Chain link fence
Lyle Street, London, ON, December 11, 2006
[Click to embiggen]
Fences like this are everywhere, especially in run-down areas where business owners and homeowners alike try, usually unsuccessfully, to keep the riff-raff out. The building inside this compound was dead silent in the middle of the day, likely another victim of time. The fence stood silently, keeping watch over an uncertain future. I thought that was rather poignant, so I focused on the perimeter instead of the building itself.
Your turn: What comes to mind when you come across a fenced-in, dead-silent old building?
Another great photo. We have so many buildings like this and they tend to be broken into and vandalised. I find it sad that nobody seems to want to do anything with these buildings.
ReplyDeleteI feel sad when I see them. The memories that are there - happy ones when the business opened or the families moved in, sad ones when it fell apart and no one repaired it, even sadder when the fence went up. And the lonely building stands there, waiting for someone to see the potential of it, not just the dirt and square footage underneath it and surrounding it.
ReplyDeleteI never really liked rules....so when I see a fence. I want to climb over it. There usually is something interesting behind them. BTW, I like the image.
ReplyDeleteHistory. Mystery. Pathos.
ReplyDeleteWilly Wonka and the Chocolate Factory-the scene where Charlie encounters the freaky janitor outside the gates of the factory.
ReplyDeleteNobody ever goes in, and nobody every comes out!
Wasted space. I tend to think those buildings either need to be torn down, or renovated so that they're useful. But to just sit there, empty, with a barrier to keep people away...it;s sad, and it's a waste.
ReplyDeleteSad, and curious, and angry. Sad, because there was life there once. Curious, because like the Elephant's Child, I'm full of 'satiable curiosity and I wanna know what's in there! And angry, because where I live they are constantly bulldozing woods and fields to put up new buildings, malls, parking lots and such in spite of the fact that my town is full of old buildings that have so much promise and that sit there empty and falling apart from neglect!
ReplyDeleteI get sad also. I wonder why someone doesn't turn them into nice buildings again - or just tear them down if they are beyond repair.
ReplyDeleteMichele sent me off to London, Carmi. But oddly enough, I never left North America.
ReplyDeleteThe picture brings to mind the song Signs, one of those Hippie era protest songs.
Hey! what gives you the right
To put up a fence to keep me out or to keep mother nature in
But even more important, when I see a fence like that around an old building I get wary because that combo often signifies the proximity of dobermans or pit bulls. Scary critters!
Here from Michele this time.
ReplyDeleteIf it is an abandoned manufacturing plant it often looks like a ghost town and I think of those days when it was full of activity and life with workers busy and conversations alive in the air. It's sad to hear only the wind whipping up the leaves and wisps of dust being blown across the empty parking lot. All those ghosts of workers.... what happened to them, did they all move on to new jobs, did they fall into despair? When the building became useless, did workers feel useless too?
I wonder if it would be livable in there for a homeless person... where do you think they sleep?
ReplyDelete