#Abandoned places in pa full#
#Abandoned places in pa series#

These photos were very long exposures and I wound up “painting with light” with a pair of flashlights. There is a Facebook page dedicated to its restoration. This is the Irem Temple Mosque (apparently they couldn’t decide between temple and mosque), a century-old Masonic shrine temple. …holy crap, look at the INSIDE of this place. What was it doing in the center of Wilkes-Barre? Why was it closed? And why could I… “If you can get inside you should check that out, that’s been shut down for awhile.” He advised some other locations and towns I should visit (I made careful notes), then pointed to a large domed building. Less than three weeks later, that’s exactly what happened. He told me a bit about the history of the abandoned hotel and informed me that Sterling was slated to be demolished any day In fact, they were removing the light poles from in front of the building. All of the hotel room floors were stripped bare to the shell. I responded the building was structurally sound, though one of the staircases (above) seemed iffy. It turns out this electrician was a native of Wilkes-Barre and we had a great conversation. “Yeah, it is structurally safe in there, I wanted to show my intern what it looked like inside.”Īmazing.

No point hiding it, so I responded in the affirmative. Since my visit, an electrical crew had arrived in front of the hotel and a man with a hardhat approached me.

Upon exiting I set up a tripod to take pictures outside. So I skipped in the second I saw it – how could I resist something like that? By happenstance, I was actually named after a similarly-monikerred inn, only an hour away from this location. That’s where I stumbled across the Sterling Hotel. Momentarily refreshed, I ventured towards Wilkes-Barre to walk around downtown.

#Abandoned places in pa full#

C’est la vie! ( UPDATE: I later received full access to the Ashley Breaker! Yeah!)Īfter I cut my visit to Huber short, I returned to my hotel to nap. We’ll see its status a year from now but there’s an increasing likelihood that Huber will be scrapped before my next visit. With no additional days to spare I hated losing out, especially coming from out-of-state, but felt it the wisest decision. As I figured out later evening, I had caught a head cold. Because I wasn’t feeling on my “A” game, and lacked the mental alertness to safely go through all these structures, I only stayed an hour, capturing exterior images and accessing one of the smaller buildings. By the time I walked to the entry of Ashley-Huber, I felt wiped out. I was at the midpoint of my travels, had been on the road for a week, and was feeling physically and mentally sluggish. Nicholas Coal Breaker and discovered some interesting spots on the way to this one. I was in the area to scope out the Huber Coal Breaker. I arrived into Wilkes-Barre the prior evening and first thing in the morning, pushed away the curtains to see this outside my hotel window. Part 2: I Finally Went to Prison for Photography Before we get started, some pimping of previous blogs in the series:

#Abandoned places in pa series#

This is part four of a recent series of blogs detailing recent vacation travel, focusing on the specific area surrounding Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.