Long story about a Motorola found on an abandoned farm

[zenithfan1]

I don't know.........mines are where I draw a very big line. Those things make me feel claustrophobic just thinking about them

[Sandy G]

In Pressmen's Home, right next to the Trade School bldg I went into, is a chapel. The ramrod behind PH was a Maj. George Leonard Berry, he was president of the Union from 1907 til he died in '48. He was married, but it was common knowlege he had a "girlfriend". In the chapel, there was a fresco painted on the ceiling, w/angels & cherubim, etc, the face of one of the "angels" was sposed to be the girlfriend's face... The doors to the chapel were broken down, one was pushed over from the doorframe from where the floor was rotted away to where it got "solid" again. there was a maroon carpet that was about 2" thick covering the floor. I went in a little ways, could see the faded fresco on the ceiling, but it was dark in there, & you really couldn't tell much about it. Besides, the floor was kinda, well, not very solid, & I'm a big guy, I felt like Discretion was the better part of Valor, so I didn't tarry in there too long. Didn't particularly feel like trying to climb out of a basement in a ruined church...I also went into another bldg, it was their telephone building, it was kinda small, like a toolshed, all the old phone switchgear was still there, along w/manuals, spare parts, general junque. The latest date I found on stuff was 1948... Wished I'd "cabbaged" a bit on some of that stuff...The only thing I took was a weird tube that was pretty big, & had gold-colored getters in it instead of the more familiar silver...No #s on it of course.

[zenithfan1]

Man, that place sounds cool Sandy. Is it still there?

[Sandy G]

Yep. There was a guy bought part of it though, & now he runs everybody off that wants to "look around". Google "Pressmen's Home", & you can see what it was like c. 1964...

[zenithfan1]

Cool stuff! There is a lot that comes up about it. Glad to hear it's still there. On another note, WOW. I just got the weirdest de-ja-vu I've had in a while.

[AUdubon5425]

What's kept me out of abandoned buildings around here is *who* may also be inside. Lotsa crime in New Orleans. Guess that isn't much of a concern out in the country. There's a highrise downtown (The Rault Center) that's been vacant since the 1970's when there was a fire and 8 women jumped to their deaths. Pieces of it fall onto Rampart & Gravier Streets now & then. I know someone who's been inside (legally) and they say the upper floors are gutted, walking through the lobby & ground floor is like walking into 1973. There's more vacant highrises & industrial buildings since Katrina, but I'm more wary of the bums & crackheads than the police department!

I did find my 13" XL-100 and a Heathkit W-5M amp & pre-amp in a building my old boss was taking down in '06. Also saved the 1960's recessed fluorescent light fixtures from a board room and put them in my kitchen And an old ceramic-cased Western Union wall-mounted dialer that summoned a messenger to the place from the WU office.

[zenithfan1]

Originally Posted by AUdubon5425

What's kept me out of abandoned buildings around here is *who* may also be inside. Lotsa crime in New Orleans. Guess that isn't much of a concern out in the country. There's a highrise downtown (The Rault Center) that's been vacant since the 1970's when there was a fire and 8 women jumped to their deaths. Pieces of it fall onto Rampart & Gravier Streets now & then. I know someone who's been inside (legally) and they say the upper floors are gutted, walking through the lobby & ground floor is like walking into 1973. There's more vacant highrises & industrial buildings since Katrina, but I'm more wary of the bums & crackheads than the police department!

YES! I have thought of this many times, sometimes going in with a knife in my hand just incase. I went into a house in the middle of the ghetto in Kenosha a few years ago, I was very worried that someone was in there, people scare me more than ghosts and whatnot.

[zenithfan1]

You know what, the camera I'm taking also does video. I'll bring some extra batteries and make a video for youtube.
I can post a pic of the set tonight, it's out in the garage "evil-ing" the place up.

[zenith2134]

I can't wait to see what you find there....Great thread

And yeah, people can be way more frightening than spirits....only thing, at least you can see/hear people better, and know what's actually in there!

(...Is there anybody....OUT THERE?)

[Sandy G]

No way in Hell I'd do now what I did back then...Not w/all the Meth Labs & other nonsense they find around here now. The area where PH is has ALWAYS had a very "creepy" feel to it...Lots of people have claimed to see odd lights & stuff in the bldgs there-most of which no longer have electricity connected to them. There was a tuberculosis sanatarium there where quite a few people died-Back in the old days, there was a good chance you'd contract TB if you worked in a platemaking dept of a printer, because of the chemicals they used. When the Union pulled out in '70, they tried to contact the families of folks who had died & were buried there, to see if they wanted them moved. Some did, but a lot of the older graves had no remaining kin, & the cemetary was subsequently abandoned, & a lot of the records of who was buried there were apparently lost. That cemetary is ONE creepy place.

[Kiwick]

I explored many abandoned buildings when i was a teenager, and i did came across a couple of places packed full of TVs and assorted old electronics.

One was a huge early 1900s brickwork kiln, someone stuffed the kiln chamber with old electronics, appliances, bicycles, furniture and other assorted junk, lots of 60s tube B/W sets in there, most were smashed or missing parts so i just took the speakers, knobs and tubes from them, a couple were intact and i saved them along with cool 50s tube phonograph, this was back in 1992, the kiln is still there today but it's completely grown over by bushes and access to it is absolutely impossible.

The other was an old barn on the riverside, there were about ten 50s and 60s TV sets in there, they were all smashed up by vandals and again i took the tubes, knobs and speakers from them.

Today there are still quite a few abandoned building around here, including one fairly large and cool 1920s summer colony, but exploring this place is quite risky due to squatters and junkies living in the buildings, this problem has gotten a lot worse in the last few years, i've done a couple of trips in there on my mule so that i'd be able to get away fast if need to, but of course i can't get to the upper floors, you don't really want to take a chance and ride a half ton beast on a possibly unsafe floor

[TheRed1]

Excellent thread - great reading! I used to go "roguing" (as we called it) around abandoned houses all the time in my carefree youth. The only time anything strange happened was in this house. (Picture taken at that time; back in the early 80s.)

Friends of a friend were living in the one story addition on the right side of the house that had been the servants' quarters. They were living rent-free and looking after the property for the owners. They had keys to the main house and told us we were free to explore as long as we were careful not to break anything. It was an amazing house; fully furnished with all its contents undisturbed since the owner had died sometime in the early 60s.

The story we were told was that the owner's children could not agree on what to do with their deceased parents' estate and it had been allowed to just sit for over 20 years. I seem to recall that the family name was something like Lee or one of those other Virginia names that rhyme with history and in this case: money. Apparently the heirs were well off enough to allow what must surely have been, even back in the 80s, a multi-million dollar estate, to just languish.

The room off to the right in the picture below was the library. I still have dreams about this room - good ones, though. It was too dark to take pictures in since I didn't have a flash but it was lined with leather-bound books and drawers full of old maps. There were lots of maps from WW I showing detailed troop positions and trenches somewhere in France that had to have been originals - in English, French and German. There was one of those German helmets with the spike on top, guns, a bugle, flags, and thousands of letters. I feel certain that the deceased owner must have been a high ranking officer in the AEF.



Most of the furniture was Victorian and very posh looking but there were a few rooms with cheaper looking furnishings from the 40s and 50s. Nothing had been removed - the closets were still full of clothes and the pantry was stocked. My friends and I had lots of fun exploring the first two floors, joking and laughing and trying to play the bugle. It was a cold but bright sunny day, as you can see in the picture.

I was the first one to venture up to the third floor. At the top of the stairs the first door I came to opened on a large room, painted light blue and jumbled with children's furniture. It had a large fireplace which was filled with dead birds. The whole room was full of dead birds. The sun was streaming in through those three smaller windows (on the right side in the photo) but the room was freezing. And the air in the room was impossibly still and just said DEATH.

I wasn't exactly frightened, but I had to get out of that room immediately. I warned my friends but they had to experience it for themselves. I left the house immediately and waited in the yard. We thanked our hosts for the tour and had a very quiet and introspective ride home. It was weeks before we felt like discussing the "room with all the dead birds" but we all had similar reactions.

[zenithfan1]

Thanks again for the great stories, I have been fascinated with this kind of stuff since I was a little kid and strange things started happening when my Dad remodeled the house we just bought. This was back in 1987. He came down the stairs sheet white a couple of times. Here are the pics of the infamous Motorola tv.......




Not much to look at but it sure aint stayin' here no more.

[radiotvnut]

Interesting reading. Someone I know recently told me that a friend of his found an abandoned house way out in the woods that was full of old TV's. I told him that I'd like to check it out; but,The more I think about it, I probably should forget about it for many reasons. I did get a CTC38 console and an old Admiral B&W console out of a long vacated house; but, the owner of the property was with me when I got the sets. The house looked ransacked on the inside. I think it was one of those deals where it took years to settle an estate or some crap like that and the owner was cleaning out the house so she could sell it.

[zenithfan1]

You know, in a way, this stuff is kinda fun. I'd go check 'em out if I were you but maybe not bring anything home. May make for some cool pics at least.