Trip through the past. Part 1

My photoshop skills have greatly improved over the last year, so I took it upon myself to painstakingly re edit every photo I can find on my hard drive worth re editing.  I came across several that I originally dismissed that are now some of my favorites.  So today's post is a look back to some of my old trips.  Some have been posted before in one form or another, some are new to the site, but I need to get out more.  All hopes of driving have been extinguished for the past few months so I've hardly been exploring anymore.  In a couple months i should be able to have some sort of transportation again, so I'll surely have more to talk about here.  I've been doing some recon and have some interesting places in mind.  Hopefully they pan out.  Till then, here's some of 2009-2010 in a nutshell.

Also as a shameless plug, since it's my own site I might as well plug something I'm involved in.  Anyway, my band Junior Crime Fighters just released some demo tracks.  They're still kinda rough, but they're really getting there.  We're all pretty proud of how they turned out.  We're eager to lay the rest of our material down, and really eager to get out and play.  So check us out.  If you like what you hear be sure to like us or whatever the current digital trend is.
http://www.reverbnation.com/juniorcrimefighters

Without further nonsense.......

Cincinnati North Hotel.  Built 1981, closed 2008.

  

     It's impossible to imagine how an upscale hotel that is barely 30 years old can have such a disturbing amount of mold.  The zombie apocalypse stillness of this place, complete with made beds, dishes in the sink, and vacuum cleaners still plugged in is met with the unmistakable odor of a building that would best be condemned.  Almost as foul as the kitchen fully stocked with decaying food, was the swimming pool that had developed an oily film on top of a layer of pure filth below.

Crosley Building.  Built 1929.  Closed 1993

Built to house Powell Crosley's radio empire, the building has seen a number of tenants of different kinds come and go after Crosley's decline.  After the last tenant, Queen City Printing Left in 1993, the building has been very poorly secured and has been pretty much destroyed by vandals over the last 18 years, leaving it in an interesting state of decay.  Few items of historical value remain say for a few pallets of souvenier cups and pens and various heavy equiptment, as the building is currently being cleaned out for constant redevelopment plans that may never come to fruition.

Glencoe-Auburn Place.  Built 1880ish-1890ish.  Closed 2000

     Cincinnati's first suburb, also had the first rent strike.  Once a relatively upscale neighborhood, it steadily went downhill until getting redeveloped in the 70s.  It went downhill again really quickly and became a haven for drug trafficking and violent crime, so all the tenets got evicted and the place was sealed up.  Years of weather, vandalism, and a small fire has taken has left the buildings severely dilapidated shells with rotten floors and crumbling masonry.  Some buildings had new flooring put in and were generally stabilized early last year but little has happened since.  The place still has much potential for development, but not for long at it's current rate of deterioration.

That concludes Part 1.  Next week i'm going to be scanning all of my film negatives.  I have about 10 rolls with more pictures from Hudepohl, The Crosley Building, Cincinnati North Hotel, along with some more digitals from my January 2010 trips to Robinson Flats, and my February 2010 trips to the Vernon Manor.  There's also 2 or 3 rolls of undeveloped film I shot at Hudepohl back in the summer of 2009 that are lost in a pile of unmarked rolls, I've been going through the pile slowly and I've yet to send these off.  I'm down to about 15 rolls so I should find them soon hopefully.