Abandoned America: The Age of Consequences Now For Sale

My book, Abandoned America: The Age of Consequences is available on Amazon and many other online booksellers across the globe. You can get a signed copy of "Abandoned America: The Age of Consequences" here. It's also on Amazon/Barnes & Noble/Powells/Indiebound/Booksamillion.

(Update 3/15/16: I have a new book out in September 2016, if you're interested in preordering "Abandoned America: Dismantling the Dream" you can do it through Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Booksamillion / Indiebound)

Originally conceived as an examination of the rise and fall of the defunct state hospital system, Philadelphia photographer Matthew Christopher’s award winning website Abandoned America rapidly grew to encompass derelict factories and industrial sites, schools, churches, power plants, hospitals, prisons, military installations, hotels, resorts, homes, and more. Through his collection of writing and photography, Christopher has spent the last decade documenting the ruins of one of the greatest civilizations the world has ever known: our own. The locations presented are the monuments to America’s great ambition and crumbling future. They are the remnants of a nearly forgotten past. They are some of America’s last standing vestiges of our industrial age, the buildings that put our forefathers to work.

Now, broken and ruined, these places are documented in Christopher’s book, Abandoned America: The Age of Consequences. Exploring sites like the charred remains of the Hotel Do De, the rusted cells of the Essex County Jail Annex, the majesty of the Church of the Transfiguration, or the eerie and dilapidated remnants of the New Castle Elks Lodge, the work spans architectural treasures left to the elements and then all too often lost forever.

“There is something magical and mysterious about spaces that are no longer in use, where nature and time and man’s presence have combined to create something absolutely unique,” says Christopher. “I hope that people reading my book can experience that sense of the transcendental and sublime that I did when I photographed these forgotten places. This book is a chance to examine why we are losing so many sites that are critical to our identity and culture.” Abandoned America: The Age of Consequences is 240 pages featuring dozens of amazing locations with an introduction by James Howard Kunstler (The Geography of Nowhere).

Chapters in Abandoned America: The Age of Consequences include: New Castle Elks Lodge, Henryton State Hospital, St. Peter's Episcopal Church, Lebow Bros. Clothing Company, Old Essex Prison, Kohl's Motorcycle Sales & Service, Bell Labs Holmdel Complex, Carrie Furnaces, Church of the Transfiguration, Garman Opera House/Hotel Do De, Frank R. Phillips Power Station, Norwich State Hospital, Thomas A. Edison High School, Packard Motor Car Company, St. Boniface, St. Bonaventure Roman Catholic Church, the Huber Breaker, Scranton Lace Company, Westport Generating Station, John Wilde & Brother Yarn, Atlantic Avenue Power Station*, Lansdowne Theater, Harmony House*, Fox Hotel, Bethlehem Steel (Lackawanna), Eastalco Alcoa Works, Essex County Jail Annex, New Jersey Zinc, and Ocean Vista Hospital*.

“The places Christopher photographs tell their stories with silence and extraordinary light – the spaces between the life and death of a building. His pictures make me feel like someone told me a secret.”
- Jane Derenowski, Reporter, NBC Nightly News

“Through his photographs, Christopher makes a powerful statement about job loss, urban blight and historic preservation. In light of the collapse of American industry and the subsequent economic meltdown, the relevance of these topics has never been more important to the examination of America’s national identity.”
- Joseph and Barrie Ann George, The Sentinel