The Juan T. Trippe Jumbo Jet was once the crown jewel of the Pan Am fleet, built in 1970 as the world’s first commercial jumbo jet. Now it’s the shabby ruin of a high-concept restaurant in Seoul, South Korea. I visited in the summer of 2009, with SY. This is the story of our explore, and the story of how such a historic plane ended up in such bizarre circumstances. Nose cone of the Juan T. Trippe I was in Korea to visit SY’s family and get to know something about her country. On our trip we visited all the …
Building New Atlantis
by Michael John Grist
The first stage in the construction of New Atlantis went quietly, and the world scarcely noticed. It looked enough like a new ship or oil drilling platform on the satellite photos that no other nation would pay it too much mind.
Awesome abandoned theaters in the USA
Cinema is the American cultural export, a clearinghouse genre jam-packed with iconic images, historical rewrites, and the changing face of the Western hero.
Ruins of the Queen Chateau Soapland, HDR
It was my second time to visit the ruins of the Queen Chateau. It’s a bizarre abandonment, a giant soapland in the midst of a cluster of still-functioning soaplands presiding over them like the towering castle in the suburbs in Edward Scissorhands. Within its walls sex was transacted for money on a grand scale, on 6 floors of executive suites, four per floor, each kitted out with a large bath, private bar and a bed. 3 Venuses in the lobby, behind the fountain It’s a little odd to talk about going to a soapland, even one in ruins. Perhaps it’s …
Mack’s Kids
by Michael Brown “I had a life once,” the trucker said pushing away the unfinished food on his plate. He downed the coffee. He ate late in diners. Slept in his truck or in motel rooms. Hazards of his occupation. “Why so sad tonight?” Cherise said, pouring another cup. “Maybe I’m thinking about my ex a little too much lately.” Truth was he could not stop himself thinking about her these days. After hauling another load of farm products from the midwest to the east coast Mack had returned to Plainsville drawn by what, he could not quite say. He …
7 Bizarre Monuments of Saddam’s Iraq
When Iraq lost the war to Coalition Forces back in 2003 the iconic image was one of American soldiers tearing down a great bronze statue of Saddam Hussein in Firdos Square. Soon after giant busts of his head were removed from the Palace of the Republican Guard. These destructions were symbols of victory, symbols of an end to tyranny. But in the half-war half-rebuilding period that followed, Iraqis were faced with hundreds more remnants of Hussein’s 24-year rule, monuments written in bronze and stone across the country. Was it right to tear them all down, thereby erasing any memory of …
Relics of the Keishin Hospital 3. Graffiti
Often ruins have a few tags littering their walls, messages and names left by some dumb-asses in their bid for eternal glory. Scrawls, defacements, junk.
Waterfall
by Michael John Grist I cut open his brain because he needed help. “Help me,” he’d whispered, banging at my fly screen in the middle of the night, his wet shirtsleeves slapping against the cracked glass of my back porch slide door. “I need help.” So I’d let him in. Set him down. Listened to him talk. “There’s a waterfall,” he’d said, lying there in the dark kitchen slumped across my table. “I see it when I dream. And the dark creatures. There are dark creatures in the waterfall. Slithering in the cold, behind the falls.” “Oh?” I’d said, keeping …
Relics of America’s youth: Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas
Way back in 1825, with the revolutionary war 49 years past and the purchase of Florida from Spain only 5 years gone, America still very much feared attack by a foreign power. Inspectors were sent to the Dry Tortugas in the mouth of the Gulf of Mexico to source sturdy islands for fortification. 21 years later Fort Jefferson was built on sandy Garden Key, designed to consolidate the young country’s coastal defences and secure her lines of naval trade. Fort Jefferson, over 100 years ‘abandoned’ For only 42 it saw active military service, in Federal hands for the Civil War, …