Abandoned America

Did you ever wonder how someone could become so obsessed with abandoned buildings that it engulfs their whole life? This is my story: the strange tale of of how and why I began photographing abandoned buildings across the world and started the Abandoned America project - an origin story for the podcast and website, if you will.

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In this episode Matthew interviews Stacey Tenenbaum, a Canadian filmmaker who produced and directed a beautiful documentary called Scrap. Scrap takes a poetic and meditative look at what becomes of the objects we use after they've ceased to fulfill the function they were originally intended for. The documentary shares the story of some incredible people and spaces, including a photographer who documents e-waste processing facil...

Gould Street Power Station in Baltimore was once the most impressive power plant in the city and considered a technological marvel, but now its demolition seems inevitable. In this episode, we'll trace the wild history of the site through the bitter public utility wars that led to its construction to its eventual closure and abandonment - a trip that includes a forgotten inventor, a brutal murder, and a look at what might be in...

Forest Haven was a developmental center in Laurel, Maryland for children and adults with developmental and intellectual disabilities and chronic illnesses that was the site of what was described as "the deadliest known example of institutional abuse in recent American history." Today Forest Haven lies abandoned and mostly forgotten, but in this episode we'll explore how profound and often fatal neglect shattered lives...

Rumors of why the small neighborhood of Lincoln Way wound up abandoned abound: did some monstrous beast scare away the residents? Or was it for some more realistic and relatable reason? In this episode we'll explore the mystery of how roughly 40 homes on a quiet Western Pennsylvania street were left vacant for years, still littered with the former residents' belongings, and uncover the true story of what became of the commu...

The SS United States is about as unique and incredible as it gets: an entire ocean liner that's larger than the Titanic, out of use since 1969 and moored in Philadelphia since 1996. Both the fastest liner ever built and the largest constructed on US soil, it's one of only two surviving relics from the entire age of passenger liners, and yet its future has been imperiled for decades and it seems like its time might finally b...

Located a short distance from one of the most popular tourist attractions in the United States, it's hard to imagine why the Fallside Hotel in Niagara Falls, NY would have been abruptly closed and left abandoned. To tell the story we need to look at the boom and subsequent implosion of the area's tourist economy, caused by industrial pollution and misguided urban renewal projects. We'll also talk about what the town'...

What would you do if the only bridge to your community burned and the town refused to rebuild it? The residents of Long Beach, CT found out the hard way and it destroyed their entire neighborhood, leaving nearly 50 beachfront homes abandoned. In this episode of the Abandoned America podcast, we'll explore the tragic story of what went wrong, how the fate of Long Beach was tied to the defunct Pleasure Beach Amusement Park locate...

The morning we snuck into Taunton State Hospital before dawn was like something out of a dream. It's one of those profound experiences that haunts you for the rest of your life, something you try to explain to others but can never quite find the words to express. Join Matthew Christopher of Abandoned America for a 22-minute exploration of what Taunton State Hospital's story was, why anyone would go to such great lengths to ...

The Randall Park Mall in North Randall, Ohio was, for a brief moment, the largest mall in the world. Less than 40 years later it was in ruins. In this episode we'll cover the mall's extravagant opening, tumultuous lifespan, why it finally closed, and what it was like visiting it in the aftermath. For a shopping center, it has some pretty shocking crimes in its past, and its story is more haunting than you might think. Come ...

Gary, Indiana was once a thriving metropolis, but now it's a city of ruins. In this episode we'll discuss Gary's founding as a steel town, its economic collapse, and what still remains - including the abandoned City Methodist Church, the Gary Public Schools Memorial Auditorium, and the Palace Theatre. How did a city go from being called the "City of the Century" to having roughly a third of its buildings vacant, and what is it like...

Amusement parks are a happy part of many people's family memories - so it's hard to imagine a theme park of over 200 acres sitting abandoned for nearly 20 years. That is just what happened with the massive Six Flags New Orleans, however: left to rot after Hurricane Katrina submerged it for weeks, it has been vacant for over three times as long as it was open. Why wasn't the park reopened or redeveloped? Today I'm joined by Jake Wil...

In this episode we cover the demolition of Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament in West Philadelphia, a beautiful and historic church that could have easily been saved and repurposed but like so many others was torn down under questionable circumstances. We'll talk with Christopher Daniels, a teacher who found himself thrust into the role of a community activist trying to save a building whose fate seemed already sealed to find out wh...

Today's episode is about an abandoned garden - but not just any garden, this one was created by America's first female landscape architect, Beatrix Farrand. Farrand is remarkable for many reasons - she designed the innovative and revolutionary landscapes for some of America's wealthiest families and most prominent universities and even landscaped the White House. However, much of her work today is lost. I'm joined by Karen Waltuch,...

In this episode we talk with Dr. Cristina Visperas about her new book "Skin Theory: Visual Culture and the Postwar Prison Laboratory", which explores the shocking past of the now-abandoned Holmesburg Prison in Philadelphia. For decades Dr. Albert Kligman conducted unethical and harrowing medical experiments on Holmesburg's inmates - in this episode we explore what those experiments were, how they formed the basi...

The documentation and exploration of ruins may have existed for centuries, but the history of the subject in the internet age is still a relatively short one. In the last episode we talked about the legacy of Ninjalicious, who helped turn people on to the subject, and in this episode we're going to take a look at the best known and most popular website on the subject before the advent of social media: Urban  Exploration Resour...

"Urban Exploration" is a term used by many to describe trespassing, primarily in abandoned places, and over the last 20 years it has developed into its own counterculture and art genre. Today we'll talk about Jeff Chapman, also known as Ninjalicious. A Canadian who found his love for going into restricted areas during his struggle with a terminal illness, Ninjalicious would spend the remaining years of his life sharing his passion ...

The Retail Apocalypse is upon us, or so we're told: the US has gone from 2,500 malls in the 1980s to about 700 today, and as anchors fold even more are expected to close in years to come. Today I'm joined by guest Alexandra Lange, architectural critic and author of the new book "Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall", to discuss the amazing life and death of the shopping mall. We'll examine how the mall serves as a...