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AntiquityEchoes uploaded a new video
(2 weeks ago)
Everyone remembers their childhood, but for most people it is remembered in an objective way. We recall the critical events, the familiar faces and...
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Everyone remembers their childhood, but for most people it is remembered in an objective way. We recall the critical events, the familiar faces and places, certainly, but for all but a few of us, we completely lose touch with way it feels to be a child - to inhabit a world unbounded by physical limits, mortality or fear. Children inhabit the same physical world as the rest of us, but they see it in magical and disproportional terms that few adults can understand. F.H. Bennett was such an adult.
In the late 1920's, while attending a stage show of "Hansel & Gretel", he had an idea. He envisioned a place that would bring families together using the whimsical spirit of fairy tales. He approached Joseph Urban, a world-renowned set and prop designer, to help bring his dream to life, and a few years later, Gingerbread Castle was completed.
When it opened in the 1930's, Gingerbread Castle was a children's park designed around stories collected by the Brothers Grimm. Children dressed as Hansel and Gretel would take families on tours through the grounds. Along the way, visitors were greeted by statues of various fantastic characters, often depicted in scenes from the stories of which they were part. The castle itself was the highlight of the tour. Guests were brought in through the 'dungeon' and up a spiraling staircase to the main hall. The walls appeared to be made of peppermint sticks and other treats mortared together with icing. High above jack climbed a beanstalk and a giant peered in at the room and its occupants.
The castle now sits unused in a small lot. Its bright and colorful paint faded and its multitude of frolicking fairytale characters all but vanished. A high chain-link fence, crowned in barbed wire, acts as a last defense against thieves and vandals who found the castle walls to be anything but impregnable. This dilapidated monument to whimsy, surrounded by a sharply realistic metal wall, is not unlike the fantasies of our childhood that it indulged. Like the castle, proving too delicate to survive in the real world, our dreams and imagination are locked safely behind steel fences and then simply left in some dark corner to rot, their purpose forgotten.
Photography can be viewed here:
http://rustytagliareni.blogspot.com/2...
Big thanks once again to Spudz64 for providing the vintage 8mm footage.
http://www.youtube.com/user/spudz64
Music - "Für Elise" as preformed by
the Exam Study Classical Music Orchestra.
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AntiquityEchoes uploaded a new video
(1 month ago)
Large unmaintained pines all but block the front of this disused hotel from view. Without prior knowledge of its existence one would likely drive r...
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Large unmaintained pines all but block the front of this disused hotel from view. Without prior knowledge of its existence one would likely drive right past it on the main road which lies just half a block away, having not the slightest clue that they completely overlooked a four-story tall building. This is not an altogether bad thing however, as the natural camouflage seems to have kept most would-be vandals and thieves away from the property. Considering this place has been shuttered since 2004, its remains in relatively good shape. Most of the damage within has occurred due to the whims of nature, not through the hands and minds of human trespassers.
During its day this hotel catered to those staying in the area for extended periods of time. When you rented a room here you would receive a set of keys; one would unlock your bedroom, the other would unlock the door across the hall from you which contained a kitchen and dining area. From the looks of things, these kitchen-rooms were an after-thought remodeled from surplus bedrooms which the resort no longer had a use for. The upper-most floor seems to have remained exclusively bedrooms to the end however, and after the remodeling on the floors below it became storage for the numerous bed-frames and mattresses removed to create the kitchens.
As previously stated -- this hotel is still in decent shape, primarily due to a lack of vandalism. This is not to say that the building is sound, in several places it is very much not. One wing in particular suffers quite badly from water damage, and as we trekked down its corridors ice would unexpectedly crackle and snap under the weight of our feet - hidden away below vintage carpeting and wooden floorboards. The leak in this section of the building is actually quite bad, to the point that the ground floor has a sheet of ice upon it several inches thick.
As is the case with most dead things; this place is cold. Old windows and the occasional missing pane of glass allow the biting winds of winter to easily enter and swirl down the old hallways. As the air ran through the aging building, crooked windows rattled in their frames creating the feeling that the hotel itself was shivering against the cold. The day progressed, and what little sunlight there was to start with was finally blotted from the sky by a blanket of grey and white. It was the kind of sky that almost audibly threatened of snow to come, and though a true storm never manifested itself, flurries did begin to fall before we departed for the day. They drifted down from the sky as flurries often do - randomly tumbling in unpredictable directions, slowly desaturating the landscape as they cover everything in a dusting of white. Occasionally a flake or two would manage to enter in through an open window, to land upon a bed or nearby nightstand. Remaining there if only for a moment before dissolving to tiny specks of water.
Photography can be viewed here:
http://rustytagliareni.blogspot.com/2...
Music - "Entre la mer et l'eau douce" by HRSTA
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AntiquityEchoes uploaded a new video
(2 months ago)
Little good came from this place during its 66 years of existence, so perhaps the current state of neglect and severe decay in these buildings is a...
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Little good came from this place during its 66 years of existence, so perhaps the current state of neglect and severe decay in these buildings is a suiting end to their story. Opening in 1925 on a wooded plot of land, this campus was created as a children's asylum. At the time of its opening the facility was seen as state of the art. However, not long thereafter it slowly fell into a shameful state. Accounts of patient abuse were plentiful, and the overall state of the center was caught in a downward spiral. In 1991 the doors of this place were finally forced shut for good, as ordered by federal court. Multiple class-action and civil lawsuits were filed against the center after its shuttering...
Today - some decades later, the campus still sits. The facades are now crumbling, the halls bowed and twisted, and the glass of many windows cover the floors and surrounding property. A carpet of medical records and various other paperwork decorates the floor of the administrations building, orphaned during the facility's closing. Developed x-ray film lies strewn about as well, and when held up to window-light allows for an eerie look into the past through gritty scratches and brittle plastic.
The corridors here are often painted with colorful and happy scenes, but knowing their history casts them is a grim light. The abuse that these paintings may have bore witness to makes them almost seem as if they are keeping secrets, and that their outwardly happy looks belie their true nature. They stare out from their walls as you pass, and sink back into the gloom as the glow of your flashlight travels further down the hall, and eventually around the next turn. Once again all is silent and dark. As it was before you arrived, and as it will remain after you leave.
Photos can be viewed here:
http://rustytagliareni.blogspot.com/2...
Music - "Sheep Creep" by Wonderland Falling Yesterday
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AntiquityEchoes uploaded a new video
(2 months ago)
Born to humble beginnings, as a single house in the rural mountains of New York State, the resort began with the hiring out of a single room. It w...
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Born to humble beginnings, as a single house in the rural mountains of New York State, the resort began with the hiring out of a single room. It was family run - the husband doing operations and maintenance, his wife the cooking and cleaning and their daughter acting as a hostess. In 1919, the original house was sold in favor of a larger building on 100 acres. By 1972, the resort had 35 buildings on over 1,000 acres of land and hosted 150,000 guests annually.
Today, this resort, like much of the Belt, is in ruins. The appeal of the mountain hotel, a day's drive from the city, has diminished in favor of reasonably priced plane tickets that can take a person half way around the world in the same time. So it is that this place, once among the crown jewels of the region, is empty. A few short decades ago, its popularity justified building an airstrip on the grounds so travelers could fly directly to the resort. That same airstrip is now little more than a meadow, its shattered tarmac home to thick vegetation.
Vintage Catskills intro clip taken from the "Catskills Travelogue"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3tYxL...
Old resort footage from the 1992 special
"Memories of the Catskills" with Joel Siegel:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7I1izk...
Music: "Those Were the Days" by Mary Hopkins
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AntiquityEchoes uploaded a new video
(3 months ago)
In 1909, New York opened a new facility for the aid and housing of, as the literature states, the "feeble minded and epileptics" of that ...
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In 1909, New York opened a new facility for the aid and housing of, as the literature states, the "feeble minded and epileptics" of that state. The place was named for William Pryor Letchworth, a key player in its creation and a noted humanitarian of the time. To avoid creating an institutional environment, the grounds were arranged much like a college campus.
The buildings were relatively small, typically not exceeding two stories in height, and were inspired by the aesthetics of Greek architecture. Walls of carefully hand-cut stone punctuated by arched windows and column-girded doorways could be found at every turn. Short walks across grassy lawns separated the buildings, and the greater campus, known as Letchworth village, housed its own power plant, farmland, waste disposal and water supply. It was the first of its kind, a facility that was all-inclusive and could operate completely isolated from the outside world.
During our research we found that even a passing mention of its name is bound to bring out ghost stories. Abandoned places, especially asylums, are a frequent object of attentions of paranormal investigators, and Letchworth seems to be a particular favorite. Though we are not ones to delve into ghost-hunting ourselves, we are not opposed to it as a rule. That being said, we do take issue with the manner in which more and more so-called paranormal investigations are performed, wherein the investigators treat an abandoned location as a giant nighttime playground to run through with a digital audio recorder and occasionally a case of beer. Sadly, we find that television shows on the subject have only helped to promote this attitude. What this attitude lacks, primarily, is respect - Respect for people who lived and died here, but more importantly, the people who endured lives of unimaginable isolation and pain, tormented by the demons of their own minds that the medicine of the time was helpless to cure.
Photography can be viewed here:
http://rustytagliareni.blogspot.com/2...
Letchworth Village and many other places can be found in
our book Forsaken, published by Weird NJ:
http://weirdnj.com/index.php?page=sho...
Documentary audio and video clips were taken from
"The Last Great Disgrace" a 1970's exposé about Willowbrook and Letchworth Village
by Geraldo Rivera.
Music - "The Host of Seraphim" by Dead Can Dance
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Cheers from Geneva,Switzerland.
I subbed, please subb back and don't be a stranger!
Overbrook Forsaken kicks ass!
within your posted veidos, :). I shall be returning to your channel. The sub and being connected with the two
of you is my adamant pleasure, My Friends, :).
"Best Of Wishes"
TGIO
Tim Donovan Media Composer