Urban Exploration

There is more to urban exploration than taking a walk in the city.

There are 339 posts filed in Urban Exploration (this is page 6 of 57).

The Labyrinth of Ordinary Humans

Found a nice quote on another lost urbex site. The direct link is hijacked by the Webring code. I found the site thanks to the Wayback Machine.

“It’s not about busting into businesses and bragging about trespassing. It’s about living a time that is rapidly disappearing, sinking under a new city. The undoctored past is a rare thing to have the privilege to experience, especially because this is not the past of kings or generals or millionaire mansions. This is the past of sewer and drain workers,  factory workers, builders, tunnelers – ordinary people who built the labyrinthine hive of humans, that maze of rooms and halls above ground and under that we know as – a city.”

– Jacques

urbanwanderers
Source: Exploring The Twin Cities’ Underground

Nottawasaga Lighthouse

I had this on my mental list of places to see already. It isn’t that far away. Another place to see and photograph before it’s gone.

Nottawasaga Lighthouse one of National Trust for Canada’s Top 10 Endangered Places.

Erected in 1858, the Nottawasaga Lighthouses was one of six Imperial Towers built to light the shores of Lake Huron and Georgian Bay. The whitewashed limestone light rises 95 feet above the shore, guiding ships to safety in Collingwood Harbour. It played an important part in the establishment of safe navigation routes along the coastal waters of Lake Huron following the opening of the Bruce Peninsula.

Deemed unsafe, the lighthouse was decommissioned in 2003 after an engineering study noted that the lighthouse’s exterior masonry, which had been damaged by lightning strikes and subsequent water infiltration, was at risk of collapse. A year later, a portion of the masonry crumbled. Though the Department of Fisheries and Oceans invested $400,000 to stabilize the remaining façade starting in 2005, it has since been abandoned and, without swift action, is unlikely to survive many more winters.

Source: Nottawasaga Lighthouse | The National Trust for Canada

Abandoned with the Piano

Not often I like (or see the point) having models in urban exploration photography. This time it works. I like the piano too.

Reposting from Flickr. (Yahoo was blocking the link to the photo. But it was available to download. So, something odd about the direct link).

Capture

 

Union Burying Ground

The location is available to the public. Not open to the public exactly, but not closed at any time either.

I did not go inside the old brick wall. Partly because it was tumbling down in places and I did not want to cause any more damage to it, not one brick more of it. Mostly because it looked so undisturbed over the wall. I just didn’t want to put my footsteps in there.

The grass over the fence was golden swirls. I was using the smaller camera and I don’t think it ever quite caught the colour of the grass. It was very golden, like something you would draw for a fantasy scene.

It was called the Union Burying Ground. Built in 1848 for the United Empire Loyalists in Ontario.

I’m working on uploading my photos into my own gallery. (Not part of WordPress). I’ve started with the photos I took from the cemetery we found in Burlington last week.  I will add a link to the other photographs once I get the software working the way I want. At the moment I’m having a battle with it over file sizes.

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The Maple Farms Motel

maple farms motelsignI’m meeting my Uncle for lunch tomorrow. I looked up the restaurant on Google Maps to see how to drive there. I checked the street view and found this abandoned motel almost across the street.

It may already be demolished. Google’s images were not very recent. The motel was boarded up and behind a construction fence. The area is loaded with new strip/ box stores so quite likely the motel won’t last long if it is still there at all.

See No Pattern Required – Friendship Inn Maple Farms Motel – Road Trip To The Past for images of the motel taken from a brochure in the 1970’s.

Update – August, 2016

The hotel was gone. No sign it had ever been there at all.

maple farms motel maple farms motel1

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Source for the last photograph: Michael Helmer Photography