Seeing Abandoned Buildings Through a New Lens

  • Artist Julia Christensen peers through the ceiling of an abandoned auditorium in Gary, Indiana. (Photo by Anne Barnes)

We often take the buildings around us
for granted – that is, until those factories,
schools, or big retailers close shop and
people around town are left wondering –
what’s going to happen to that place?
One photographer’s making a career out
of documenting the surprising ways
people deal with this. Shawn Allee met her in the heart of America’s Rust
Belt:

Transcript

We often take the buildings around us
for granted – that is, until those factories,
schools, or big retailers close shop and
people around town are left wondering –
what’s going to happen to that place?
One photographer’s making a career out
of documenting the surprising ways
people deal with this. Shawn Allee met her in the heart of America’s Rust
Belt:

I meet Julia Christensen in Gary, Indiana.

She’s here for an art project: She’ll photograph buildings in Gary and ask people how they could be re-used in the future. I’m supposed to be the chauffer.

Christensen: We’re going to 5th avenue.

Allee: Where is that, exactly?

Christensen: Right. Uh…

Well, I’ll get to her current project in a sec but with all these wrong turns – I’ve got a chance to ask about her artwork in general.

I mean, what’s the point of documenting how people re-use buildings?

“Looking at use of urban space. It’s a structure we all share. No matter how you interpret it, there it is on he ground in front of you.”

Christensen’s got plenty of examples. She’s done photo exhibits of buildings in several cities, and she wrote this book called Big Box Reuse. It’s about how people reused buildings abandoned by Wal-Mart, K-Marts and other big retailers.

She photographed one big box store that got turned into an indoor go-cart track. Another became a school. And one store turned into a museum dedicated to the canned meat, SPAM.

“What it did was create this niche tourist industry. Over 10,000 people a year come to the SPAM museum and they spend money in the town, and it’s actually done something toward revitalization of this city, you know.”

Christensen says the point is that when big box stores get abandoned, they’re often a blight – kinda like one-building ghost-towns with enormous parking lots.

She found people assumed they were the only ones facing this problem.

“They’d be like, ‘huh, that’s interesting. You mean other people are dealing with this? How did they deal with those glass panes and those central pillars?’ And I became story-telling person who had information about big-box re-use.”

Christensen says she’s got a new art project. She’s interviewing people about old industrial sites, commercial buildings and homes. She’ll write stories about how these buildings could have totally new uses thirty years from now. Then, she’ll put photos and text together for art exhibits or maybe a book.

“It’s like an exercise to take these photos and write a caption for them in the context of the next thrity years, so it’s a little more exploratory.”

Right now, Christensen’s touring Rust Belt cities that are dealing with abandoned buildings. Gary Indiana is just one stop.

“So, we’ll turn left at Broadway.”

Christensen got a tip about a closed building.

“It is a closed performing arts school. It’s closed a few years ago when the city had to consolidate the schools.”

Christensen and I meet a young man named John. He lives nearby and he tells Christensen the closed school’s kind of an open wound.

“Kids just running through there, trust me. You see how the windows broken in?”

But Christensen asks John, What about the future? What could it be?

“I always thought of this being a recreational center for the kids. People can be indoors and play basketball and stuff all year round, stuff like that.”

Christensen notes all this and takes some snapshots of the building.

She’ll do this again and again in Gary and other Rust Belt towns. Christiansen says she wants to return some day – maybe with a book or photo exhibits. She wants people talking about what could happen to these places.

“People can come to arts and access a photo or a sculpture or a creative website from across the board, so I see the arts as central in the conversation about what our future is going to look like on the ground.”

Christensen says documentaries or art can’t solve all the problems people face with abandoned buildings but maybe it could be a good place to start.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

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Gardens Going Mobile

  • Wilson City Farm is part of Chicago's Resource Center, and Tim Wilson is the garden manager. The 1.25 acre plot produces eighty varieties of eleven crops. (Photo by Shawn Allee)

Urban farming is supposed to be a solution to getting fresh, locally-produced food to city folk.
The movement’s taking off because a lot of cities have empty, vacant lots to plant on, but there’s a problem: city governments or developers won’t let growers stay on those lots forever.
Shawn Allee met one urban farmer who’s not worried about losing the farm:

Transcript

Urban farming is supposed to be a solution to getting fresh, locally-produced food to city folk.
The movement’s taking off because a lot of cities have empty, vacant lots to plant on, but there’s a problem: city governments or developers won’t let growers stay on those lots forever.
Shawn Allee met one urban farmer who’s not worried about losing the farm:

Ken Dunn’s City Farm looks less like a traditional farm than a construction site.

There’s fence around an acre or so of soil. There are two small sheds.
And there’s a greenhouse – but it’s not glass or anything – its plastic strung over a bunch of metal tubes.

These are available commercially for about 1,500 dollars and will last for many years. This is the third year this one’s been up.

Dunn makes no apology for the make-shift feel.

“This is a mobile farmstead. Our fence that surrounds this property has been in three locations in the past twenty years as have the tool shed, and office trailer. So, everything here can be picked up and moved within a week or, if necessary, within a couple days.”

In fact, Dunn’s planning on it. He’s on land owned by the City of Chicago, and he has to move next year.

“Our deal with them is that we are occupying it until they sell the property. I think it will be having luxury condominiums. I think they have a price tag of 6 million dollars on this acre. As tax payers we have to take the six million.”

But Dunn’s not worried – he’s lined up another lot to plant on.
Dunn thinks more urban farmers should be just as mobile as he is by keeping their equipment light and scouting for the next available growing space.

Here’s his argument: City governments or developers might let you squat on vacant land for a while, but you can’t count on them selling it to you at an affordable price – or just giving it you.

Seems reasonable enough, but I thought I’d ask urban farming groups how they take this mobile farm idea.

“In my opinion, it should be permanent.”

This is Erika Allen.
She heads the Chicago branch of a group called Growing Power.

“It shouldn’t be something that you have access to some land for a few years and then have to move. In my mind, that’s not agriculture.”

Allen says across the country, urban farms have provided fresh food and even jobs.

She says mobile farming kind of let’s city governments off easy; if urban farms are so useful, cities should help them own farmland.

“I think once we were able to prove you can grow food in the city and it can be productive and beautiful, then it’s an issue of policy. What’s the priority? Why aren’t we relegating some of this space just for urban agriculture?”

Ken Dunn says he’s heard this criticism before. He calls his mobile farming approach a little more realistic.

Dunn says rural farmers can’t grow everything they want, however they want; they have to adjust to the landscape, soil conditions, and weather.

He says he’s just adjusting to an urban reality: real-estate markets value commercial and residential property more than farmland.

“We have to operate this sustainably. That is, working within the forces that are operating instead of hoping to always get 15 years in some hidden corner or somewhere and it might turn into less because someone comes in overnight and bulldozes your project. So, sustainability means keeping operative from year to year with no setbacks. A planned move is no set-back at all.”

With that, Dunn has to leave.
It’s planting season and he and his staff have a lot of work. They want this crop to be special, since it could be their last growing season on this vacant lot.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

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Controlling Feral Cat Colonies

Cats are the nation’s most popular household pets. But despite this, millions of cats are abandoned each year. These free-roaming cats grow up without much human contact. They live in cat colonies near apartment buildings, strip malls, or anyplace else where food scraps get tossed into dumpsters or trash cans. And they have an impact on the environment as they compete with other wildlife for food and shelter. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rick Pluta has this report:

Transcript

Cats are the nation’s most popular household pets. But despite this, millions of cats are abandoned each year. These free-roaming cats grow up without much human contact. They live in cat colonies near apartment buildings, strip malls, or anyplace else where food scraps get tossed into dumpsters or trash cans. And they have an impact on the environment as they compete with other wildlife for food and shelter. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rick Pluta has this report:


It’s late at night and Donna Dunn and a couple of friends are sitting in a parked car in a suburban Detroit cemetery.


They’re smoking, eating fast food, and waiting for cats.


“There’s the pregnant female, right there under the truck…”


They’re hoping the cats wander into one of the dozens of live traps they’ve set up. The prize catch is a pregnant female.


“What’d you get? Is it a girl? Yeah, it’s a girl… a pregnant female. Yes! Alright!….”


Donna Dunn is a veterinary technician, who learned about feral cats through her job. She hooked up with a sprawling network of thousands of feline lovers who take care of feral cats living in cat colonies.


Dunn figures there are about 75 wild or abandoned cats wandering the grounds of this cemetery. Some of the cats live in tunnels burrowed in the dirt, or in buildings on the cemetery grounds. Wild cats can also live in vacant buildings or abandoned vehicles. And, Dunn figures, there would soon be a lot more cats if something wasn’t done about it.


“One female will have a minimum of two litters a summer, average litter is five kittens per litter. So you’re looking at 10 kittens average per female in here. The first nine females we took out of here, eight were pregnant. That would’ve produced 40 kittens.”


(Sound of trap)


The trapped cats will spend the night in cages stacked side-by-side in a volunteer’s garage. They’ll go the vet’s in the morning, before they are returned to their feral cat colony. Donna Dunn says the neutered cats are more content, and less likely to fight with other cats and wild animals.


She says “trap, neuter, and release” is a humane alternative to turning strays over to a shelter, where most of the cats would be killed.


But “trap, neuter, and release” is also controversial idea. Critics say it doesn’t really address the problem of feral cats roaming the streets. They say it’s simply not possible to sterilize millions of these cats.


Eileen Liska is with the Michigan Humane Society. She says wild cats have a profound effect on the environment. They can upset the ecological balance of a field or a neighborhood by killing off birds and other wildlife. They can also carry feline leukemia and other diseases. Liska says euthanizing un-adoptable felines is the most compassionate approach.


“Cats living out in the streets equals suffering. I mean, they are suffering. They don’t have proper food sources. They’re exposed to the weather and they’ve got the danger of being attacked, injured or killed by other wildlife, especially when they’re fighting for the same ecological niches. The cats absolutely are in competition with possums, skunks, and raccoons, and raccoons can grow quite large and be quite aggressive and we know that they kill cats that come, that get in their way.”


But Liska also says the growing number of wild cats shows the current approach isn’t working. She wants to raise more money to fund new animal control programs. But she’s not finding a lot of support for a tax to do that among Michigan’s politicians.


Michigan, like most states, requires dogs to be on a leash or fenced in when they’re outside. Farmers demanded the laws at the beginning of the twentieth Century because wild canines were attacking livestock.


There’s no similar cry yet to do something about feral cats, and no one seems to think that licensing cats would begin to get at the problem. Wisconsin proposed allowing hunters to shoot strays. That idea was tabled after animal rights groups protested.


“Right there. See it? Right out here. That’s a little one. Judy, is there food in there? Should I check it?”


Donna Dunn and her friends would like to see every state to adopt trap-neuter-and-release for dealing with stray cats. Until then, she says, her cohorts will try and deal with the problem one cat colony at a time.


For the GLRC, this is Rick Pluta.

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Airport Land to Become a Playground for Pups?

  • One airport in the region is considering turning some of its unused land into a playground for dogs and their owners. (Photo by Kat Shurtz)

Large expanses of open land often surround airport buildings and runways as noise buffers. Now, at one airport in the region, there’s a plan to put that land to use. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Christina Shockley reports:

Transcript

Large expanses of open land often surround airport buildings and runways as noise buffers. Now, at one airport in the region, there’s a plan to put that land to use. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Christina Shockley reports:


When Ryan Mccue was a city official in Milwaukee, he says he took call after call from residents complaining that animals were running loose in area parks. The problem was dog owners weren’t keeping their pets on leashes. Now Mccue thinks he’s come up with a solution: set up a dog exercise area on land unlikely to be used for anything else.


“The airport has a lot of land that’s vacant. And it’s a great spot for it. There aren’t very many neighbors around the airport so the dogs barking won’t disturb any neighbors.”


If aproved, the exercise area would be established on land owned by Mitchell International Airport near Milwaukee. He says the 27 acres would be fenced in and kept separate from the airport
facilities. Mccue says, so far, the airport and the FAA are supportive of the plan. And if it’s approved, he says it could be used as an example of how other airports can make use of their open space.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Christina Shockley.

‘Land Bank’ Reinvests in Inner City

  • Heavy cleanup crews from the Genesee County Land Bank use chain saws, wood chippers, tractors and brute force to move piles of debris on the lot of an abandoned house on the north side of Flint, Michigan. (Photo by Chris McCarus)

One community is fighting its problems of abandoned lands and unpaid property taxes. Those problems have led to a decaying inner city and increased suburban sprawl. The new tool the community is using is called a “land bank.” It uses a unique approach to try to fix up properties that otherwise often would be left to deteriorate. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris McCarus reports:

Transcript

One community is fighting its problems of abandoned lands and unpaid property taxes.
They’ve led to a decaying inner city and increased suburban sprawl. The new tool the
community is using is called a “land bank.” It uses a unique approach to try to fix up
properties that otherwise often would be left to deteriorate. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Chris McCarus reports:


(sound of work crews operating wood chipper)


Cleanup crews are sending downed branches through a wood chipper on a vacant lot.
They’re also removing tires, used diapers, car seats, sinks, old clothes and dead animal carcasses.
The workers are from the Genesee County Land Bank in Flint, Michigan. They’re trying to
make abandoned property useful again. Dan Kildee is the Genesee County Treasurer and the brains
behind the land bank. He thinks this new approach can recover unpaid property tax money and help
improve the Flint Metro area.


“The community gets to make a judgment on what we think we should do with this land. We get
to take a deep breath.”


Empty lots and rundown homes have been multiplying for a generation. That’s left the city of
Flint in a terrible economic state. But the land bank is beginning to change things.


Until just three years ago, Michigan was like most other states. No one had come up with
a solution. The state would auction off a city’s tax liens. Then conflict between the tax
lien buyer and the property owner could go on for up to seven years. In the meantime,
properties were left to neglect and often vandalized.


Under this new program, the treasurer’s office forecloses on a property and hands it over
to the land bank, which acts as the property manager. The land bank might then demolish
a house; it might throw out the owner and let a tenant buy it; or it might auction it off
to the highest bidder. A private investor can’t just buy a tax lien. He has to buy the
property along with it and take care of it.


The land bank is financed in two main ways: through fees on back taxes and through sales
of the few nicer homes or buildings the land bank acquires that bring in relatively big
profits. Treasurer Dan Kildee says it makes sense to take that revenue to fix up old
properties and sell them to people who deserve them.


“There is no system in the United States that pulls together these tools. Both the
ability to quickly assemble property into single ownership of the county, the tools
to manage it and the financing tools to develop that property.”


The land bank program hopes to change the perception of Flint. As thousands of abandoned
homes, stores and vacant lots become eyesores, people and their money go other places,
usually to build more sprawling suburbs. The perception that people are abandoning the
inner city then speeds up that abandonment. Many people who can afford to leave the city do.
And those who can’t afford to move are left behind.


According to data gathered by the research group Public Sector Consultants, Flint has the
state’s highest unemployment and crime rates and the lowest student test scores.


Art Potter is the land bank’s director. He thinks the downward spiral can be stopped.
When it is, those folks in the central city won’t have to suffer for still living there.


“Even though the City of Flint has lost 70,000 people in the last 30 years, the people who
are still here deserve to have a nice environment to live in. So our immediate goal is to
get control and to clean these properties now.”


Urban planning experts are watching the land bank approach. Michigan State
University’s Rex LaMore says Flint is typical of Midwestern cities whose manufacturing
base has shrunk. Private owners large and small have left unproductive property behind.
As the land bank steps in, LaMore says it’s likely to succeed and become an example that
other municipalities can follow.


“They can begin to maybe envision a city of the 21st century that will be different than
the cities of the 20th century or the 19th century that we see around the United States.
A city that reflects a more livable environment. So its an exciting opportunity. I think
we have the vision; the challenge is can we generate the resources? And the land bank model
does provide some opportunity to do that.”


But the land bank is meeting obstacles. For example, the new mayor of Flint who took over
in July canceled the city’s existing contracts. A conservative businessman, the mayor is
suspicious of the city’s past deals. They included one with the land bank to demolish 57
homes. This has slowed the land bank’s progress. Its officials are disappointed but they’re
still working with the mayor to get the money released.


(sound of kids chatting, then lawn mower starts up)


The weeds grow rampant in a neighborhood with broken up pavement and sometimes
no houses on an entire block. It’s open and in an odd way, peaceful. Like a
century-old farm. It’s as if the land has expelled the people who invaded with their bricks,
steel and concrete.


In the middle of all the vacant lots, Katherine Alymo sees possibilities.


“I’ve bought a number of properties in the auctions from the land bank and also got a side
lot acquisition from them for my house. My driveway wasn’t attached to my house when I
bought it. And it was this huge long process to try to get it from them. But they sold it
to me for a dollar. Finally.”


And since then, she’s hired people to fix the floors, paint walls and mow the lawns.
She’s also finding buyers for her properties who want to invest in the city as she has.
Together, they say they needed some help and the land bank is making that possible.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Chris McCarus.


(lawn mower fades out)

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