September | 2008 | 56 Houses Left

Archive for September, 2008

The future of Carrollton… a Chinese cargo shipping hub?

Posted in Abandoned, Eminent domain, Photography, St. Louis, Suburban Decay, Suburbia, Urban Decay, tagged Abandoned, Bridgeton, Eminent domain, Lambert, Photography, St. Louis, Suburban Decay, Urban Decay on September 19, 2008| 4 Comments »

Today I was looking at the St. Louis Beacon website, which had an interesting article about the past and future of Lambert, including finances and future planning.

From the article, I found some eye-opening statements from Lambert’s current director, Richard Hrabko.

This is a statement from the article quoting Mr. Hrabko, enthusiastically discussing the possibility of a St. Louis-China air shipping hub.

“Just imagine a trail of 747s coming in and out of here, hauling freight from China,” he said. “We have the capacity to do it. No question. And we think we have much better capacity than any place else in the U.S., including Chicago, which is really the main competition.”

Also from the article,

He said Lambert also has “several thousand acres” on which to build distribution facilities and other supporting infrastructure for a cargo hub.

Could the ‘several thousand acres of land’ be the airport’s vacant land on the I-170 side of the airport, or could this statement be in reference to the former Carrrollton subdivision? Where exactly do they expect to build this shipping hub? How will daily air shipments of Chinese goods really benefit our local economy?

Another damning quote from the article.

Hrabko said of the new runway,”Obviously was something that we wouldn’t build today.”

This should have been obvious in 2001, when they barely started the project and the whole airline industry tanked.

The article also mentions that the airport, in general is financially stable, but does have long-term obligations to pay off the runway expansion and that they could be in better shape.

Obviously. They can’t even tear down 26 houses.

Of course, the best thing to do with the empty space that was once my home is a temporary resting hold for cheap Chinese goods. Crates of disposable plastic bouncy balls bound for Wal-Mart might one day be stacked where my bedroom once was. What an odd and sad thought.

I want to start a petition to turn Carrollton into a state park much like the former Times Beach subdivision was turned into a state park.

Here’s a link to the full article on the St. Louis Beacon’s website. Thank you to the Beacon for your in-depth report.

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Of Goats and Gated Communities

Posted in Abandoned, Eminent domain, Photography, St. Louis, Suburban Decay, Urban Decay, tagged Abandoned, Bridgeton, Eminent domain, Lambert, Photography, St. Louis, Suburban Decay, Urban Decay on September 15, 2008| 3 Comments »

First, the goat. Yes. A goat. We found her (she had udders) living in the only house on Manteca. The reaction: “Holy Sh*t, there’s a goat!” Of course, I did not believe it when my eyes met the white and brown spotted creature staring blankly out the front door. I swore it was a statue. Until, she moved… and walked around the house. I kept taking photo after photo at this beyond-strange anomaly, completely baffled about how a goat wound up living at 4228 Manteca. Did it stray from a farm off Missouri Bottom Road? Was it abandoned, left here to fend for itself off of Carrollton’s vastly mowed acreage? The udders made me most worried about it… where was her kid? How long ago did she have it? She also had some bands around her legs which were also of great concern for her past conditions, where ever she came from. She was no stranger to humans, but she didn’t trust us enough to get within arms’ reach. She watched us for a long time, then turned and went into the basement.

So I left our new friend, but not without leaving a message with the Missouri Humane Society to let them know about a stray goat in an abandoned subdivision. I decided to take my usual exit route through Asherton. Once again my eyes were lost in the vast blankness of the area until my eyes rested at the shiny silver gates that blocked our exit from Asherton onto Brampton.

“When did this get here?”

“How did we get on the wrong side of the gate?”

“I don’t know….”

“Did we pass any others?”

“There were no others… we came in off of Natural Bridge!”

Yup, directly in front of us was a gate that, once I got out and inspected the sign facing Brampton, it said, “Road Closed. No Trespassing. Property of City of St. Louis.” They must have put up late in the first week of September. The odd thing is, we were on the wrong side of this gate, and we certainly did not see or go through any other gates until this very point. So I did the only thing legally I thought I should- take the car over the grass and go around it to the correct side. I stopped and took some shots. There were gates on the next street, Lyford, both ends of Marburn Ct., then posts on Chartley and open gates on Woodford Way at Weskan. As I drove around more, we saw gate posts at Ellisnore, Celburne at Allenhurst, and both sides of Chartley from Celburne. So more gates are coming and soon there will be more areas in which we can no longer access. (more…)