Alex Box Stadium

Behold, the remains of the original Alex Box baseball stadium, which was built in 1938 as a WPA project. (Click here for a series of recent "before" shots.)

Huey P. Long Fieldhouse Pool

 

 

The Huey P. Long Fieldhouse was completed on the LSU campus in 1932. Hearsay says that Huey Long intended it to be the biggest pool around, longer than any run-of-the-mill Olympic-sized pool. It was designed by Weiss, Dreyfus and Seiferth, the same firm that designed the new state capitol.

UPDATE: This originally said "old state capitol" and a few commenters pointed out that I had my information wrong. Please forgive this damned Yankee.

Until the 1970s, it was required that every LSU student take a swim class, but by then the pool was already in decline. It has been closed since approximately 1999 and has been silently crumbling ever since, relatively unnoticed amidst the thriving campus.

In early June, I was allowed access to the condemned structure housing the pool *with police escort.* Gotta say, I love having a police escort. They can escort my scared ass any time around abandoned buildings.

Half-here today, gone tomorrow: The Turkish Baths

Rumors of the Turkish Baths' imminent demise have not been exaggerated.

The fiance and I happened upon it in this condition yesterday, a year almost to the day from the first time it caught my eye. See the first post about the place here.

This building was the first spark to the interest that became Abandoned Baton Rouge. I was sad to see the old place go, but I'm glad I caught it halfway. And at least now I could look inside...what was left of the inside.

The Turkish Baths of Baton Rouge

On the first day the bf and I came to Baton Rouge back in July to look at rentals, a most intriguing old building caught my eye. It was an abandoned Turkish Baths/ old-time health spa. It was to become my ABR white whale. I couldn't find it for months after moving here. Not having a vehicle certainly didn't help matters. But recently, I finally found it again, and I believe the area is called Beauregardtown.