Urban exploration has been featured here once or twice before, but Jim Griffioen's site photo-documenting his discoveries in and around Detroit deserves a look. Griffioen was recently interviewed [direct mp3 link] on the American Public Media radio program The Story. [more inside]
posted by Item on Jul 25, 2009 - 14 comments

When thousands of people depart, leaving an entire city dead that’s a real tragedy. There are mainly two reasons why people leave the place where they used to live for years or even generations: danger, and economic factors. Abandoned Places In The World. ( previously 1,2)
posted by netbros on Jun 21, 2009 - 29 comments

Abandoned Amusement Parks in Asia - 1, 2, 3
posted by Artw on Jan 20, 2009 - 30 comments

Ruins and Remnants of Long Island's Gold Coast Mansions. Some still standing are in private hands, others are public. A surprising number of castles and moats.
posted by 445supermag on May 3, 2008 - 10 comments

Shaun O'Boyle recently returned from Cape Canaveral where he photographed the artifacts of the early space program. They are part of the Modern Ruins site (previously, previously, and previously) which is a great place to waste an afternoon.
posted by Toekneesan on Feb 29, 2008 - 8 comments

"This is a building where our deeply-troubled public school system once stored its supplies, and then one day apparently walked away from it all, allowing everything to go to waste...All that's left is an overwhelming sense of knowledge unlearned and untapped potential." (Via Making Light.)
posted by ottereroticist on Jan 22, 2008 - 57 comments

Urban Exploring. Recently: Sanatorio Popolare Cantonale di Piotta. Sinteranlage, Duisburg. Atomschutz Kurfürstendamm, Berlin (flash). (Previously.)
posted by Soup on Nov 28, 2007 - 4 comments

Excellent post over at BLDBLOG on the history of Bannerman's Arsenal, a ruined island castle in the middle of the Hudson river, created by a war profiteer who was at one time the world's largest arms dealer. Bonus points for the amazing accompanying photos by Shaun O'Boyle, whose site Modern Ruins has been featured on the blue previously.
posted by jonson on Nov 17, 2007 - 14 comments

American Ruins: a gallery of photgraphs by Chuck Hutchinson. "a gallery of houses, barns, automobiles and businesses that have become the ruins on the landscape of America."
posted by dersins on Nov 6, 2007 - 20 comments

Delirious Moscow: a survey on stellar and interstellar Soviet constructivist architecture, or, buildings in the time before Stalin (with pictures).
posted by Falconetti on Oct 11, 2007 - 6 comments

Abandoned places: A satellite facility. A drag strip. A sports arena. A factory. A highway. A school. Another factory. An industrial park. A missile site. A church. A brewery. And much more at Abandoned But Not Forgotten. (Warning: Web 0.2 site with very large photos of variable quality...)
posted by dersins on Jul 26, 2007 - 42 comments

Modern Military Ruins in San Francisco. Really awesome Flickr set includes documentation of Hunters Point Shipyard, Treasure Island Naval Station, Alameda Naval Air Station, the SF-88 Nike Missile Site, Hamilton Field Air Force Base, and Mare Island Naval Shipyard.
posted by otherwordlyglow on Jun 12, 2007 - 30 comments

Hisaharu Motoda’s “Neo-Ruins” series of lithographs depict the cityscape of a post-apocalyptic Tokyo, where familiar streets lie deserted, the buildings are crumbling and weeds grow from the broken pavement. More here, here & here.
posted by jonson on May 10, 2007 - 39 comments

The city of Detroit is in a bad way. House are cheaper than cars. The city's neighborhoods are in decay. Families are leaving. Even "revived" areas are struggling. Entire portions of the city are starting to revert to prarie and ruins. Can the city be saved or is it time to give up on the Arsenal of Democracy?
posted by fancypants on Mar 21, 2007 - 220 comments

Tourists coming to Los Angeles usually visit the standard few spots; but there are some amazing urban ruins that even the locals are rarely aware of. From the original site of the Los Angeles zoo (abandonded cages & rock facades now) to the remains of the Sunken City, to the inexorably rusting hull of the 44 year old shipwrecked Greek freighter Dominator, L.A.'s forgotten places are tourist destinations for the intrepid, local & visitor alike. A PDF guide to how to find many of the best (including the Echo Mountain House & The Bridge To Nowhere) can be found here. Many links & inspiration via
posted by jonson on Aug 8, 2006 - 11 comments

The extraordinary Center For Land Use Interpretation is a tertiary reference for one of today's posts, and it's been mentioned in comments before. Don't miss the Land Use Database or the Newsletter.
posted by scrump on Jul 25, 2006 - 9 comments

Samarra is in the news. The modern city is small, but built on the colossal ruins of the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate. Google Earth reveals amazing details of the ancient city, one of the largest archaeological sites in the world.
posted by grahamwell on Feb 24, 2006 - 16 comments

Just wandering through the streets of Naples. (make sure to peruse each link as each has more to be seen!)
posted by snsranch on Feb 16, 2006 - 9 comments

Abandoned Memories is short on text but thick with photos. Even without captions for every picture, contextual clues can give us a disturbing idea of what life might have been like in the Wayne County Child Development Center (before it was abandoned, razed, and turned into a golf course). The rather-less-easy-to-navigate Northville-Tunnels.com also has photos and information.
posted by Gator on Feb 3, 2006 - 27 comments

Here are some pictures of ruined cities and a few sanctuaries. (3rd link is to geocities)
posted by Tullius on Jan 21, 2006 - 12 comments

Iraq is full of fabled ancient ruins, many in bad shape, but which still fire the imagination. Some highlights: Ur, birthplace of Abraham, still contained many beautiful artifacts when it was last excavated in the 1920s. Then there is vanished Cunaxa, near Baghdad's airport, where the Ten Thousand, a group of Greek mercenaries, fought their way back to Greece in a 1,000 mile, two-year-long retreat described by Xenophon in the Anabasis (and which served as the inspiration for cult films/games and bad science fiction alike). The ruins of the city of Nineveh were discovered in the 19th century just across the river from Mosul, containing art confirming elements of the Biblical account of the conquests of King Sennacherib. Most famously, the ruins of Babylon (not much to look at, the best bit being in Berlin) have seen much abuse, from Saddam's awful rebuilding of the palace of Nebuchadnezzar to reports of recent damage by coalition troops.
posted by blahblahblah on Jan 11, 2006 - 15 comments

There have been a number of urban exploration or modern ruins photography posts here over the years, but I couldn't find any that linked to my new favorite modern ruin site, opacity.us. With 85 galleries of subjects as gorgeous as Bannerman's Arsenal and as haunting as the Verden Psychiatric Hospital, it's a treasure trove of entropy on film.
posted by jonson on Dec 26, 2005 - 18 comments

Stones of the World. Photographed by Yoshida Tatsuya.
posted by kenko on Jul 23, 2005 - 18 comments

You've probably seen Modern Ruins, Forgotten New York, and even Lost America... but have you seen the abandoned island of Gunkanjima? [via Boing Boing]
posted by keswick on May 22, 2004 - 18 comments

Modern Ruins are a window into human histories, they tell the stories of the past through the stark presence of objects and architectures. Perhaps the most powerful aspect of ruins is the subject that is missing in the photographs; the people who once worked, lived, walked, talked, slept and dreamed in these spaces.
posted by papercake on May 12, 2004 - 5 comments

New England Ruins :: Photographs
posted by anastasiav on Apr 15, 2004 - 14 comments

The Third Reich In Ruins
posted by crunchland on Oct 15, 2003 - 16 comments

Built St. Louis. The historic architecture of St. Louis, Missouri, its ruins, and its wondrous anachronisms.
posted by plep on Jun 12, 2003 - 17 comments

Explore the abandoned - all things we build must pass into an inevitable and steady deterioration. Thanks to those who chronicle civilization's entropy and put it on the web, because it's mad fun to watch.
posted by jdaura on Mar 18, 2003 - 9 comments

Victorian Secrets of Washington, D.C.: haunting photos and thoughtful essays documenting one man's fight to draw attention to D.C.'s neglected architectural heritage: "This site won't be much of a beauty pagent because we 'll concentrate on buildings that are vacant, abandoned, deteriorated, distressed, or just plain at risk because they are standing in the path of development . . . if even one Victorian finds an angel because of our page, we'll consider it a thousand percent return on investment."
posted by ryanshepard on Feb 14, 2003 - 13 comments

Frightening Archaeology: Dark Passage is scarier than Infiltration; less cosy than Lost America; and more disturbing than Ruins of Detroit or any other ruination already investigated on Metafilter. In fact, it's probably the extreme incarnation of the thriving world of websites about abandoned buildings, full of spooky mental asylums, echoes of depravity and twisted archaeology - like a spaced-out online version of Brad Anderson's Session 9. Or the real thing. To make matters worse, it also falls disconcertingly into the "What's this all about?" category. Brrrrr.... [QT/WM required for the last link only - please disregard "Purchase" title and enjoy Nine Inch Nails soundtrack. Via Linkfilter.]
posted by Carlos Quevedo on Nov 20, 2002 - 42 comments

The High Line is a strip of elevated railroad on Manhattan's West Side, it runs from 34th Street and 12th Avenue to Gansevoort Street in the meatpacking district. It is a treasure now mostly because it's the structure that time forgot. Who'd thought? Discover what could become NYC's highest park.
posted by sierray on Sep 10, 2002 - 17 comments

Urban Exploration, Japanese-style: lavishly beautiful site documenting Japan's modern ruins, via gmtPlus9.
posted by ryanshepard on Jan 31, 2002 - 7 comments

Ho Hum, just the remains of another four thousand year old city discovered on the ocean floor. This one is Harrapan of the Indus Valley which was home to the largest of the four ancient urban civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, India and China. The ruins extend for 9 kilometers and located around 40 metres below the water surface. "Due to geological processes and tectonic events, the entire [Gulf of] Cambay was faulted — taking down with it the then existing part of the river sections and the metropolis"
posted by lagado on Jul 2, 2001 - 3 comments

Now I'm depressed. I'd seen The Fabulous Ruins of Detroit site before, but never really looked around. It was well worth the hour I spent there. Then I wandered over to Modern Ruins. We're a destructive species, aren't we? We don't even value the things we create...
posted by Aaaugh! on Aug 16, 2000 - 6 comments