Interesting old buildings local to you?

[Lady Amy of York]

Also in Alexandria Bay is Singer Castle .

http://i340.photobucket.com/albums/o331/BRUNOMAN68/THOUSAND%20ISLANDS/IMG_0464.jpg

Opened to the public only since 2003, this dramatic medieval castle is worth going out of your way to see. It's a stunning creation, made of the same granite used for Boldt Castle and erected at the same time in the first years of the 20th century. Unlike its sister castle, however, Singer was actually occupied, and it's still furnished with period pieces. Its builder and owner, Frederick Gilbert Bourne, was a self-made millionaire who became the director and president of the Singer Sewing Company at age 36. He bought the island and built this 28-room gem with a four-story tower as a retreat for himself and his family. It's a sprawling and beautiful, with plenty of parking space for his boats and oddities like underground passageways and dungeons. You have to take a tour, but it's an interesting one: Guides point out Bourne's secret passageways and peepholes used to spy on guests

[Lady Rebecca]

I visited Boldt Castle two years ago, and it was sooo cool! I loved the fact that the upper floors are still in their state of disrepair.

[groomporter]

The "witch's tower" is an old water tower in Prospect Park in St. Paul, MN



Another view
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a8/Prospect_park_witchs_hat_fall.jpg

[CelticOne]

I got one.
The LeDuc Mansion in Hastings, MN about 15 mins from home and is open to the public for tours. I gotta go out there one of these days. Its an 1860's gothic revival style building. Looks really neat from the street.

[DonaCatalina]

Wow- two very cool buildings there. I suppose they don't use the water tower anymore?

[Mairte]

The LeDuc mansion is definitely on my "to see" list!

[maeven]

As strange as this sounds, I really like looking at old buildings that have been "taken back by the earth". I'm not sure what it is about them; but they always catch my interest. Another thing that I REALLY like is closed down amusement parks. Those thing give me a creepy vibe, but in a good way, if that makes any sense.

One in my area that I really used to like looking at was the old Six Flags Astroworld site (that is now just grassland, but you can still make out areas where they still had rides and the walkway into the theme park itself). The other ones, since there are quite a few, are the car dealerships that just closed abruptly, with little or no warning. Since there are so many in my area, it's hard to name all of them.

[Mairte]

Maeven, I like those kind of buildings too. Never seen an old amusement park but it sounds interesting.
On one of the roads going to my parents place, there is an old run down mansion. Someone still lives in the smaller house (I assume a caretakers house?) but the big house is pretty gutted and being taken over by nature. Creepy but cool as well.

[groomporter]

Wow- two very cool buildings there. I suppose they don't use the water tower anymore?

Affectionately known as the "Witch's Hat," the Prospect Park Water Tower acts as a unique visual landmark identifying the surrounding community. Situated at the highest elevation in Minneapolis, it was originally built in 1914 to improve water pressure for the hilly Prospect Park neighborhood. City engineer F.W. Cappelen designed the water tower to be a metal tank interior standing 320 ft. tall with a holding a capacity of 150,000 gallons of water. The tower is crowned with a conical cap of steeply pitched green tile which acts as a roof. Directly beneath the roof, an octagonal Romanesque-arched belvedere surrounds the tower top, giving it a medieval feel. The water tower served the neighborhood until 1952 before advancements in technology rendered it obsolete. While the observation deck is only open one day a year, the tower still stands as a symbol and a source of pride for the Prospect Park neighborhood.

[BubbleWright]

I live in a town full of Colonial buildings, the oldest dating back to 1680. New Castle (New Amstel) was founded by the Dutch in 1651. For a time (very short) it was the Capitol of Delaware and the County Seat until 1882, then it was forgotten by time. My favorite building is the tiny New Castle & Frenchtown R.R. ticket booth from 1832.  Check out link for some photos and list of historical sites.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Castle,_Delaware

Also check out Flickr for more photos-

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=new+castle+delaware

[groomporter]

In my orientation tour we were told that some group on campus at the University of Minnesota (The ROTC?) wanted to build a building in the shape of a bra and that the tower of Pillsbury Hall was the final result

[maeven]

Maeven, I like those kind of buildings too. Never seen an old amusement park but it sounds interesting.
On one of the roads going to my parents place, there is an old run down mansion. Someone still lives in the smaller house (I assume a caretakers house?) but the big house is pretty gutted and being taken over by nature. Creepy but cool as well.

There's a house like that about 15 minutes away from where I live. It always gives me the heebie-jeebies but in a good way. I like that when you drive by, you can see inside the windows and there is nothing inside. It's pretty neat.

[Mairte]

I like houses that give me the heebie jeebies!!  One other building (a big house) used to exist kitty corner across the street from my parents house when I was growing up. OLD and interesting. Sometimes at night we would see a light in an upstairs bedroom window even though no one had lived there in a very long time. Its been torn down for a few years now.

[maeven]

Aren't heebie-jeebies fun? There are a few places where my family used to vacation that I used to love driving by: this old gas station where the coolers still looked like they had sodas in it (that was one of my favorites). There's one place by my parents' house that was in the beginning stages of building-the sheetrock was put up and it had the outer insulation put up as well-but was never completed. The building was to be a nursing home and I guess the idea fell through. There was even a driveway constructed. With all the grass growing around it, it looks really cool when I drive by there.

[Dustin]

I live in downtown Bettendorf, Iowa. There are three fairly interesting buildings very close to my place, just up on top of the "hill" (really the bluffs of the Mississippi River).

One is The Abbey Center, currently an addiction treatment facility. It was built in 1915-16 as a Carmelite monastery. It was named Regina Coeli. The nuns moved to a new monastery in Eldridge, Iowa, in 1975, and the Davenport Diocese sold the building to an Evangelical Christian Church. It was then purchased in the 80's by the Franciscan Brothers of Christ the King, who called it St. Francis Monastery. When the Brothers left the Diocese, it was purchased by a private developer and turned into a 4-star hotel. Two years ago, they closed the hotel and re-opened as a rehab center.




Next is the Joseph Bettendorf Mansion, now the home of Rivermont Collegiate, an independent PreK-12 college prep school. Joseph and his brother, William, were the owners of the Bettendorf Company, which made railroad cars. When the company outgrew its factory in Davenport, they built a new one in the neighboring town of Gilbert, with the condition that the town be renamed Bettendorf. Joseph, the businessman of the brothers, had his mansion built on the edge of the Mississippi bluff in 1915.




A little farther east is the William Bettendorf Mansion, now part of the Iowa Masonic Health Center. William was the inventor brother. He had close to 100 patents by his mid-50's. He started building his house in 1908-9, and died in 1910, just as the house was being completed, but before he could live in it. I can't find any good photos of the house online, but it is probably the coolest looking one of the bunch. It was built in Spanish Revival style. Lots of arches and all. I'll have to see if I can get a picture of it.

Oh, that factory that the Bettendorf Company built? All that's left of it now is part of the roof, which is covered employee parking for the Isle of Capri Casino.