Cindy Vasko Books

Photographs of empty spaces provide us with an alternative view of the world without us. The images of empty spaces that were once lively capture a departure from our norms and instead project alternative realities emptied of our presence. In Washington, D.C., a province rich with our nation's history, anything abandoned is either hastily torn down, tagged, or senselessly vandalized. Still, some forlorn structures remain and hold timeless beauty, or better yet, have a second chance at life along with the preservation of history. The author's collection of abandonments, forgotten or repurposed, includes several historic schools, a famous psychiatric hospital, a veterans' home, some industrial sites, and a few artful public statements about our society. Additionally, she includes the surreal deserted representation of Washington, D.C., in the time of COVID-19. With streets devoid of its usual grid-locked traffic and pedestrians, haunting images of familiar places become unfamiliar. Like a collection of abandoned photos, Washington D.C.'s surroundings, only recently integral to daily habits, now seem fragile and tenuous. Washington, D.C.'s deserted public spaces expose the new and sudden solitary human condition amplified beyond the silence of the environment.

Northern Virginia's forlorn footprints are close to the din of our nation's capital, yet some still cling to their old Southern roots, especially those from areas steeped with Civil War imprints. While a few derelict places are fortunate to have their legacies preserved, too many abandonments vanish at the direction of Mother Nature or the wrecking ball. This Northern Virginia collection of forsaken structures includes several Civil War-era vestiges--indispensable markers in America's most decisive era. Other chapters illuminate a strategic bastion formerly immersed in Cold War tensions, a coastal defense fort secreting clandestine activity for decades, a once lively dinner theater nightspot recently eradicated from the landscape, a shuttered business cloaked in eccentric lore, an infamous prison, a penal work camp succumbing to nature's green hand, the bygone remembrances of grist mills, a rural chapel, the remains of a bucolic gentleman's farm, and even a Northern Virginian ghost town. Observing these Northern Virginia images' desolate beauty and grasping the weight of their life chronicles allows one to appreciate how history is the best way to greet the future.

Eastern Ohio holds a vast collection of forlorn structures that continue to fade away. Some sites were gifted an additional shot at life, while others are disintegrating at the hand of nature or will see the wrecking ball's force. The once-mighty industrial belt of Eastern Ohio is a silent landscape of rusting hulks. Ruins touch the imagination at fundamental levels and hold a sense of the past and the present. See the Ohio State Reformatory where spirits of the past must surely reside; the quiet, abandoned, but historic, company village of Iron Soup that once joined with a formidable steel mill; the large rail gate yard with its skyscraper-like communications tower surrendering to natural elements; the glorious Victory Theater, fortunate to have a new lease of existence; and a church, school, and rectory that once served as a spiritual center for a community and now confronts imminent demolition. This collection of abandonments reveals how we surrender our history for traces of dissolving stories.

Abandonments have the command to shock and engage us. While adventuring through forsaken rooms, rusted collections, and dark hallways, one views the vestiges of what once was. Decay is alluring, and represents unlimited time and nature, but it also provides a sense of where we have been and how that made us who we are. The abandoned jewel of our heritage, the Ellis Island Hospital complex in Northern New Jersey, still carries the spirits of Ellis Island immigrants in search of the American dream. Considered a part of the historical trilogy of Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty, the Central Railroad of New Jersey Terminal and its massive rain shed was not only the conduit to a new home for many Ellis Island immigrants, but also an essential artery for travel within the United States. Discover how nature's green hands beautify the verandas of a vacant New Jersey hospital and see a marvel of technology housed within a derelict pump house along with its collections of oddball artifacts. See how a massive deserted river and harbor defense fort was once a vital cog in the country's national security arsenal. Travel with the author to an honored past and view the remarkable history of Northern New Jersey.

Abandoned Salton Dystopian Panoramas presents a journey into this unique Southern California region. An initial glimpse of the Salton Sea and its environs is a surreal experience--the landscape is at once unfamiliar, deserted, dramatic, silent, dystopian. All of us are fascinated by hidden stories, and there are thousands of veiled tales of loss tucked within the Salton Sea footprint. The Salton Sea panorama shrieks for a mitigation lifeline to halt the escalating ecological damage cloaking this region. Mother Nature, nevertheless, still manifests technicolor displays of spectacular sunrises and sunsets--as if she must open her paint box and decorate the sky with a riot of color as overcompensation for environmental folly. Ghost-like towns, some unconventional artistic and off-the-grid enclaves; the dramatic morning and evening atmospheric canvases, nature's last gasps; and beaches blanketed with pulverized fish bones and the detritus of once vibrant communities are some of the cautionary and curious tales presented within this Salton Sea collection.