Photo: You can’t miss the regal facade of this building driving on Touhy Avenue. According to one Chicago area native, the construction crew of the 293 room Lincolnwood Hyatt House were supposed to receive a shipment of blue bricks for the building facade. It isn’t clear if a communication or manufacturing error is to blame […]
A commenter notified American Urbex that the abandoned factory in Algonquin, IL went up in flames early this morning. Firefighters responded to the scene around 4:40 am on Monday, October 18 when several passing motorists called the fire in. Fire departments were able to contain the fire and did not send crews inside. No injuries […]
An excerpt from Savage Inequalities by Johnathan Kozol on the medical facilities available to East St. Louis residents in 1990. East St. Louis-which the local press refers to as “an inner city without an outer city”-has some of the sickest children in America. Of 66 cities in Illinois, East St. Louis ranks first in fetal […]
Meet Reggie. By his own accord, Reggie has lived in East St. Louis 48 of his 50 years. My friend and I talked with Reggie for a good twenty minutes about East St. Louis. Talking to people that live in and around urbex locations is a great way to get the raw story. Reggie was […]
Count the number of advertisements you see the next time you walk down the street in any metropolitan area. Try your best to count every single little bit of advertising space you can. This mental exercise can become overwhelming in a matter of minutes. Americans are bombarded with advertising at every turn in urban spaces. […]
The Murphy Building stands within a stonesthrow of the Spivey Building. If you look closely in top photo above, you can see vegetation growing in the brickwork. Getting up to the higher floors now requires an explorer to exit a second story window and walk up a rickety steel fire escape, as the main stairwell […]
Whenever you mention that your driving into St. Louis, Missouri people reflexively joke, “Don’t get off the highway too early. You don’t want to end up in East St. Louis.” My natural response is “Why?” The answer people give to that question is that the city is riddled with crime, it looks dirty and there […]