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Category / Abandoned

America’s Lost Towns of Black Affluence

Going into this, I don’t think I was prepared at all for how un-unique the story of Florida’s Sugar Hill neighbourhood really was. In the 1950s and 60s, the once upper class and prestigious Black community of Sugar Hill in Jacksonville, was chosen by city officials to be levelled to make way for a multi-lane…

Nearly 50 Years On, a Forbidden Seaside Ghost Town is about to Re-Open

Imagine a millionaire’s resort; one to rival St. Tropez, Italy’s Portofino, or Miami’s South Beach – abandoned overnight. Imagine the luxury hotels suddenly emptied of their guests and left to slowly decay, the boutiques, bars and nightclubs reclaimed by nature, sunbathers replaced by sea turtles nesting on the deserted beaches and the once vibrant holiday…

The Bay of Abandoned Hotels

As summer winds down and holidaymakers swap the beach for their real lives, hotels will inevitably begin to empty of their guests and resorts will slowly become ghost towns until the next season. But very few resorts will get as ghostly as the Kupari luxury resort in Croatia, which hasn’t seen any paying guests since…

The All-Black Utopian Ghost City that Lost its Soul

In the heart of what was North Carolina’s old tobacco and cotton-field industry, lies the remains of Soul City, an unrealised utopia born in the midst of America’s 1970s urban crisis, intended to encourage black empowerment in a new all-African American planned community. Bankrolled by Nixon’s Republican government, “built by black people and for black people”, Soul City was projected to…

Don’t be a Tourist, Episode 2: Parisian Ghost Town

And we’re back with another episode from our new web series, Don’t be a Tourist in Paris. Before you tuck in, this is the second episode, which means you should probably go back and watch Episode 1 if you haven’t already seen it. Or just watch it after. I’m not fussy. For today’s line-up, your…

Play the New Sheriff of this Ghost Town for Sale

Cerro Gordo was “the Silver Thread to Los Angeles,” the once violent pioneer town whose grounds saw the rush of miners and cowboys mark it on the map in blood. The literal translation of its Spanish name, “Fat Hill,” helps express that unshakeable bond to good ‘ole Western greed in Nevada — even if these days, Cerro Gordo is spread rather…

Inside the Real-Life “Hunger Games” City: A Decaying Parisian Utopia

We’re quite spoilt here in Paris, surrounded by elegant cream-colored stone Haussmanians, gifted with pockets of bucolic cobblestone streets and charmed by old-world cafés and façades. But stray to the suburbs of Eastern Paris and you’ll find what looks like an alternate universe in comparison, a failed post-war “city of Babel” with Pharaonic structures of decaying…

And Now, Abandoned Dollhouses for your Inner Demon Child

Forget those twee little dollhouses from your childhood, we’re a tiny bit obsessed with the work of a truly twisted genius. Juli Steel is not your average miniaturist. A self-taught assemblage artist from Texas who goes by the alias of @TwistedCopperForest, like us, Juli has a weak spot for the forgotten and unloved things of…

UFO Moving Day

I‘m a fan of most of the design that came out of the sixties, but if there’s one thing I just don’t get, it was the Futuro House. Designed in 1968 by Finnish architect, Matti Suuronen, fewer than 100 examples were built, inspired by the post-war futurism and space exploration. It has become an iconic…

Who Will Rescue the Ruins of This French Fairytale Chateau?

“STOP!” I howled from the passenger seat of the car as it sped past the padlocked gates in the darkness of the old town square. “You have to go back– I saw something!” We’d left Paris that evening for the long weekend and stopped for dinner in the little commune of Fontenay-Trésigny, thirty minutes from the city. As…

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