A while ago, we had a couple threads dedicated to abandoned buildings and amusement parks, mainly centered around this Japanese website:
http://home.f01.itscom.net/spiral/. In this thread I'll talk about some of the sites I've had the privilege to visit myself. The first one I'll cover is the Reading Viaduct, an abandoned elevated rail line in Philadelphia.
The Reading Viaduct spans the the whole city of Philadelphia, but the above-ground section I explored is situated within in the Callowhill or Chinatown North neighborhoods. This part of the city is also known as the Eraserhood, because it is where David Lynch lived as a poor art student, and served as the inspiration for his first feature film, Eraserhead. The film's empty, lifeless, industrial spaces echoing with antisocial machine-noises were directly based upon Lynch's experiences here.
Built back in the 1830's, this track was once part of the east coast's largest passenger railway system. If you've ever played Monopoly, you might remember the Reading Railroad space - this is what that tile is referring to.
As you all know, private automobile traffic had largely replaced public transportation by the mid 1900s. Inter-city transportation was, and remains today, almost exclusively limited to private automobiles. It was also during this time that SEPTA, the Philadelphia area's current transportation company, was introducing an integrated intra-city regional rail, subway and bus system, making the Reading Railroad largely obsolete.
Eventually the Reading Viaduct was no longer profitable, and the viaduct itself closed as a functioning rail system in 1985. But it still remained the property of the Reading Railroad, a private company, which means that the city could not touch it without purchasing it first. This proved to be unprofitable, too, as it was estimated that the viaduct would cost far more to demolish than any new business could ever make in its place.
For nearly three decades, the viaduct and the neighborhood around it has been a wasteland. In the meantime, a soil layer began to establish itself on top of the viaduct through the build-up of dust and debris, and wind-dispersed seeds found an open, sunny environment in which to grow.
The picture above and those immediately following were taken from the Reading Viaduct's facebook page.
That is how the viaduct has looked for well over a decade, but recently a contractor has been hired to clean up the site for sale. By the time I got there they had already cleared almost all of the vegetation, and had begun removing the railroad ties and tracks. The construction crew was actually up there working and operating their heavy equipment while we were snooping around, but we kind of stupidly decided to keep going until someone told us to get out.
The following pictures (two below, six further down) are from my phone. They aren't great, but at this point they're all I have. More will hopefully come later
Currently, the neighborhood is essentially a wasteland of vacant lots, abandoned warehouses and parking. Though there are plenty of cars around, we saw no other people in the area besides construction workers and one person parking their car. Apparently, that's how this place has been ever since the viaduct closed. The warehouses really had no use once the trains stopped running, so they've largely sat empty since 1985. Several of them have recently been converted to lofts for yuppies, so I guess you can say the neighborhood is on the rise. It's better than when Lynch lived here, but it's still essentially a lifeless void.
a view from street level
a pile of rail ties, sitting upon stone aggregate that was recently introduced to the site - it often serves as a base for paving or or planting
something I'm not sure these pictures convey is how isolated you feel up here, despite connecting views out to the rest of the city. combined with the sparse streetscape below, it really feels like you're cut off from the rest of the world.
a white cherry tree somehow found its way up here
We only got to spend about 15 minutes wandering around on the viaduct before one of the workers came up to us and asked us to leave. We talked to him for a little, told him what we were doing up there and the project we're working on. He explained that the crew was clearing the site so that the Reading Railroad could sell it to the city, so that "they can make a park out of it, like up in New York". He also showed us our location on a map, and talked a little about the history of the site. He motioned and pointed at everything with a knife, and was generally nice, but at one point suddenly referred to our project as "whatever bullshit you're talking about".
The park in New York that he mentioned is the High Line, which most of you probably already know about. It's essentially the same situation, but mostly set within in a great neighborhood in New York, with a Frank "Puke and Diarrhea King" Gehry building nearby, and with much more track available above-ground. It was the perfect project for them, but is really the worst thing they could do to the Reading Viaduct, far worse than leaving it as an isolated, sublime urban wasteland. There have been talks about the conversion project for years, and it seems like the first step has been taken towards turning this place into a small-scale, unsuccessful reproduction of the High Line. The project we're working on will propose another use for the viaduct that will be unique to Philadelphia and, I think, will be much more successful too. edit - they pulled the plug
For more history, pictures, and general information, go here:
http://www.readingviaduct.org/index.htmlIf you guys know of or have explored any abandoned trash-filled graffiti wastelands near you, I'd love to hear about them. I have one or two other spaces I can talk about in Philadelphia too. This would probably be better if I was skilled in photography at all, hopefully some of you can contribute better pictures!
