Comments on: Local Eyesores: the “Little Beirut” Building

By: lala

lala — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 19:27:00 +0000

okay, so this building isn’t vacant or anything, but i will forever maintain that it’s the ugliest building known to man. look up the university of pittsburgh school of information sciences on wikipedia to find a picture. when i went there, if i had a friend picking me up from class, i’d tell them to turn up bellefield ave. and look for the ugliest building they’d ever seen. no one ever got lost.

By: Graham

Graham — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 04:25:47 +0000

I’m a freshman at the University of Notre Dame, and we have an absolute killer eyesore. Before I start, however, let me mention that the Notre Dame campus is absolutely gorgeous and well maintained. The campus is nothing but stone buildings, wide and spacious quads, and beautiful architecture. Except the Stepan Center. In a campus filled with gothic and classic architecture, it is a 1970’s futuristic geodesic dome. It stands out like a sore thumb. I want to cringe every time I go past it. Worse, it’s one large room far too large to have effective heating; and it’s mostly used for exams. For Christmas finals, you literally have to wear your coat inside. Not only that, the roof leaks and is patched in some places with duct tape. It’s odd; every other building on campus is well kept and beautiful. Rumor has it that even the family it’s named after wants it torn down.

By: donner

donner — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 03:06:32 +0000

Intel was gung-ho about building a new multi-story building in downtown Austin…then the 2000 tech-bust occurred, and they bailed on the project…just left this massive hulking shell of a building (concrete and rebar mostly)…it was finally imploded last year, I believe…this is the second time Intel has done this in Austin, i hope the next time they sniff around they are forced to move into an EXISTING building and remodel the interior as they see fit…or don’t come at all, that would be good too…

By: groanygirl

groanygirl — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 20:19:01 +0000

did anyone go to siu-carbondale? hello, faner hall! it’s supposedly riot-proof, with half-floors and stairwells that don’t go to every floor (huh?) and little skinny unbreakable windows. the whole thing looks like a soviet-era concrete bunker. i’d post a link to it, but apparently, i’m not allowed, so look it up yourself.

By: Lindsey

Lindsey — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 19:53:04 +0000

This post has inspired me to do something I’ve wanted to do for a long time.
There is this creepy 15 story apartment building at Allisonville Rd and Binford Blvd in Indianapolis, IN which seems to easily fit hundreds of renters in it. However, it’s been virtually empty since 2001 when the owners defaulted on their mortgage and it was sold off in a Sheriff’s auction.
It has outside doors that lead to nothing, gigantic empty parking garages, and creepy green glass windows which light up at night and give it this eerie glow.

By: Fletch

Fletch — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 19:00:31 +0000

In response to sneezy’s post… That thing is still standing?! I used to live just down Bluebonnet from it. I went to Swaggart’s private school across the street from it for much of my grade school and junior high education and even as kids we thought that something needed to be done with it. And now there’s a mall over by it for even more people to gaze in bewilderment at. Amazing!

By: Jay Spears

Jay Spears — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 18:42:50 +0000

I live in Fort Mill, SC. About 2 miles from Jim and Tammy Baker’s monument to the Lord, “PTL”. There downfall was triple booking a ‘timeshare hotel’ that was the centerpiece in their Christian theme park. As the Bakers fell, all work stapped on the twenty story hotel with the brick shell built, but only three floor finished. So now, almost 20 years later, this building still stands as by far the tallest building in town surrounded by a wasteland Christian theme and water park. Ohh, the pride to be the center of the PTL universe.

By: Stewart

Stewart — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 18:41:51 +0000

Molly: You do kind of have to see it in person to get the full effect, I guess. For one thing, it’s planted in the middle of this vast, arid expanse of red brick (many of which are loose and/or rotting), and the combination of the flat and completely open plaza and the large buildings surrounding it makes the area basically a giant wind tunnel, especially on a dreary winter day like today. So when you’re trudging across this empty space into a biting icy wind and you see this monstrosity, it just doesn’t do anything to improve your mood.

The other problem is that I actually could see that it might be a cool-looking building if it had been better executed, but for whatever reason, the building’s finish just looks kind of cheap and slapdash. Honestly, the closer you get to it, the more it looks like a parking garage.

By: Molly

Molly — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 18:02:18 +0000

Stewart, I had never seen Boston City Hall before, but I just looked it up.

I think it’s fantastic! I did read that it’s confusing and hard to get around inside, which would be a big negative. But from the pictures, I think it looks awesome – kind of like the lego creation of a very talented, creative kid.

I can see how it would be a love it or hate it kind of thing, though.

By: Stewart

Stewart — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 17:43:41 +0000

Faces is a good choice for Boston, where space is at such a premium that abandoned buildings tend to get demolished very quickly so something new can go up.

However, in the related sense of local eyesores, I give you Boston City Hall (check the Wikipedia article for its full brutality), the single ugliest public building in America, if not the world. How ugly is it? Although we live in Boston, my wife and I filed our marriage certificate in Cambridge, because we didn’t like the idea of our marriage certificate being filed in a building that appalling.