I took these photos way back in 2015 (time flies!). Jenn Zed’s recent artwork reminded me of these shots I took of an abandoned “mixed-use” building—one that once consisted of a bank and restaurant on the first floor, a few offices on the second and third, and apartments on the fourth, fifth, and sixth. The building was shuttered because of structural issues, and had stood empty and decaying on a corner in my hometown of Lansing, Michigan, for more than 30 years. During that time, paint peeled away, and vines grew all over the sides. Homeless people occasionally took up residence, busting out windows to crawl inside the asbestos ridden interior.
Before the building fell to total ruin, a friend of mine had lived in one of the sixth-floor apartments that was accessible by stairs or a cage-type elevator. This was in the early 1980s. She asked me to house sit once and take care of her cat when she went on vacation, and I got stuck on the elevator for about four hours one night. After a half pack of cigarettes, and draining most of a six pack I had ventured out to get, the elevator magically started working. Her cat was not happy when I finally got to the apartment, but I was.
These pictures were taken on a snowy day in January 2015 with a Canon Rebel. I have them in a much larger format (6 to 8 mg) but shrunk these down to fit. (Sorry Jenn—my tech skills couldn’t stretch enough to figure out the linking—but maybe for a later post). I hope people like the curated selection from an original series of about 20.
