Sinister buildings

[gilbertharding]

The panopticon prisons in Cuba.

Blimey. I knew the word Panopticon, but presumed it mean this kind of thing:



...where a small number of guards in the middle can see every door of every cell, and all the common areas of each wing - not literally into every cell.

[jobotic]

The remaining Army Forts used to be prominently visible from Whitstable, but nowadays they're harder to pick out amongst the wind turbines. On a clear day with binoculars you can also see Knock John Fort, which is the only other remaining Navy Fort (looks like Sealand, which is off Harwich).

I had no idea that most of the accommodation is in the actual concrete LEGS of the Navy Forts (ie mostly below the waterline). I think the expression I'm looking for is 'Fuck that'.

Especially now they're nearly 80 years old.

Always fancied doing the boat trip round these. One day.

[gilbertharding]

Similarly, one day I'm going to have a look around the Grain Battery tower.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Blimey. I knew the word Panopticon, but presumed it mean this kind of thing:



...where a small number of guards in the middle can see every door of every cell, and all the common areas of each wing - not literally into every cell.

What you've described there is more of the Separate System which keeps prisoners in solitary confinement, but usually has wings as you describe where guards can see every door.

The Panopticon was mostly a thought experiment, where if a guard can see every prisoner and the prisoners cannot see the guard then they will moderate their behaviour because at any given moment they could potentially be being watched.

[Norton Canes]

The old Moor Hospital, on the outskirts of Lancaster.



An old Victorian lunatic asylum, the mental health section closed in 1991 and it's now being converted into apartments but it still reeks of evil, and the four spires look like receptors for satanic power.

There was plenty to see inside while it was derelict:




Torture apparatus or art installation... or both?




The Malevolence will devour your intellect now 




Dance! Dance to the clamor of delirium!

[Cuellar]

Be a nice place to live.

[Zetetic]

I mostly find the old asylums and psychiatric hospitals quite beautiful - at least they attempted some sort of grandeur.

They become more sinister through neglect - and their associations of course - as they went through decades between being earmarked for closure and actually being closed.

Isolation hospitals tend to seem far more sinister to me. Often squat, unimaginative, and architecturally emphasising that no-one should come in or out. Hard to find good photographs of, even where they weren't burnt down - deliberately by the state or otherwise. And with the actual risk of harbouring an ancient evil in some cases.

Trying to find a decent photo of Lansdowne Hospital in Cardiff (long relegated to a mixture of Finance offices, community base and meeting rooms)
which caught fire this weekend.

[dr beat]

(I was reading "SI SI SI SI SI SI SI..."")

Well I still need convincing President Sisi is a good bunch of lads.

Anyway, Liverpool's Penny Farthing pub.  Although hasn't it been gentrified/hipsterfied?

[dr beat]

Runcorn Shopping City.  Like a dormant Autobot who once looked promising in the St Helens A Team but got sold to Highfield:

[dr beat]

More Runcorn:



Eileen Bilton has got a lot to answer for:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7rJVycRfqM

[Dr Rock]

[Icehaven]

The panopticon prisons in Cuba.

That's appallingly brilliant.
I so wish I could take some photos at work as we've got 2 closed wings at the moment and they're old Victorian ones so it's eerie as hell walking through them, I keep expecting a face to appear at one of the observation panels.

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

Well I still need convincing President Sisi is a good bunch of lads.

Anyway, Liverpool's Penny Farthing pub.  Although hasn't it been gentrified/hipsterfied?

knocked down, I think.

[jobotic]

Was there when I was in Liverpool a few years back. There for four days, everyone friendly and nice apart from one cunt who came staggering out of here shouting at me. Think it was me anyway. Wasn't too scared as I could put one foot in front of the other, unlike him.

[Icehaven]

knocked down, I think.

But it's new!!

[Sebastian Cobb]

All flat-roofed pubs look sinister my mate used to live by this, at the time it was the last community pub. It's shut now.

[buzby]

knocked down, I think.

Was there when I was in Liverpool a few years back. There for four days, everyone friendly and nice apart from one cunt who came staggering out of here shouting at me. Think it was me anyway. Wasn't too scared as I could put one foot in front of the other, unlike him.

It's still there. It was taken over by the Royal Court Theatre next door in 2017 to use as the new theatre bar, extensivley renovated and renamed the Courtyard Bar & Kitchen. Gets pretty decent reviews on TripAdvisor too.

Part of the renovation uncovered the backboard of the old neon sign, which was a penny farthing with animated spokes on it's wheels. It used to fascinate me as a little kid when were were stood at the 'bubble stops' opposite it on Roe St. waiting for the bus home.

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

Ah, so the actual " Penny Farthing " doesnae actually exist as such anymore. There was a well scuzzy pub quite close to the Penny Farthing, wasn't there. On ground level. That's not there anymore, is it ?

[buzby]

Ah, so the actual " Penny Farthing " doesnae actually exist as such anymore. There was a well scuzzy pub quite close to the Penny Farthing, wasn't there. On ground level. That's not there anymore, is it ?

Technically the pub on that site wasn't the Penny Farthing either - the original pub it took it's name from was knocked down in the 60s to build St. John's Precinct. That area facing Lime St. Station used to be called St. George's Place, and used to look like this:

The other pub on Roe St. used to be The Cunarder, which was on the other corner (Williamson Square end) of the Precinct at basement level, next door to City Pets. It and City Pets were knocked together around 1999/2000 to became The Fall Well, a Lloyds No.1/Wetherspoons:

The Penny Farthing did had a reputation as a right shithole though - £1.65 a pint and free food, so full of alkies and tramps, stank, and woeful karaoke blaring out all hours of the day and night:
https://youtu.be/56S0DEBQlFc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uPYTQbz6AQ

[Sebastian Cobb]

Those neon signs look lovely. Why aren't things nice anymore?

[gilbertharding]

Birmingham - New Street signal box. Just a LUMP of rusticated grey concrete, looming over the street, most of it obviously hidden from view over the wall. Glad it's listed, so it can't get a shiny new makeover like the a lot of the rest of Birmingham (although I can't actually claim to know the city at all well)

[Cuellar]

What obscene rites and unholy travesties go on in there? Who can say (St Mary Woolnoth, London).

[Icehaven]

Glad it's listed, so it can't get a shiny new makeover like the a lot of the rest of Birmingham (although I can't actually claim to know the city at all well)

I don't think anyone does anymore, I've lived here for 16 years and I certainly don't, large chunks of it have changed beyond all recognition in a relatively short space of time.

[Ferris]

I don't think anyone does anymore, I've lived here for 16 years and I certainly don't, large chunks of it have changed beyond all recognition in a relatively short space of time.

Last time there nobody understood my accent, it took me an embarrassingly long time to find my way out of (New) New Street Station (20+ minutes), and I nearly got hit by a tram. I didn't even know Birmingham had trams.  My wife is suspicious I'm originally from the West Midlands.

I'm back visiting family in July so another 3 years will have passed and fuck knows what will happen. Presumably I'll get lost in a newsagents or nearly collide with the newly installed intercity rocket ships.

[Icehaven]

Last time there nobody understood my accent, it took me an embarrassingly long time to find my way out of (New) New Street Station (20+ minutes), and I nearly got hit by a tram. I didn't even know Birmingham had trams.

Oh the trams, the trams. Not content with their installation causing enormous upheaval round the whole city centre (not to mention a really weird smell round Upper Bull st.) for years and years and years, they creep up on you with only a bell that sounds like a text message alert for warning.

[gilbertharding]

Shit - we were there in 2016, but only for a day although we walked around a lot and never saw even a sign of a tram. Stayed at the Hyatt - looked at a lot of canals, and New Street (which wasn't quite finished), and the Bull Ring.

They were just about to demolish the old library (oh - fucking Margaret Hodge again: the philistine's philistine) - you could still walk through the concourse underneath it.

[Sebastian Cobb]

The tram thing was a surprise to me as well. Because I always came in on the Worcester line I had no idea about the Wolverhampton side that definitely existed when I knocked about Brum.

[Icehaven]

Not to derail (ha!) the thread too much but how's this for trying it on; I had some training in the new library a few months ago so had a chance to talk to some of the staff there, and apparently a few of them have been trying to either claim time back or to start later and finish earlier because their buses used to stop directly outside but due to the bottom of Broad st. being a building site for the tram extension they now stop either further away or round the back, which takes longer to get to. I can sort of see their point, however given it's a whopping 5-10 minutes more on their journey at most it seems a bit point-making rather than being any practical use. 

[NurseNugent]

More Runcorn:



Eileen Bilton has got a lot to answer for:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7rJVycRfqM

I may have mentioned this before but brother used to live there.

[Captain Z]

*dusts hands* Gone.