Rusty Hulks

O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;

The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won;


The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,

While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:


But O heart! heart! heart!

O the bleeding drops of red,


Where on the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.


O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;

Rise up--for you the flag is flung--for you the bugle trills; 10


For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths--for you the shores a-crowding;

For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;


Here Captain! dear father!

This arm beneath your head;


It is some dream that on the deck,

You've fallen cold and dead.


My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;

My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;


The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;

From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won; 20


Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!

But I, with mournful tread,


Walk the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.



Poem by Walt Whitman.

Photos by Hearts of Darkness. Photographed at the Staten Island Boat Graveyard.

Hidden Washington, DC

Flickr is a demonic time-wasting wormhole totally loaded with cool shit.

Like this photo set that I found while browsing through pictures of old signs (don't ask).

From 1985 to 1988 I wandered the streets of Washington DC photographing the unseen and vanishing moments of the city. These images lay dormant in the archives until I realized that they needed to be brought to life before the persons and spaces are totally lost to entropy and time.

These images depict the hidden parts of Washington DC rarely if ever traversed by tourists. Here are the places and some of the people trapped in their own world while the rich and powerful swirl around in a seemingly separate world a mile away.

It is amazing what you can uncover during a quick afternoon browse.

Modernism Alive and Well in NOVA

Modernism is an absolute passion of mine, but having lived in the Northern Virginia/DC Metro Area most of my adult life I have grown accustomed to the stodgy conservative architecture encompassing the region.

That is why I was stoked to stumble across an article in the Spring 2010 issue of Modernism magazine about the Hollin Hills neighborhood.

Situated a couple miles north of Frank Lloyd Wright's Pope-Leighey House, this 450 home development is anything but bland.

According to the article:

Hollin Hills got its start in the late 1940s when Robert Davenport, who had previously developed an experimental neighborhood in the same area, called Tauxemont, with colleagues from the Department of Agriculture, teamed up with Charles Goodman, one of the few modernist architects practicing in the Washington area. In Tauxemont, Davenport had drawn on his agricultural and New Deal background to build simple rectangular houses made of low-cost materials purchased in bulk and arranged to reflect the topography of the site. After acquiring a tract just north of Tauxemont that most developers thought unbuildable because it was so hilly, Davenport engaged Goodman as the architect. In Davenport, Goodman found a like-minded partner willing to build modern houses instead of the ubiquitous colonials then being constructed by the thousands across northern Virginia. The challenges of the site led Davenport and Goodman to bring modernist landscape architects into the mix. Their collaborative efforts to design, develop and market a subdivision based exclusively on modernist principles was unprecedented in the United States. The quality of their product garnered immediate attention; indeed, Hollin Hills won its first of many design awards in 1951, barely two years after the first homes were completed.

I took a short drive over to the neighborhood this afternoon and was instantly blown away by the modernist sophistication and level of care that has gone into these homes. Many of them were listed for sale, but I'm not sayin' which ones. Apparently I missed the spring homes tour by just two weeks, and instead had to settle for the stalkerish photos below. I hope to visit again soon in a more "official" capacity.
































Large floor-to-ceiling windows, some in the form of doors, were standard on all Hollin Hills houses, enabling indoor/outdoor living and making the interiors of the modest houses appear larger. The interiors were so bright that many residents painted their walls dark colors. © Robert C. Lautman, Collection of the National Building Museum

In Search of the Blair Witch: Parts 1 and 2

In October of 2007, several friends ventured into the woods of Gaithersburg, Maryland to discover for themselves the legend of the Blair Witch (or at least where they filmed the movie). This is their story...

Seneca Creek State Park, Black Hills Forest, Black Rock Mill, and "Coffin Rock"


1) This phase of the experience took two weeks to unravel. In week one we paid an unecessary $3 to drive around family park grounds. Finding a trail and Seneca (aka Tappy) Creek we thought we were in the general area of the mill. As it turns out it was the wrong mill, and instead we stumbled into hunting territory...not cool.


2) Later in the same day we discovered the Black Rock Mill and it is literally in the middle of NOWHERE, but is a great example of 19th century architecture. As it also turns out this was the insertion point for the film crew and actors.


3) I had read somewhere online that "Coffin Rock" was located .5 miles from this Mill, but we mistakenly followed the trail downstream and had to leave at sundown. We did come across these creepy rock formations though.


4) In phase two we hiked a quick ten minutes upstream and finally found the rock...it's extremely hard to miss. It is located on the right bank of the creek if you are looking upstream. Even though there were other people in the area there still is a general creepiness about the place. You are surrounded by wildlife. Animal tracks are everywhere and hawks soar and screech overhead. As the sun goes down the woods take on a life of their own.

Burkittsville, Maryland


1) Located 11 miles from Harpers Ferry West Virginia, the town of Burkittsville is surprisingly picturesque and quite beautiful in the fall.


2) The Blair Witch story may be fictional, but the town has a very bloody past. Union surgeons turned it into a field hospital after the Battle of Crampton's Gap in 1862. Both churches and an adjacent rectory tended to wounded and dying soldiers, and thousands were briefly interred in unmarked graves in the cemetary behind the church. Stories of ghostly hauntings abound.


3) There is maybe a 2 dog to 1 person ratio in the entire town. It is very erie to walk along a street seemingly devoid of humans with a cacophany of dogs barking up and down the block.

For a more detailed account in pictures follow my photostream:

The Blair Witch: Part 1

The Blair Witch: Part 2

Growing up Sea-Arama

According to the Remembering Sea-Arama Marineworld homepage:

Sea-Arama Marineworld was an animal/entertainment park in Galveston, Texas, for 25 years. Opened in 1965 as one of the first ocean theme parks in the nation, it featured more than 25 acres, including a 4 acre ski lake, and a 50 foot long, 200,000 gallon aquarium. This aquarium held large and small fish as well as large sharks that were part of the shark feeding shows. Many kids and parents enjoyed the dolphins, sea-lions, killer whales, bird shows, ski shows, sharks, big cats, snakes, fish aquariums, turtles, sea otters, pelicans, and more. In 1988 it was the number one tourist attraction in Galveston, until the larger more flashy Sea World Park opened in San Antonio, and contributed to its closing in 1990.

Sea-Arama actually closed for a host of reasons. The habitats were old, rusting, and the small holding tanks were not in-line with the more modern and humane enclosures of the larger parks. The fish and mammals were eventually moved to other locations.

The city fought for years over the property as it occupied prime real estate along Seawall Boulevard. The abandoned buildings and tanks eventually gave way to the environment and looters until they were finally torn down to the ground in the mid 2000s.

My last outing to Sea-Arama was either in the summer of 1984 or 1985 with a pack of other kids from my daycare and, to be completely honest, I do not recall much. My memories come in the form of mental snapshots - some more vivid than others. It is fitting then that I came across these really amazing photos of the park in all of its decaying glory: