Sad Places

It's just that I went walking round Chiswick today, and ended up in the grounds of Chiswick House, it has been really grey today (and all week), and the place felt really ghostly and still - leaves already starting to fall, a long grove of hedgerow that looked just too haunted to walk along. I wish I'd taken my camera.

Stoke Newington makes me sad, but in a bad way.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3135/2769118678_f1cd2ff8a2_o.jpg

Except for Abney Park Cemetary, which makes me sad in a good way.

All the bus stops in town, for one.

The world's most depressingest cemetery six blocks away, for two. It is overrun by weeds, the tiny headstones are crumbled and fallen in a cheap wreck. One of four headstones is for a baby. There's dozens of the plastic Saints/Virgins Guadalupe and plastic flowers (in arches or milk jugs) of the classic Mexican family style, all faded from age. Yellowed plastic flowers so brittle they'd break any moment. Some dying cypress trees (they're symbols of death anyway, it doesn't really need to be reinforced by their browned decay). Every time I walk by there, I am haunted with confused sadness.

there was a country lane near to where I grew up that had old-fashioned lanterny street lights, and when it was foggy it felt very spooky and sad. not there any more, its now a great big dual carriageway and a John Lewis.

utica, new york
attleboro, massachusetts
warwick, rhode island
mystic, connecticut
tampa/st. petersberg, florida
koreatown, los angeles, california
north berkeley, california

Seeing abandoned buildings turn into gaudily painted Title Loan joints, but they don't clear any weeds out of the cracked & decayed parking lot. Yellow & green paint, bright neon red sign...it's like the DRUG STORE in Natural Born Killers but in the most neglected quarter acre of shit asphault, every fifth building in town.

My home town makes me sad bcz of the bad memories, and knowing that the only recourse for youth is to have mad babies, whether they're married or not. (The Drive-Thru is sweet and has tons of good memories, tho.)

Stoke Newington makes me sad, but in a bad way.

Me too, for the very specific reason that my most recent ex who I still have feelings for lives there.

this couch

I just remembered this thread:

Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here (pic thread)

It's pretty much my favourite ILX picture thread.

I had a mad Holden Caulfield moment visiting my old elementary school from the pop. 480 town where I lived as a prepubescent.

Also, Star Valley, Wyoming makes me sad. It is gorgeous and fantastic...I lived there from ages five to six and adored it. My dad bought a great house w/two acres for $32,500 back then. And what makes me sad is I can never return to this idyllic land. It's all been bought up by millionaires like Dick Cheney. I wonder if bison are still around or if they just died of embarrassment.

they're alive, but they all work in high finance and cheat on their buffalo wivez.

san antonio, texas

the last (and final) time i dropped acid, i ended up wandering back to my elementary school in the middle of the summer, on a rainy night sometime past 3am, sitting on the swings and letting myself become gradually soaked. it was kinda heavy-handed as the metaphor i was hoping it to be, but it is deffo one of the ickest sad moments of my life.

Detroit always looks v sad on TV

utica, new york
attleboro, massachusetts
warwick, rhode island
mystic, connecticut
tampa/st. petersberg, florida
koreatown, los angeles, california
north berkeley, california

:(

Where else have you lived, remy?

downtown mcallen, texas

the mexican side of the McAllen-Reynosa bridge

the trailer park in elsa where my friend chris grew up

victoria, bc, circa 2007 and until the 2010 games.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3071/2377226324_29ed2ddf6e.jpg?v=0

Basically, Vancouver has been giving one-way free rides to ship out their more sketchy homeless out to Victoria, which has caused problems with the already and relatively sentient homeless crowd already there. It doesn't help that the Victoria city council is NIMBY as fuck, and they treat homeless people slightly better than, say, Los Angeles does, which isn't saying much. If someone can give insight as to why they shut down a needle exchange program in Victoria, please tell me, because it seems like the wrong thing to do for so many reasons.

The touristy areas of Victoria are still pretty and touristy, but there once was a nice quiet solice to the immediate outskirts once you went there. Now, it's just filling up with ugly sadness, even on the way to Esquimalt or Colwood or any of the local parks.

I haven't been to Nanaimo, BC since 2005, and I imagine things are far worse there now than in 2005, if you can imagine that's possible. :(

This is too easy with Washington state. Centralia and Chehalis, thanks to last year's floods. Unless something strange happened, Aberdeen WA is likely to remain really depressed for eternity.

Dalhart, TX
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1375/1445820721_4f8e447cef.jpg?v=0

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3074/2612887743_87e1492c9f.jpg
A bench for my dad. Someone's had away with the plaque already for some strange reason. This makes me sad.

The mall

The laundromat

elizabeth, nj
linden, nj

Oh, Ned, that's terrible.

There's a place by the river walled off from the rest of the town where I first kissed a girl while sharing an umbrella in the pouring rain. Maybe more wistful than sad. And maybe not so much for the girl as the event itself (well, they're all entwined in each other, I suppose, so I dunno). It was one of those idyllic moments that are a bit sad for the fact that they'll never be relived, though for the same reason are all the more special and specific to the people involved. In spite of the small tug of sadness it is actually a pretty positive place.

definitely agree with the Rome/Utica area. lived there for 3 years and never want to go back for any reason. bad memories in a sad depressed place.

saddest place i can think of is the neighborhood i lived in until i was about 11. it was a shitty neighborhood that got worse and worse after we moved. i drove through it a few years ago and saw the old maple tree my parents planted after they bought their first house there. it was as big as my mom used to tell me it would get, but it was really ratty and sick looking and our old yard was overgrown with grass and the house was trashed.

About the same with my grandparents' old farmhouse. +raccoons

..and my old church (burned)

gah, fuck this thread. :)

asbury park, nj

why linden, max?

Chiswick

The mall

-- Trip Maker, Wednesday, August 27, 2008 7:34 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

my mind and bed right now!

duh work

http://www.barraclou.com/photo/highway/quebec175_740.jpg

Ste.-Foy, suburban Quebec City.

Looks like suburban anywhere

hall of fame for great americans
http://www.bcc.cuny.edu/hallofFame/

utica otm; with a couple of exceptions new york state is one giant meth lab of depression.

http://www.forgotten-ny.com/NEIGHBORHOODS/uni.heights/48.HOF3.jpg

the project for public spaces' hall of shame has some worthy candidates for this thread...

http://www.pps.org/great_public_spaces/list?type_id=2&referrer=gps%5fsidebar

The sight of my old flat, empty, repainted, advertised on realestate.com.au after I'd been forced out of it, my home of over 8 years :(

fall river, massachusetts
seekonk, massachusetts
piedmont, west virginia
buhl, minnesota
ocean city, maryland