Thursday 27 August 2009

Bizarre and perilous bridges

Glad to know there are more people out there who have a fascination with old bridges. Here is WebUrbanist's 68 of the world's most bizarre and perilous bridges Some I've seen before, but I'm so impressed with El Camino Del Ray!

El Chorro. Camino Del Rey (link straight to the YouTube video) this bridge is crazy dangerous. Would you be brave enough, or perhaps stupid enough, to cross El Camino Del Ray? Translated, it means The King’s Pathway. It is in total disrepair and is a death trap in Spain. About 700 feet up along the El Chorro gorge, the narrow path is three feet wide in places where it’s not crumbled away. There are hardly any handrails. Can you imagine crossing this, nevertheless filming it as you go? It would either be insane, or insanely fun. But amazed at the number of people on the walk with the photographer, people wearing packs which would add another dimension to balancing.
Have the shouted catch-cry “don’t go too near the edge” reverberating through my head.


Wednesday 26 August 2009

Wintery blast

How cold, wet and windy has it been lately?
So bad that my rain gauge blew down.
But still better than in Estonia, as these photos atest!

Monday 17 August 2009

Lost cities

Ahhh, another WebUrbanist Abandonment, this one is '8 cities that may end up abandoned'.
Guessing this is a sign of the times we're experiencing in the current political and economic down turns.

The gigantic Waiting Room

The first is Detroit - the motor city, the area has suffered decades of industrial loss (between 1970 and 1980, Detroit shed 208,000 jobs). The post has some great photos of that glorious building the Michigan Central Station
Check out the photographer Shane Gorski's set on Flickr, for some atmospheric shots.

The Offices floor

Other cities featured are St. Louis in Missouri, Youngstown in Ohio, Leipzig and Wittenberge in the former East Germany, Ivanovo in the Russian Federation, Kashgar in western China where the authorities are destroying the thousand-year-old old quarter deemed a safety hazard and eyesore.
And finally, the most famous declining city of them all. Venice is indisputably one of the loveliest cities in the world - all the more so because it’s disappearing under the waves.

Wednesday 5 August 2009

Long-term parking

In 1977 a design firm created the Ghost Parking Lot Project in a shopping plaza in Hamden, Connecticut, by covering a row of a dozen cars in asphalt. While this Pompeii-like parade may have been a state-of-the-art in 1978, it has since decayed into a crusty eyesore. By 2003 the Ghost Parking Lot had deteriorated to a decrepit state, eroded by the weather and ravaged by the wheels of countless skateboards.