Lost in America: Photographing the Last Days of Our American Treasures features 100 buildings that have been demolished over the past 100 years. It is a dramatic record of destruction, conjuring the ghosts that haunt the nation’s urban spaces.
Historians Richard Cahan and Michael Williams spotlight these architectural jewels in black-and-white photographs taken between 1933 and the present by the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), a Depression-era WPA documentary project that still exists. “We didn’t just pick pretty buildings, but structures that play a part of U.S. history: slave quarters, plantations, Indian dance halls, ballparks,” assert the editors, whose book examines how buildings and building styles fall out of fashion, and ultimately gives new life to what is lost.
I spoke to the editors about the eerie beauty of this architectural endgame.
When I visited Detroit over a decade ago, I was at once saddened and shocked by the ghostly aura of the dying city. And yet I was also enraptured by its post-apocalyptic abandonment. I called it architectural decay porn (or ruin porn) and it was a vicarious return to a gilded past. What was your motivation in collecting these images into a book?
Most of the photos in this book predate the phenomenon of ruin-porn photography. The photographers working for the federal government’s Historic American Buildings Survey did not set out looking for that kind of imagery. Their job was to document structures across America that mattered. As many as half the buildings they photographed have been demolished over the past 90 years. The victims of urban renewal, neglect or indifference. These were the buildings we were interested in—because they now only exist in photographs.
One of my favorite books is Lost New York by Nathan Silver, which shows now-demolished vintage structures. His book and yours come to the same subject from before-and-after perspectives (and yours is broader in geographic scope). What is it about rotting architecture that is so appealing?
There are many reasons we’re attracted to these scenes. Certainly, they can be very beautiful. Buildings take on a haunting, ethereal quality that is almost magical as they are taken down. And cameras love the drama of these spaces. Some photographers, like Chicago’s Richard Nickel, who worked for The Historic American Buildings Survey briefly during his intense photo career, saw demolition as an opportunity to create powerful photographic statements about life and death by documenting buildings under siege.
I recently saw the 1948 film Berlin Express, filmed on location in Berlin and other German cities that were bombed by the allies into landscapes of ruin. In contrast, your book shows the humanity of dereliction. Do you believe there are human stories to be shared through these images?
Definitely. We tracked down the story of each building because without the stories the book is merely a cabinet or curiosities. We learned, for instance, that young architect Denise Scott Brown was the first to stand up for Los Angeles’ Richfield Tower before the skyscraper was razed in 1960s. We found out why a Native American dance lodge was submerged beneath an artificial lake in North Dakota. And we told the bizarre story behind Manhattan’s Bogardus Building. Its historic cast-iron panels were carefully removed during demolition to be re-erected somewhere else. But most of the metal put in storage was stolen by scrappers, who valued it more than New York City. Every bridge, neighborhood, mansion and movie palace has a story to tell, and each says something about the larger American story.
Another book, like yours, that seduced me, was about Ellis Island. It reveals the remains of American history through ruins. Is nostalgia the driving psychological trigger?
We hope our book is not nostalgic. Each building we chose because they have something to say about today. We’ve all seen these buildings—the Kon-Tiki Room in Kansas City, the Deluxe Arcade in Pittsburgh, the Holiday Bowl in Los Angeles. We hope it’s more of a poem or elegy. It’s not a celebration of the old but a warning about what we’ve lost and continue to lose.
What surprised you, moved you, or struck you most by the images you collected?
So many books on lost landmarks focus on masterpieces. We’ve included a lot of them: New York’s Pennsylvania Station, the ultra-modern Dodge House in West Hollywood. But we’ve come to realize that common stores, rowhouses, schools and factories also play key roles in the design of cities and rural areas. We should think twice before they are removed.
How would you compare relics like the Roman Forum or other ancient ruins to these younger, less-distinguished places?
These buildings mean more to us because they tell the story of America. We get to see Ellis Island, which you mentioned, plantations, slave quarters, steel mills, fanciful dream buildings, even elevated lines that make up our story. America is more democratic (we hope) than ancient Rome, so our ruins tell a different story. It takes beautiful, classic pictures like these to help us slow down and look.
How do you feel about historically preserving these structures? Should they be resurrected?
There was a stated reason for most every one of these building to be torn down. They were deemed to be too small or too tall. They were called old-fashioned. They got in the way of a new highway or a new neighborhood. But as one preservationist warned about the destruction of a Maryland train station that we fell in love with: “There will, of course, be no second chance to rectify such a mistake.” We look at these buildings and keep wondering what a lost opportunity. We find it hard to believe that many of these buildings could not have been converted into thriving new places.
Which five images are the most significant for you, and why?
The Granada Theatre. One of Chicago’s most ornate movie palaces, it was razed before a strong effort could be made to save it. In its last days, the open ruins were toured by those who loved it. Mike [co-author Michael Williams] was one of them. These photos are particularly heartbreaking.
The Richfield Building. The Art Deco masterpiece was in perfect shape, layered with exquisite detail and ornamentation. The building was an LA landmark and not even 40 years old. One always asks “why?” when a significant landmark is torn down, but this one is truly inexplicable. Marvin Rand’s pictures are spectacular and tragic.
The Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. Jack E. Boucher, the most prolific photographer of the Historic American Buildings Survey, took this M.C. Escher–like image looking up the grand staircase. We never made it there, and now we wish we did.
The Republic Building. Photographer Richard Nickel had a way of roaming through buildings that were doomed. He took dozens of photos of the skyscraper in Chicago’s Loop, including this one of mannequins soon to be removed. He later died in the demolition of the Chicago Stock Exchange.
The Ulysses S. Grant Cottage. Photographers for the Historic American Buildings Survey did not generally take action shots. But they arrived in Long Branch, New Jersey, just in time to photograph a tractor using chains pulling Grant’s summer White House off its foundation. It’s the cover of our book.