The Crenshaw Christian Center’s Faith Dome is a non-denominational megachurch located in the heart of South Los Angeles. With seating for over 10,000 attendants, it is one of the largest places of worship in the United States.

Brainchild of Ever Increasing Faith Ministries pastor Frederick K. Price, construction of the Faith Dome was completed in 1989 on 32 acres of the former Pepperdine University¹ campus. The geodesic church sanctuary is constructed almost entirely of aluminum and hosts Dr. Price’s sermons which reach over 15 million families across the United States each week.

By all reports a lively character, Dr. Price oversaw the construction of this behemoth structure from start to finish. During an inaugural sermon, he described his love for the new church structure, exclaiming “Hallelujah! Jesus just hit a grand-slam home run!”

Situated along a busy flight lane, the Faith Dome is clearly visible to thousands of airline passengers landing at Los Angeles International Airport every day. It seems that Dr. Price and his construction team must have been acutely aware of this fact. An enormous advertisement to anyone looking down, the church’s car park has been emblazoned with gigantic letters proclaiming the Faith Dome’s glorious existence.

Then again, it could be a way of broadcasting to the “big man” himself.

Thanks to stongey and Bird’s Eye Tourist.

This post is part of an occasional series where we visit some of the world’s most interesting abandoned places.

A couple of hundred kilometres northwest of Las Vegas lies the former mining town of Rhyolite, one of the largest ghost towns in Nevada.

Founded in 1904, the town had an initially huge level of growth, but it was abruptly abandoned just a handful of years later. Today the eerie remains of Rhyolite which still survive here in the desert provide us with a fascinating look into America’s past.

The town was named for the richest ore in the area, rhyolite; but it was a gold rush in the nearby hills that propelled the population to around 4,000 just three years later.

By this time the town had water mains, electricity, telephones, a hospital, a bank, an opera house, a school, the railroad, and (allegedly) 53 saloons.

The ruin of the Cook Bank Building; and as it was in its heyday.

By the end of 1910 the Montgomery Shoshone Mine – the town’s lifeblood – was operating at a loss, and in 1911 it closed for good. With the mine gone there was nothing to keep the people here any longer, and by 1920 the population of Rhyolite was effectively zero.

Rhyolite School today; and as it was in 1915, already looking deserted.

One of the best surviving buildings in Rhyolite is the former Las Vegas & Tonopah Railroad Depot. It’s unusual for ghost towns in Nevada¹ to have this many buildings remaining – the survival of these ones in the harsh desert environment is thanks to their construction using materials other than wood and canvas. Like the house made of tens of thousands of beer bottles.

Las Vegas & Tonopah Railroad Depot today; and under construction in 1908.

The buildings here won’t last forever, but the fact that they have survived this long is impressive enough.

Vimeo has a good video tour, Flickr has a ton of photos, and the official site has a wealth of absolute fascinating historical photos.

Peering out the window of the little airtaxi that has brought you to The Rat’s Nest, or Rottnest Island, 18 km southwest off the coast of Australia, you’ll notice the island’s name spelled out in trees. This little island, only 15 km long and 4km wide, has been the site of an aboriginal prison, WWI & WWII internment camps, and today is an important local holiday destination, popular for its shipwreck bearing reefs and notable surf breaks.

The trees that spell out “Rottnest” were planted purposely to welcome visitors to the island, which was named for the native quokka, a marsupial that resembles a large rat and thrives on the island due to the lack of a significant predator.

There are no fresh water sources on the surface of the island so rainwater has always had to be collected instead. However in the 1970s, fresh water was discovered underground, and since 1995 the government has desalinated water from these salt lakes using reverse osmosis.

One of the most famous (or infamous) buildings on the island is the Rottnest Quod, an eight-sided structure that was used to imprison over 3,700 aboriginal men and boys between 1838 and 1931. Rottnest was used in this way to “calm” the mainland native population that were committing the terrible crime of digging up crops from land that used to belong to them.

Today the Quod is a source of contention as it was used as a budget hostel for most of the 20th century and has now been converted into high-priced accommodation for tourists. However, aboriginal activists say that the site should remain a historical heritage site, demonstrating the harsh treatment of the natives by the colonial government.

Other notable features of the island are a zero tolerance approach to “antisocial behaviour”, laws banning private ownership of land, cycling being the main form of transport, and an annual 18km swim from the mainland to the easternmost point on the island.

More info on Rottnest Island at Wikipedia.

Thanks to Simon Craigie.

One of the very first locations posted on Google Sightseeing back in 2005 was Niagara Falls. Just a few miles away, though, is another site that the local tourist board is probably rather less proud of. In the late 1970s, the neighbourhood of Love Canal was at the centre of a huge public health scandal, after it emerged that it had been built on top of a landfill containing 21,000 tons of toxic waste, which subsequently began to leak.

The canal itself¹ dates back to the 1890s: an abortive attempt to bypass Niagara Falls that barely got started before funding ran out. As the surrounding town grew, the abandoned excavations were used to dump first municipal waste and then, by the 1940s, 55-gallon drums of waste from a nearby chemical factory. Once it was full, it was covered over with clay and soil.

Unfortunately, around this time, local officials were looking for a nice big open space to build new schools. You can see where this is going, can’t you? As well as two schools, hundreds of houses were also constructed right on top of a toxic time bomb. Residents began to notice health problems, and all manner of gunk oozing out of the ground, and eventually the government realised something was up and evacuated the area.

Today, the canal site looks fairly innocuous: the houses and school in the central area were demolished, leaving a green field (surrounded by a 2.4 metre barbed wire fence) and a treatment plant that was built to stop contaminated groundwater escaping.

Just to the west, you can still see the residential roads and the foundations of houses that were demolished.

Street View reveals an eerily deserted scene, with cracked tarmac, faded street signs, and weeds taking over the vacant plots. On the day the Street View car came by, there were some suitably apocalyptic-looking black clouds to add to the atmosphere.

East of the canal, most houses are gone but it looks as though a few stubborn folks have stayed put. It seems quite a pleasant wooded neighbourhood, if you can ignore what’s under your feet.

In many places nearby, new houses have actually been built. Just a few yards from the footprints of demolished homes, and overlooking the heart of the dump site, lies a seemingly brand-new development of apartments; and further north, hundreds of homes surround the site of the 93rd Street school, one of the two that were closed due to contamination.

Love Canal wasn’t the only American community to fall victim to chemical contamination around this time. The town of Times Beach, Missouri, was evacuated and totally wiped off the map in the early 1980s after it was discovered that oil sprayed on dirt roads to keep the dust down was chock-full of dioxins – among the most toxic chemicals in existence. Today, the area is a state park, but you can still clearly see the lines of the streets.

Read more about Love Canal and Times Beach at Wikipedia.

Tokyo has two structures, apparently unrelated, with very similar names – the Tower of Wind and the Tower of Winds.

The Tower of Wind (singular, known locally as Kaze no Tō) is a spectacular structure in Tokyo Harbour consisting of a dazzling white circular base topped with blue and white striped ’sails’.

Google reveals a rather surprising number of blogs and other sites convinced that such a structure could only be the secret lair of Godzilla or an international super-villain. The reality is rather more mundane – the Tower of Wind is a ventilation shaft outlet for the Tokyo Bay Aqua-Line – the world’s longest undersea tunnel for cars. The 9.6km tunnel is coupled with a 4.4km bridge to link the two sides of the Bay, saving up to 100km of driving.

The Tower of Winds (plural) is a 21m tall building on the mainland designed by architect Toyo Ito.

Street View shows that it is rather unremarkable by day, while Live Maps shows that it is dwarfed by the surrounding skyscrapers.

By night, however, it comes alive, with ever-changing displays of interior and exterior illumination. More than 1000 LEDs, a dozen neon rings and 30-plus floodlights respond to the noise of the city and the motion of the wind.  This movement of light is intended to represent “the visual complexity of Tokyo metaphorically in terms of a never-ceasing, ever-changing wind”. Interesting details and good night-time pictures can be found at Ego magazine and Lighting Academy.