Abandoned Place: Centralia, PA

This abandoned town has it all: fire! death! scandal!!
 

The prevailing theory goes like this.  In 1962, in an attempt to clean up the town's landfill, firefighters set it on fire and let it burn.  Because this site was next to an abandoned coal mine pit, the fire quickly spread to the coal and ignited it.  The fire still burns today. 

It wasn't until 1972 that officials realized the scope of the fire and began to take action.  In 1981 a teenage boy fell to his death when the fire pit caused the ground beneath his feet to collapse. 

In 1984 congress allocated relocation funds and most of the residents took the money and ran but some stayed.  Then in 1992 the state claimed eminent domain and tried to demolish what was left of the town.  Here's where the scandal comes in.

Some residents believe that the fire is extinguishable, and that the eminent domain claim was a ploy to secure and not have to share the mineral rights.  From wikipedia because I'm lazy:

Several current and former Centralia residents believe the state's eminent domain claim was a ploy to gain the mineral rights to the anthracite coal beneath the borough. Residents estimate its value to be in the billions of dollars, although the exact amount of coal is not known. In a nearby municipality, the government was successful in extinguishing a similar mine fire using methods like those proposed for and used in Centralia.

Inneresting.  Here are some pics of the place:

This first one shows a rowhouse that hasn't been demolished using buttresses to keep it standing because the building that used to hold it up is no longer there:

 

Just a note, when I post things like this I don't get too deep into the topic here because a) I'm lazy. and b) I hope that if something I write about here sparks your interest you'll go on a leeeeearning adventuuuuure. 

My Favorite Abandoned Place

I love abandoned places.  The intrigue, the mystery, the remnants of souls and life.  Abandoned buildings are okay, in fact there's an abandoned elementary school near my house that I'm dying to explore, but that's for another day...

The Walled City of Kowloon.  The kind of place one would only expect to find in the movies.  It's often described as lawless - simply titillating, no?

No, there was not actually a wall around it, but the perimeter was so marked it looked like there was.  The history of this city is incredibly interesting, and I highly suggest you look into it here at wikipedia.  I'm not going to get into all of it here, because let's face it, I'm lazy.  After China decided it wanted this city back, about 2,000 squatters fled to Kowloon for Chinese protection, and once they got there it was their city and they weren't going anywhere (well... until 1994 when the city was demolished).  The city became so densly populated that many parts of it never saw sunlight at all.

"The City's dozens of alleyways were often only 1–2 m (3.3–6.6 ft) wide, and had poor lighting and drainage. An informal network of staircases and passageways also formed on upper levels, which was so extensive that one could travel north to south through the entire City without ever touching solid ground. Construction in the City went unregulated, and most of the roughly 350 buildings were built with poor foundations and few or no utilities. Because apartments were so small—about 60% were 23 m² (250 sq ft)—space was maximized with wider upper floors, caged balconies, and rooftop additions. Roofs in the City were full of television antennas, clotheslines, water tanks, and garbage, and could be crossed using a series of ladders"

(source: wikipedia)

  This sunlit alley was a pretty rare thing:

Yep, that was a sunlit alley.  You mean you couldn't tell?

Anyhoo, without any authority governing Kowloon, crime was rampant!  Most of the residents lived there in peace though and tried to improve the living conditions there, and factories and other businesses did pretty well.  Did you ever see Batman Begins?  The narrows was inspired by Kowloon, as have many other books and movies have been.  Really, you should check it out.

As I mentioned before, the city was demolished in 1994.  The area where the city once stood is now a park and historical district.