I was nattering on about my interest in abandoned human structures to my friend Jared, and he recommended I check out the work of the photographer Camilo José Vergara, specifically this book. I was a little apprehensive reading the introduction, which made it look like I was in for a long screed condemning American society for its mishandling of the inner city and the lower classes, which while possibly true, could make for annoying reading. However, this turned out to be so much more than that: the pictures are great, and the the text is almost a celebration of the abandoned buildings it depicts, as monuments to American ingenuity from times past. Not to mention times present, as Vergara spends much time talking about how many of these supposedly "abandoned" structures-- factories, hotels, train stations, libraries and more-- are still used and still inhabited by the unnoticed members of our society.

He's an excellent writer in addition to being an excellent photographer; I love the glimpses we get as he roots through these structures, finding abandoned records in the Newark Parole Office, Administration, and Personnel offices that briefly illuminate a disciplinary case from over thirty years ago, visible only in tiny pieces to us now. Some of these structures need to be demolished, but never will be-- sometimes that money's not there, sometimes no one in authority is even aware that there's a problem. But sometimes they are demolished, and then Vergara mourns their loss. The monuments of the early twentieth century, Americanism at its height, demolished to make way for another parking lot. Surely even an abandoned office building is better than that? The majority of the pictures come from places like Detroit, Gary, Newark, and New York City, as you might imagine; one of my favorites was probably the postmodern sculpture of Tyree Guyton's Heidelberg Project: abandoned houses coated with the detritus of our modern society and culture. And perhaps one of the most haunting images is that of the trees now growing inside the abanoned Camden Free Public Library. Humanity may no longer have a use for what we have built, but nature always will.