The way some power plants and substations look, you'd think they fell out of some crack in the sky and materialized in our world - only to haunt and disturb normal citizens. Their incessant humming, occasional insectoid twittering and subliminal noise can be plenty annoying, but when they get abandoned, the tangle of cables, machinery and crumbling towers (combined with deep silence) makes it visually much, much worse.
Before we embark on a tour of some depressing abandoned power plants, here is a wonderfully bizarre structure still intact in London:
Duke Street Electricity Substation in London... with a garden on top.
London-based photographer Mark Obstfeld, a friend of our site, shares with us his urban discovery in London: "While wandering round the west side of town, I remembered I'd seen an unusual building before - just off Oxford St (main shopping street) in the West End, near Selfridges (a big department store). A few people were having lunch away from the bustle 50 metres away.
The English Heritage site has more of the history of this unusual substation: "This unusual and stylish edifice, together with the paved garden on top, was built in 1903–5 for the Westminster Electric Supply Corporation to the designs of C. Stanley Peach, with C. H. Reilly as assistant. As built, the sub-station rose to a greater height than had been contemplated, with a balustrade all round, and Diocletian windows along the sides to light the galleries of the engine rooms, which occupied deep basements. The garden above was paved and allotted the trees in tubs suggested, though these no longer exist...
Forgotten New York Power House
The New York Subway at one point had its own dedicated power system, called the Power House which was built in 1904. This huge complex covering an entire city block now sits forgotten. At its peak capacity, the plant could produce 132,000 horsepower.
More wanderings in and around forgotten power plants
Unlike most other abandoned hydroelectric plants, White River Falls Power Station in Oregon looks pretty unassuming, in fact like nothing more than a barn. Built in 1901, and closed after WW2, much of the steampunk-ish machinery remains inside, to the delight of the occasional explorer:
Construction on Cherokee Nuclear Power Plant was halted in 1983, after $633 million (or about $1.2 billion U.S. adjusted for inflation). The unfinished cooling tower was used as the set for "Deepcore" during the filming of "The Abyss". Once the filming was over, funding went dry and the film set was left to rot. It was covered in notices stating that it was property of the 20th Century Fox and any access to it was prohibited. In 2007 a new power plant was approved to be constructed next door, and the remaining parts of the Cherokee Power Plant were slated for demolition
No comments:
Post a Comment