Having done everything we set out to do in the NSH Southern campus, my friend and I now set our sights on the Northern half of the estate. Specifically the [REDACTED] building and its abandoned neighborhood, as I'd seen signs of activity near the building while passing it on previous trips and it looked like our...
benefactors were preparing to tear [REDACTED] and its houses down too.
Looking back at the previous NSH galleries, I noticed that I did a poor job of actually documenting the locations. This gallery attempts to improve upon that with more "overview" shots of various rooms and locations of interest.
Some of these shots are terrible but are included to paint a better picture of the location. If same-height tripod photos are your trigger, leave now or forever hold your peace!
If houses aren't your thing, skip to photo #18!
This exploration took place on February 10th, 2018.
01: WatertowerOur first stop in the abandoned neighborhood was the watertower that dominated its skyline.
02: Sky HatchOnce upon a time this would have been impossible to enter. Now it's easier.
03: The PeakMy friend decided to climb up the tower. I stayed down on the ground to photograph the attempt. The vines twirling around the hatch appear to run all the way to the top. My friend later reported that the cold metal ladder froze his hands, and since he forgot his asbestos heater they remained frozen for the rest of the exploration.
04: House 10We had planned to explore the [REDACTED] building on this trip, but elected to first explore one house to get an idea of what they had in store for us later. We plan to dedicate one trip here completely to these houses and document as many as we can.
05: Sunray IVMy old house had a furnace like this, a Sunray IV, which worked well enough until the basement flooded one too may times and its bottom rusted through. The one installed here was last inspected in the late 1980's, iirc, and passed with a low-80's efficiency percentage. Which my friend called BS on.
06: Burner SwirlsThe kitchen in this house was trashed both by hooligans and by nature. Any cheap building materials had warped or decayed from years of humidity, however these houses didn't appear to be too out of date.
07: Dining RoomPassing through the kitchen got us into the dining room. There wasnt much to see here, just peeling paint (which I photographed because I like peeling paint but the results were blurry).
08: Living Room (Left)The living room was fairly sparse - its fireplace doesn't even have a mantle, just a border.
09: Living Room (Right)The houses appear to have been abandoned since the 1990's, possibly even as early as the 1980's, and they did not weather that time well. It's easy to forget that the 1990's happened mostly over 20 years ago.
10: Starbust [sic]Some of the rooms still retained their original light fixtures, but unfortunately someone destroyed the starburst one in this upstairs bedroom.
11: Second Floor LandingThis is looking back out into the hallway from the room of the previous photo's light fixture.
12: Star PatternsWhether due to water running down the walls in perfect rivulets or some other phenomenon, this particular room's paint peeled in a curious pattern.
13: Rough-EdgedI love when glass breaks in interesting patterns.
14: Tall StairsSince the attic was just a crawlspace, this house didn't have a dedicated stairway up to it, leaving a huge open space above the stairs.
15: Accursed InsectsWhile leaving the house, we discovered a gigantic hornets nest right outside of the back door. There were no signs of activity, but we didn't press our luck.
16: ShipwreckDown a dead-end street in the neighborhood sat a boat that had fallen off of its drydock. My friend is inside the forward cabin poking around in this photo. The roof above the control panel fell sideways upon the impact with the ground but was still attached, held up by the sheer willpower of the right-side control console.
17: ButterphaltThe boat's wooden hull weakened over the years as it sat out in the rain and snow with no covering, allowing water to rot it from the inside out. After too much rot, the hull integrity failed and the stands it was sitting it impaled right through, letting the boat crash over onto its side. When it fell, one of its propellers sliced right into the asphalt. Props to whomever built this boat for installing indestructible propellers.
Part 2: The [REDACTED] Building 18: [REDACTED] BacksideThis photo was taken on our way off of the property after we finished exploring for the day, but I felt it was better served here to get an idea of what the building looked like before we entered.
19: Side Room (Left)Getting in put us in a large room whose floor was made entirely of rubber. We're not sure why, I assume for noise dampening. There were no items left in this room to suggest its purpose.
20: Side Room (Right)The doors at the far end of the room lead deeper into the building.
21: Beautiful CurvesBrickwork like this just doesn't exist in modern buildings.
22: AsymmetryI didn't realize there was no fifth window at the right until I got home and reviewed all the shots.
23: Glowing DoorHanging ajar, inviting us in.
24: Golden HallFollowing this hallway took us to a variety of different places.
25: Front DoorsThe fading sunlight outside coupled with the paint made some areas of the building glow a warm yellow. This room was small and cramped, hence the fisheye(?) effect along the edges.
26: Cafeteria 180Turning directly around from the previous photo points the view at a set of doors to which I assume was a cafeteria (which we confirmed on a later trip), but couldn't tell at the time because my friend urged me to continue down the hall. I got sidetracked and forgot to photograph some things along the way due to him calling me over.
Off the right side of this photo and down the hall, we found a number of school textbooks, which led us to believe that the [REDACTED] building here served a small school for this neighborhood. Later research seems to back up that theory. Curiously though, the textbooks are all marked as belonging to a different school; we assume the books were all donated since this school appears to have educated adolescents with psychiatric issues (what with being on the ground of a psychiatric hospital and all). The building isn't featured on some maps of this campus, perhaps because of how far away it is from the rest.
27: UnderhallThis long a pipe-filled hallway was littered with what looked like walnuts but might have been something else. This is the hallway after we passed through it, which deposited us at the next photo.
28: Framed GlassTurned around 180* from the previous photo gets the viewer into a shorter hallway made of glass block windows.
29: Activity Room (Left)Following the glass block hallway brought us to a large room that appeared to have once served as an activity room or multi-purpose classroom.
30: Activity Room (Middle)This room was in awful condition. Most of the ceiling has collapsed years ago and completely obscured the tile floor.
31 Activity Room (Right)The front part of the room had fared somewhat better then the opposite side, but it too was in horrible shape.
32: SetupI'm sure someone before me placed these desks like this to make a shot, and I thank whomever that was because it allowed me to take that shot as well!
The one desk still standing had some 1978 Superman stickers stuck to it, which was the latest date we could find on any objects in the building thus far. It's a nightstand! No, it's an end table! No, it's Superdesk!
33: Hollow TubeAnother obliterated 1950's television set. While walking around, we found one of its vacuum tubes lying intact on the ground on the opposite side of the room, near the three desks. I handed it to my friend, who proceeded to put it back in the TV while I wasn't looking. All the same though - that was my plan too.
34: The Bad HalfThe back half of this room was in substantially worse condition than the front half. The room above this part of the room disintegrated from the weather and all that was left in some spots was the wooden framework.
..
35: Civil DefenseIn the basement, we found tins upon tins upon tins of Civil Defense cracker rations. Many of them had been ripped open, but there were at least two still sealed. One was dented badly, the other was practically mint. We did not attempt to open either as doing so requires the destruction of the tin.
I also can't help but see the pile of wood outside the window as a zombie dog or something looking in the window.
36: Leaving for TodayDue to the failing light and our own exhaustion, we elected to leave for the day and come back next weekend. Hopefully the demo crews stay preoccupied with the Southern campus long enough for us to make a few trips here.
Epilogue: The long trek back to the cars left us cold and hungry. We split a pizza and then went our separate ways.
As stated in previous threads, this campus is currently being razed - make a trip while you still can!