly amount of motorcycles in it. And its a very interesting place in part because, you know, after he lost control of the place and then later passed away, all of these bikes were still in it and the floors were just atrocious. I mean, that was a really frightening place to be in because, you know, there were these huge holes all over the place, and particularly up on the second floor. I think, you know as a photographer and being in the building my concern was that you know not only would i go through the floor and then punch through the floor below that, but then all the bikes would fall on me too. [laughter] and actually, its interesting because one of the things thats been, i think, actually one of the nicest things that kind of having a, you know, a big social media radius i guess you would say, is that i get to hear from people that have had their stories in these places and that theyve been part of their lives. And one of the things that was really cool is that one of the guys who unfortunately, many of these bikes were scrapped. And one of the gentlemen who was involved with unloading the bikes from there contacted me about it, and it was kind of interesting because i said well, you know, im surprised you didnt die, you know . I was just going around ask taking pictures, and he was actually moving all the bikes and machinery around. And he said that he fell through the floor two different times, that at one point when he was taking some of the pieces off some of the bikes that he was working in one spot all day came back the next day and the whole section had fallen through the floor. So um, yeah, just a very entering place very unique interesting place very unique, and at this point it not only was cleaned out, but then it burned. So its not really there to see anymore. This is more of a regional one. The lands down theater which i dont know if any of you are familiar with, but if youre not, you should be. Its one of the last golden age theaters in philadelphia. And particularly after the destruction of the boyd, its very important i think, in terms of sort of preserving our theater heritage because were really lagging behind a lot of other major cities in that area. Matt schultz is the guy who is kind of spearheading the preservation effort and has done just a tremendous amount to keep this building open and to get, you know renovation done on it. Its pretty amazing. So one of the reasons that i included this place in the book is because i wanted to have a little bit of a balance so that it wasnt all just doom and gloom and all these places got torn down and burned and, you know . I wanted to show why theyre so important, but also there are people out there that are fighting for them and a lot of them are kind of, you know, battlegrounds of sorts. So anyway, the lands down theater is one if you go on their facebook page, you can periodically see theyll have events and things like that like fundraisers and i would definitely encourage all of you if you get a chance to go and check it out sometime because it really is a beautiful building. This is one of my favorites, the church of the transfiguration. I think this was at 56th and cedar. And it is of all the places that ive photographed, i think it would probably be on my top ten or top five list of places that i love the most, but its also the one that i hear the most about from people. People contact me about this quite frequently, and there are a lot of people that are parishioners and that, you know, their parents were married there or they were baptized there, they went to school there, and it was just a very meaningful place to them. Beautiful building. Actually one of the things that is interesting about it too is that, you know, what is it, the seven degrees of kevin bay can game or do you know what im talking about . This would be my like three, four degrees to anne hathaway. [laughter] because she actually her boyfriend for a time was a guy who was a con man, and he basically had this scheme that he was telling people that he had an in at the vatican, he was going to get all these disused Church Properties and rehabilitate them return hem to use, and he was going to do all these great things like insuring the uninsured and student lofts and artist housing and all these great things. And he took just gobs of money in from rich investors including the guy whos the owner of the Pittsburgh Penguins and then just, you know had, had a great time with anne. [laughter] and then he got arrested, he went to jail and for stealing millions of dollars, he served the shocking, you know penalty of four and a half years in jail. So hes out now, but im sure hes very remorseful about it. [laughter] oh oh but i didnt explain. Thing is this transfiguration was one of the only three churches that he was actually successfully able to get, and that was part of the reason why it sat there. And then once he went to jail and it got sold to somebody else they just wanted the school building, and they attorney it down. Its actually a garbagestrewn lot right now. Yeah, i should have, i should have pointed that out. So this is the lebeau Brothers Clothing factory, and this was in baltimore. Very entering place actual. I mean basically they went under. They started as the crown quirk and seal company and then it became a clothing factory. And just really interesting past. They went under in part because of the fact that, you know people dont, guys dont wear like two jackets into work anymore. Thats not really sort of part of our culture the way it used to be. So the demand wasnt there. But they had originally made very highend clothing. And one of the things people always ask me about this place is how is it that all these coats were left there . Because there were hundreds of hundreds of hundreds of hundreds of coats. I mean, it was pretty mindboggling. It was literally wading through an ocean of coats. And a lot of them still had their slip covers on and even after 20 or so years were still in really good condition. Maybe they had gone through that cycle and become retro by that point or something . I dont know. [laughter] but the thing that is interesting about that is, you know basically when a site goes through bankruptcy proceedings, they often will shutter the place and keep everything in there so that it can be sold off to pay off debts. But things like coats are kind of nickel and dime stuff to a bank and particularly if, you know, the place that owned them wasnt able to sell enough of them anyway what bank is going to necessarily want to do that . So thats part of the reason why they were left there for years and years. You know, i could talk on and on about a lot of these places, but i just want to give you an overview. That one has actually been rehabilitated into a school. This place i am going to use a pseudonym of harmony house for and harmony house was a really entering resort that interesting resort that basically was formed by the textile unions. And is, actually the original people who purchased it, some of them were the survivals of the triangle shirt waist fire which i thought was interesting. And there were a number of people then when it went from a regional textile thing to being sold to the larger textile union, when that happened, there were a lot of philadelphia textile companies that were involved in this place as well. So, you know, there were a lot of people that were really kind of, you know, like Eleanor Roosevelt came to speak there. They were really a progressive place in terms of how they approached race, how they approached womens rights. Their labor views, you know, they were definitely kind of a more left leaning place, but they had sort of radical notion that people that were Blue Collar Workers should be able to go out and stay at this really nice resort and see great entertainers and read and hear authors and things like that. And, you know, so one of the things that i think is kind of important in the book overall is to look at things not just as the death of one physical place, but also the ideology that is behind them. So when you look at a place like that, what i see is that theres also this ideal of, you know the Blue Collar Workers that were at these textile plants being able to enjoy sort of the finer things in life at an affordable rate that they could go to with their families. And, you know, thats i dont know that really our generation has it. Certainly the textile workers in, you know, bangladesh can probably dont. Bangladesh probably dont. This is another hotel that was basically the area was originally a very sort of highend, like a mineral spa, sulfur spas. And so there were a lot of people that would go like the rockefellers, the macys went there, oscar wilde had gone to that town. Now, in this would have been before the hotel was built but this was just giving you an idea of what the significance of the place was. It was really kind of high end. And then as sort of the cycles with the welltodo go, there were other places they wanted to go instead and that kind of slumped a little bit. Then it had a resurgence with a lot of jewish vacationers actually, that were kind of, unfortunately, shunned at other resorts. So they went out, and this was one of buildings that they used. And so, um, there were synagogues and kosher restaurants and everything in the town. Basically, one thing i like to point out with this picture that is kind of veering a little off of the historical end of things is one of the reasons that youll see in my work that im so fussy about Straight Lines and, you know, making sure everythings really balanced is because when you look at a picture like this, what i would like you to know is that i just didnt have my camera kind of cockeyed, you know . It was that that definitely is a list in the staircase and it was actually pretty scary to go up. [inaudible] i am, first of all, im not going to tell you where the places are if i dont mention it and, secondly, please let me take questions at the end. So this would be the Grand Staircase here, and this also is at an angle too. The building is in pretty atrocious shape and, basically im not surprised if itll collapse at some time very soon. This is a regional site. This is Holmesburg Prison in philadelphia. Its the same radial kind of style. This would be, i believe and i cant, you know, say for 100 certain, but i think this is one of the newer additions that youre looking at right here, because older additions have this kind of, you know the barrel vaulted sort of ceiling like that . Just like eastern state penitentiary, they also have the old slit in the ceiling that, you know the light of god could shine down on you and make you think about all the awful things that you did. So yeah. I mean, theres actually quite a bit in the book about holmesburg really had just an appalling past. I mean, you know, you dont expect prisons to have necessarily happy cheery pasts, but there was a lot of medical testing that i go into in greater detail. Anything you wouldnt want to be tested with they probably tested on people. They also had, you know, a bun. Of riots a bunch of riot, and some of them were really brutal and bloody. There was one incident where the warden and i think his deputy were murdered. They were stabbed to death by the inmates. One of the other ones and im kind of its funny, im sort of working from the present back, but one of the earlier incidents was a Hunger Strike where the people were unhappy about the quality of food there, and so they took the strike leaders and put them in this building that no longer exists called the colon dike that had a bunch colon dike that had a bunch of radiators and basically boiled them alive. The governor came out and was really upset and shaken by it. It was a terrible thing. They didnt really do much about it after that but it was a terrible to Car Insurance even if there wasnt to Car Insurance even if there wasnt any repercussions. Many people if youre from the pennsylvania area, youve probably driven by this on route 81. Its, you know kind of when you go by that area, that 11story behemoth is looming up out of ashley pennsylvania, and it was really an iconic place. I think it was closed in 76, so its actually been abandoned a little longer than ive been alive. And i just always sort of expected that it would continue to be there. Unfortunately or fortunately i guess depending on which way you look at it, it was torn down for scrap earlier this year. But, i mean basically the breakers are, you know, you think coal steel and textiles are really what made pennsylvanias economy go. Somebody else said like the railroads and, yes the railroads too. But, you know, in this particular case, i mean these coal breakers were an enormous part of pennsylvanias history and this was one of the biggest ones, and theyre all but gone. The other one st. Nicks that is right by there, is in the process of being stripped apart for scrap as well. So this idea of having an 11story machine that breaks apart coal as it goes down is something that i think is going to be, you know really only exist in pictures soon. This one by the way, was one i really wanted to put in the book, and my publisher didnt put it in. You dont always get what you want, but here i am sharing it with you. [laughter] this is the kerry furnaces in rankin, pennsylvania so its just outside of pittsburgh. Again, id love to tell you all the little stories about all of these different places but just so we can move along to get to the q a. One thing i will tell you is, first of all, obviously read about it. But the other thing is one of the neat things about the curry furnaces is they do tours out there. Rivers of steel has done a lot to stabilize it and make it accessible to the mix. So its something that to the pluck. So its something that you can at periodic points in the year pay what i think is ally dick can lousily nominal a ridiculously nominal fee and go out and walk around it. Some of the stuff like the blast furnaces here you can actually see. I think thats really important, too, to show that there is a positive end of things where these what i believe to be Cultural Treasures can be shared with other people. They dont necessarily always have to be torn down, and i really believe that kind of by sharing and appreciating these places you can, you know it doesnt always have to be something where theyre torn apart. Theres actually, you know, quite a lot in the past about leaving ruin ares for the sake of being ruins without having to make them redeveloped or whatever. Kerry furnace is the lucky enough to be what it is and not have somebody say, okay, were going to make a Shopping Mall out of it which is what happened to the rest of homestead steel. So this is westport power station in baltimore. Was. In this has been torn down. And this was at the time it was built the largest reinforced concrete building in the world. Reinforced concrete was to prevent fire. That was where they basically consolidated all of the gas and electric for baltimore there. And this place was just enormous. I mean, it had these huge huge, huge turbine halls all over. There were three different you are turbine halls that were each at least this big if not bigger and an enormous area with these furnaces and the fern i growing out of the furnaces. And on top of the building there was a small gauge railroad that ran around taking coal to the furnaces which was a first for me. I had never seen anything like that. That was kind of a real shock. It was a very dreamlike thing but also one of the neatest surprises ive ever had when i went in the building, because i certainly was not expecting it. This is the newcastle elk lodge in newcastle pennsylvania, not newcastle, delaware. And that was a dumb luck find. Sometimes people ask me about how i find places, and i usually say, you know, research, networking or dumb luck, and this would fall in the dumb luck i just drove by it category. And it was a really interesting building. This was the ballroom at the top. And you cant really see here, i have a better picture of it in the book but at the far end of the wall they still had the elk head on the far end. It was really creepy. [laughter] i was actually by myself in there because i wasnt expecting to go in and so not only when i got up to the point where i could really see what the elks head and then kind of looking at it in horror and then my foot went through the floor too. [laughter] so but this was one of the back areas behind the ballroom. And interesting thing about this is that i dont know what is real ferns and what are fake flowers that calm through the ceiling. I that came through the ceiling. I think theres a bit of both there. Frank r. Phillips power station. This is a 1940s coal power plant that was just south of pittsburgh, and that was torn down in, i think 2010. If you look there thats the turbine hall. Again, i think one of the things that i really love about power plants is just how enormous the spaces are. The scale is just kind of unheard of in other places. I was very lucky to get to go through this place with a engineer as well who was able to tell me about how everything worked in it which promptly just fell out the other side of my head, but it was interesting while i was there. [laughter] so, and the other thing that was pretty cool too was that he actually um, fired up one of the furnaces again. I have a picture of him not in the book but hes sitting there with this kind of crazy 80s action movie look. Cigar out of his face, lighting the cigar with one of the Little Things that they would stick to light the furnaces up. This is another power plant. This is one of the ones that i wouldnt tell you where it was but it is, actually, a very historically significant building enormous building as well. And one of the things thats kind of interesting about it is that like many of these places in fact, westport would be another one like this. The more you read about these places, the more you see about how much corruption hampers places like, for example westport when westport was torn down and remediated, it was supposed to be something that would be, you know, this waterfront development. And that never happened. And the city and a bunch of other people dumped all this money into it and then just nothing happened. Well, this is kind of the same thing where, you know, there was a lot of just sort of corruption in terms of people putting money in who rehabilitate this building, nothing ever happening with it. In fact, the mayor of the city that its in is getting handed his hat, and this is one of the reasons. So its just interesting. You know, a lot of times people ask why buildings are left abandoned, and there are as many reasons as there are buildings. Often times corruption is a pretty good one to fall back on when its anything that a city has control over. This is and i dont know how were doing on time, so i dont want to talk too long, so we dont you have 20 more minutes. 20 more minutes, okay. So basically, im going to go through some of this. I think im going to skip some of the middle parts. Ill tell you a little bit more about some of these buildings. This right here was a figure sanatorium, and it is actually where they cured tuberculosis. You could argue and say well theres drugresistant strains of tb, and i would say yes youre right, but this is where i went from being something that it was something ridiculous, it was like a quarter of new yorks deaths were tuberculosis related. It was just all over the place just, you know, i mean, you think about that one of four people that you know. And thats why you dont really hear people dying of tuberculosis much anymore. And so in this case the place was so successful that it shut itself down, essentially, you know . They discharged all the people that were patients. But its kind of sad because, you know, you think about it and let me just go back here you think about it, and you know, it would have been nice if they would have preserved it considering, you know, how many people tuberculosis has killed since prehistoric times. I mean, thats how long its been wiping people out left and right, and this is the place where they got it and were like okay well just let it rot. This actually, bell labs the home bell labs is another really, really significant place, and i would love to go into each and every one of the scientific discoveries that happened here, but theres tom of them really to go into. Laser technology, cellular technology, microwave technology. I guess maybe to put it in perspective, this is where they developed what was called the home bell horn which was what they used to verify the big bang theory. So really like just about all of the modern technology that we use today and take for granted was developed in some way at this facility. And interesting thing about it was that they were going to just tear it down and the Scientific Community got so ticked off about it and, you know, filled out these petitions and, you know, there were these articles about it and everything and so the deal with the developer didnt go through. They have a newark text who is new architect who is turning this into a mixeduse building, and it will be saved. So thats actually pretty exciting. This, on the other hand, is the pardon me bethlehem steel, the lack wanna campus of that would have been the lack a wanna Steel Company. Interesting thing about that and i could go into the preservation battle and how sad it was when they decided to tear it apart. But the thing thats kind of interesting to know about this for people who are regional folks is that so the guys who founded the Steel Company were the scranton brothers. And they were originally in the scranton area, and they had this, you know, very successful Steel Company, and then they had all these bloody labor disputes and so they said, all right heck with you guys, were going to go up to the buffalo area where we can get things in on the canal, and we dont have to deal with the law boar unions quite labor unions quite as much. Anyway they had not one but two towns named after them. Scranton was named after the scranton brothers and then they went up to lackawanna and that was named because it was in the lackawanna valley. So with that being said scranton lace is also in the book. So i thought it was kind of interesting. You start to see all these little connections between places like that. And scrapton lace, this is how scranton lace, this is how it was when i originally saw it. These were the nottingham looms that were in it, sort of famous mid 1800s looms that were 20 feet long and 50 tons and about the size i mean they looked to me like locomotives. They were i have been told theyre the last ones in the united states. I cant verify that, i have not gone all over the u. S. To, you know, check peoples basements or anything, but, you know basically this is the only one thats left. They scrapped all the rest of them. So this is the hotel dody that was in bell a tonight pa. There was an arsonrelated fire that happened in it and, thankfully, nobody was killed, but it was left pretty much as is. Nobody went in to get their stuff back in part because i dont know if you can see it, if you look at where the stairs are going up kind of coming back towards the camera, if you can see that hole in the staircase those were scary stair ises. It was a scary building. There were a lot of holes in it, and when you have, like carbonized wood, you really have no idea how much weight social its going to take. Yeah. Thats why it was in such incredibly good condition. And this was the building right next door, the garmin opera house. And this was a really really sad loss for the community. They really wanted to preserve this and were really angry about the developer who bought the building. Usually im a guy who is for historic preservation, you know, in all cases but this case had the worst black and white mold that i have ever seen. And in part it was because of the fact that the garmin fire had burnt holes in the roof. Is theaters dont typically have, you know, windows or a lot of light coming in or whatever. And when i went in, it hadnt been rainy but it was moist, and the carpet squished and there was just this horrible, horrible white mold that was growing out of the walls everywhere. So yeah real sad thing for the community, but this is the new jersey zinc plant. And again, im trying to sprint through here but i wanted to to give you an idea of some of these places and what makes them interesting. Actually, if you were to look right there, youll see that theres not a thing growing there. And part of the reason is because that place was so blasted with heavy metals and pollution from there that not only could no plants live but the bacteria that decomposed the plants could not survive either. So youd had a bunch of sort of you had a bunch of sort after plant mummies and theyve been doing a hot to remediate it. I hear a lot from people who have been in these communities, theres still this back and forth. People were like oh, it was never that bad theyre doing a great job of remediating that area, but i have to say it absolutely was that bad. You go through the pennsylvania mountainside, and its all lush and green. Then its like all of a sudden you feel like youre driving in utah or on an asteroid or something. [laughter] so again i feel like this is kind of an important one to show that, again, a lot of these places, you know, whether or not, whether or not youre somebody who worked at it or it was a part of, you know your life specifically, if you live in that area youre paying the price for it, you know . And a lot of these places thats kind of like the idea behind it is this idea of, you know, a lifestyle that we lead and the idea that, you know, these places still represent enormous problems for the community and you know something that we need to talk and think about. So i am going to skip through a few of these places. I wish i could tell you more about this one because there was an interesting thing where they sent a letter to the vatican actually, to try to raise funds for this when it was first built and a ship caught fire and sank, and the letter bag washed ashore in spain. It was singed, but it got to rome, and this was like an act of god, you know . He saved the weather bag. [laughter] so thats, thats st oh, gosh i always get bonny face and bonn venture confused. They were sister churches. They were actually formed by the same german immigrant population that moved out of the area. So, you know, i got to see it while it was getting torn down. Pretty heartbreaking. Especially because i had tried for, like six years to get in there and photograph it when it was whole. I was very lucky, actually, that i was able to photograph it. I dont know if any of you guys know chris stock of philadelphia salvage, but he was actually the one that made that possible. So wherever you are, chris thanks. But this is st. Peters Episcopal Church in germantown. That is a beautiful, beautiful church. Frank finesse designed it, and that is a happy story. That is being saved. Its being converted into the Waldorf School. We did a photography workshop there literally the day before they started abatement. So we got to see it the last day before it was transformed. And its very different now, although im happy to say a lot of the really beautiful features theyve kept intact on it for the amount of work they have to do. Its pretty stunning, actually, and im looking forward to going back when theyre done with that and photographing it and kind of, you know, having this as an inyourface kind of thing to people that say you cant save churches that are in bad condition. Because i thought this one was going to go. I mean, when i first photographed that the realtor that had let me in was not real optimistic about it. Scary prison. [laughter] yeah. Full of people doing drugs. Thats where they lived. And, you know thats again read more about it in the book. Definitely, definitely scary. One thing i will say is, you know sometimes youll see, like shadows out of the corner of your eyes when youre in places and, you know, maybe its you or maybe its just a tree branch outside and youre like oh just a shadow, my minds playing tricks on me and there it was like, no thats a dude. [laughter] so yeah thats but also i would say, you know very sad. You know, i dont mean to present that as something that is humorous because of the fact that, you know, i was there in the dead of winter and it was bitter bitter, bitter cold in there. And just the idea of living in a rusting, fallingapart prison you know, with nothing but your drugs. And then, you know you see im pointing at the monitor you guys arent looking at the monitor, but you see the bed there with the little teddy bear on it, you know . And you just think, like, that is, that is just the motor heartbreaking and worst thing ever. And the funny thing is when i put these pictures up and maybe some of you are these people, i dont know, there are these people that are like it serves them right theyre doing drugs. You have no soul. God, how could you wish that on somebody . Whether or not but anyway this was also, the one that i just showed you was the old Essex County Jail, andthe Essex County Jail an incomes. And again id love to tell you a lot more about it. Ive got to keep scooting along. Five minutes. Yeah. Well probably run over a little bit. [laughter] so anyway, that basically is just a real house of horrors. There was a lot of really atrocious conditions there for the people. So this would be with where id be going on to tell you about how i got into this and because i want to get to your q a well say i worked in Mental Health. I was interested in asylums, i started researching asylums. I got into philadelphia State Hospital which you see right there. Went out there lifechanging experience for me. I couldnt really explain that to people why it was something that meant so much to me and what i felt was so significant about it so i started feeling like photographs were a better way of conveying that. But i never got good pictures of it which will haunt me until the day i die. I feel like its very important to document these stories and show these places and certainly with the Mental Health system with all these asylums that are vanishing. These are peoples lives and really just a kind of terrifying and sad chpter in American History chapter in American History that as the places are torn down one by one, the opportunity to really discuss them is also deleted. So im going to skip right through the people that i like. Theres a lot of cool people that do stuff that have been doing this for a long time and theyre out there if you want to ask me about them. One thing im going to end with before i do this, and i was going to read two chapters because, you know, i was recommended that doing this i should read complees that i should read complees an interpret. Like i said well run a little bit late but im sure you guys will live, right . Ill today here a little ill stay here a little late. This is the thomas a. Edison high school in philadelphia. The Northeast High School in philadelphia, known later add the julia deburr goes Magnet School was originally built in 1905. It was the time when the idea of publiclyfunded free school for the working class was controversial. Finish turret stone lions flanking the entrance Northeast High School was a Prestigious Institution that taught trades to area students. Albert einstein, babe ruth, Herbert Hoover and Amelia Earhart were among the dignitaries who visited the school, but as the minority population increased in the 1950s, it was decided to build a new Northeast High School in a more suburban area. The old school was left to deteriorate. During the vietnam war the former Northeast High School had the distinction of having the most casualties amongst its alumni. By the 1990s it was infested with rats and falling apart. Fewer than 50 of the teachers could do math themselves and outbursts of violence were common place. Name the worst school in philadelphia, it was taken over by a private contractor which was to provide education. In 2002 it was left to vandalism and decay. After the school had been abandoned for nearly a decade a fouralarm blaze broke out in august of 2007 causing heavy 2011 causing heavy damage to the upper floors. Much of the roof was destroyed. A large portion of the building was unaffected. Aside from several sections where the floor needed repairs, it appeared to be structurally sound. In 2013 the building was torn down. The distinctive gargoyles on the turrets were saved and the art deco rear of the building is slated to be restored to use. Visiting Northeast High School during its demolition was a heartwrenching experience. Even though the possibility of saving it became increasingly remote as the years went by particularly after the fire that destroyed much of the roof and the front section of the building i had always hoped someone might be able to see what a phenomenal facade the building had and at least save that. Workers scurried around with wheelbarrows with textbooks dumping them into a twostoryhigh pile in the central courtyard. Mountains of Hardwood Flooring wane societying cabinetly and all other things were stacked in a half block and narrow paths had been made through all of it. Thankfully, Salvage Companies were trying to reclaim as much material as possible, but most of it was destined for landfill. Responsibly seeing what could be reused was not the priority. Tearing down site as fast as possible was. And one thing ill point out as youre looking at this picture is that i am on the second floor as im taking that picture. You can see actually, the window frame for the lower floor there. I felt like an ant crawling around on the bones of a mast a done. I was tiny compared to the storied history and prestigious beginnings. Trying to fathom how many people had been a part of this place for better or for worse was humbling. In the end, whatever it had once again amounted to little more than a trash heap for the people tearing it apart. Just a bunch of guys whacking it with hammers and powering tools. It seemed more than anything to be a final crowning moment of stupidity and failure in such a long string of stupidity and failure that tracing its origin wasnt even possible anymore not that anyone was bothering to do so. Were a great bee where a great beacon had once stood there would be another cheap trashy store sell goods made in selling goods made in sweat shops. To use in the oncetheyving industrial landscape of philadelphia, it would be replaced by a store that would contribute cothe deline of american industry. Maybe the only work is tearing apart the things that had once made area grand. As i photographed the building that last day a passer by on the street stopped and commented, i went to that school. It was beautiful. What a shame. Theyll never build anything like that again, never. In my opinion, hes probably correct. So with that i am going to open it up to questions and one thing that i will ask is that if youre going to ask a question theyre going to bring a boom mic around, so if you can just, like, wait million they have of the boom mic over you so the folks at home can hear. Okay. You mentioned mental hospitals. Have you ever visited norwood State Hospital in connecticut which parts of it are currently being torn down . [laughter] yep. That right there is norwood, actually. Thats a shame theyre tearing it down. Among other things, look at that auditorium. Yeah. Its in the book. So other questions . Wow. Quiet crowd. Nobody . The general salvage business i mean im looking at bricks and usable, reusable items for whatever the case may be, is there finish are you pretty much aware of whats salvageable what isnt to contractors . Well, i mean it depends. Be you look at the Demolition Companies, the Demolition Companies really dont seem to care as much about that. This can make money from the Salvage Companies. Two of the bigger ones in philadelphia that, you know, have been very nice to me in the past are prove nance and philly salvage, philadelphia salvage. In fact, they were the ones that were working on site when i photographed the Magnet Middle School which i read the exception from. But the priority there was tearing the site down as fast as possible. So, you know in all of the cases where they were working, my experience has been that, you know, theyre kind of trying to snatch as much from the jaws of the lion as they can. But most of it gets tossed. Would you say that your craft is mostly for historical purposes or also to present opportunities . Could you elaborate in terms of presenting opportunities . Well, you mentioned that there have been projects of rehabilitation uhhuh. Specifically with theaters and repurposing buildings. Right. Is that part of what you do . Or is that just something that happens out of Natural Force . Well im always an advocate for that. There are a lot of preservation groups and smaller agencies that ive partnered up with that are people that i really try to to plug. I mean youll notice that people like, you know, like the Waldorf School that are reusing the building or lands down theater, um, you know, i really try and bounce some positive light on, you know, the efforts that theyre making. I would say that the photography workshops that ive had also, i mean, that is a business for me, you know . So i would be the first to say that that is something that, you know, is not just a charity thing that i do because frankly, it would be impossible, i think, to do it as that unless i were independently, ridiculously wealthy. But that being said, in the last two years weve raised just shy of 50,000 for the sites weve had it at. So i really do try and give back and sort of put my money where my mouth is with these places. But that being said its also not something that i have the knowledge or the finances to do. I mean, there are people that, you know, when youre talking about developers that go into sites, these are people that, you know my yearly earnings would be something theyd throw away in a half hour on a gambling table. So i dont know if that answers your question, but it does, thank you. Uhhuh. One final question actually. How do you find these places and gain access . Well, the finding them is mainly the dumb luck research and networking, you know . A combination of the three. And gaining access is, that is so different for every place. I mean ive written detailed proposals to work with people on it. I have mayed phone tag with people played phone tag with people. Theres one guy that i did in fact its funny because people who are in camera clubs and groups people are like oh, have you ever been to the soap mill . Thats something that they always ask me about. I bugged that guy for a year and a half to get in there in the beginning, to the point literally a year and a half. I mean, i called him up maybe two times a month and would have a talk with him and think that it was going somewhere, and then hed back up at the end. And finally i showed up at his house with my portfolio and i said look, you know, im not trying to scare how or anything, if you want me to get off your land, ill get off your land. But i just want you to see i how important this is for me. He actually let me and and we did the first fundraiser for that place. There was another guy named tom from new york who took that even further. He was in one of the workshops and decidedded to really set that up. I mean, people were coming from japan was their ancestors because their ancestors had been the ones that had exported the silk to it, the raw silk. It was people from all over. So anyway yeah yeah. Its sort of lost my train there. I dont know if i answered what you asked you pretty much did. Okay. Thank you. Sorry if i didnt. O. K. You have a lot of power plants in your presentation. I was wondering are power plants generally dont have the majesty and glamour of cathedrals. Were there any power plants that really struck you as worthy of rehabilitation . B. Oh, my gosh, yeah. Theyre beautiful. Power plants are magnificent. Yeah there have been some that ive been to that are trashy brick boxes, you know . Especially if youre talking about power plants that are supporting structures for, like an asylum or a college or Something Like that, they can be pretty dull. But if youre talking about some of the ones that were built particularly around the, you know, the turn of the century those guys are amazing. Theres one that ive been to that um, i dont really know whether i can name it or not, so im just going to not, and itll probably be in my next book. But the turbine floor is or the turbine hallway there is one of the largest open air rooms ever built. It actually looks a lot like a cathedral. It has a domed roof its like 180 feet from there to the floor, and it used to have a huge chandelier hanging from it. So yeah, you know, i would definitely say power plants are deceptive because theyre the sort of place that you would think would be wouldnt be that awe inspiring and then you go in and youre like, wow, they were keeping this to themselves . They didnt let everyone this to see what they did . There was a question over here, if youd just give the gentleman with the boom mic a minute. Yeah. Im thinking of the city museum in st. Louis which is like a factory that has relics and just pieces from buildings. Is there anything in philadelphia underfoot to do that kind of warehousing or at least pieces of these buildings . That actually sounds like a place id love to go to. But really the only things and somebodys probably going to correct me or tell me that im forgetting something, but i think the places that really come to my mind are provenance and philadelphia salvage. You can see a number of the churches, a number of the schools. Thats as close as i could think of at least. Any im going to go with the gentleman in the back. You mentioned a lot of buildings that are either burned down or torn down, and some of them are pretty old. How much longer do you think youll be able to keep recording them on film . Do you mean because of the fact that, like, how many more are there left sort of thing . Yeah, well thats a good question. I mean really its sad because i feel like, you know, i love philadelphia. I really do. This is my city and my home, but i dont think were doing a terrific job of saving our buildings. I mean, you look at like, the boyd debacling and you look at bebacking and all the churches that are getting destroyed every year, and i could go through a depressingly long list of buildings that are either on the chopping block or, you know, are getting torn down. And theyre not an infinite resource. I think that is something that is very finite. And the sad thing is, i mean, much like the extinction of any species, i guess, you know, or Something Like that one day youre like wow, that was the last one. What do you know . So, yeah i think its very important to appreciate them and thats part of the reason why i have these places there and, again why i tried to have that balance of, you know, so many of the places are lost and just statistically thats the way it is. But i also wanted to have some in there to show there are some people doing great work to buck the trend. I like to do that all by hand so i am pointing in different exposures like the windows are blown out, is then you can see the details because i will take that from a different exposure. I could go further into that but i dont want to lose anybody. This gentleman here had a question. The question goes back to the question before the last one, studying broad economic forces in theaters and other buildings but in the future do you see any trends leading to future structures left to them Shopping Malls or that is a quest a great question. Shopping malls and actually the one in the followup to this photograph the randall park mall in cleveland that basically i had permission from developers so i am sitting on those because they wanted me to wait until that was further along until they released the okay for me to publish them. Shopping malls are one that people bring up. If you look further down the road there will be a lot of nursing home us that may be one of them. The sad thing for todays schools and churches are going left and right to. All of the philadelphia and is no how many schools are getting close to every year and that is pretty atrocious too. It depends on the time period you are looking at. One of the things that is interesting is there is a lot of pressure to teardown the great civic monuments that were built to stand the test of time because they have a wealth of copper and bronze and metal in them so they can take a bunch of tax money to tear the building apart and then you can get the money from all the stuff inside the building and make more money by building up that area and for mediating it and that could be tax money going down the toilet to destroy things that dont need to be destroyed so it is kind of disposable culture. In that sense anything of architectural merit is in the bullseye right now. Any other questions . I can take two more. Was there somebody over here . Did you have your hand up . I will get you. Is there a city valuing this doing a particularly good job with renovation you have been to . A city that is doing a good job respecting that is a tough one. You see a on a case by case basis. One thing i read about that i thought was interesting was gary, indiana, which is a long way from the music man, lets put it that way, pretty beat up right now. They have they basically if you pay for a photography permit you can one of the better known churches, talking about making into a ruined garden which is the coolest thing ever. There are a number of places where they are doing things like that. Ruins that are made for the sake of being ruined and not actual buildings. I have a hard time thinking of a particular city because i think everywhere the trends are running in the same direction to level everything and what you are seeing is more people are becoming aware of the value of preservation. A lot of people like younger kind of realizing they are neat and doesnt have to be just a Little Black Box that i go in and just like any other theater out there i would like to hope that so maybe people are waking up to this in a number of areas. How much is going to be lost by that time . You have a question back there. I will take your question as well and then call it a day and go back out there. With all of the huge factories, there must be a lot of individual dwellings that have been abandoned. Ever turned your eye on the phones . Absolutely. There are a number of places that are communities, the factories are oftentimes the Genesis Point of the communities starting to collapse because when you take out the factory, and the libraries and move out of the town and nobodys putting money in the church coffers. I think there is a huge ripple of fact that happens from that. I see that in tons of major cities. Everyone talks about the poster child for it but cleveland or buffalo or rochester or philadelphia or baltimore you could kind of throw a dart at a map of the u. S. And take a city that is nearby and likely you will be looking at somewhere that is reeling from the loss of the industry so i have done that and that will probably be something i have in the followup to may be a section that is home in and of itself. I was going to take one more from this guy and i guess we will adjourn to the food and alcohol. I have explored buildings professionally for the last 30 years and to environmental surveys. I am interested in personal protective gear that you are use or supposed to use as far as your arrangements. Very good question. I really dont wear as much as i should. A number of, i am surprised i dont have asbestos to based superpowers. That is what i was going for. There was one that i went in, the one place with all the moles, you are not going in this place unless you have a good respirator and even then it was terrible. And literally they are in the places, mercury, molds asbestos, and ancillary ones, factories i went to, and all these warnings that they get out of there. The all knowing phone came back with something you originally used as a chemical weapon in the First World War and it was something it was really nice like a summer afternoon. The thing i felt was interesting, whether i had a respirator or not, that would snap me off of the face of the earth, someone is on the grass and that is why one of my regular presentations i go over a little bit more of the dangers and time was i didnt get to go to that but anyway, but i will end on that but thank you all very much for coming out. [applause] thank you. I am looking forward to talking to you guys out in the lobby. The sister is holding up the raffle thing. What why dont we do the raffle in 15 minutes . If anybody wants to buy any tickets for the raffles so they can either win one of two prints or the bruno brothers gift card and proceeds go i will be signing books and hopefully speaking wine and food every now and again if i can. [inaudible conversations] booktv is on twitter and facebook and we want