Tourists take liking to rusty wrecks
Print Edition
BRIGHT colored kayaks bobbed around the rotted hull of a World War II submarine chaser that was rusted into a ghostly shell and lapped by water as salty as tears.
The kayaks paddled by tourists then glided a few feet away to a decayed, partly submerged ferry, part of the “Graveyard of Ships” tour, which winds through a marine salvage yard in New York City that is the final resting place for dozens of working boats and military vessels.
Once considered eyesores to steer clear of, some junkyards, underwater scrap yards and landfills are being recast as sight-seeing attractions.
Sometimes dubbed “ruin tourism” or even “ruin porn,” dramatic photographs online showing deteriorated boats emerging at low tide or automobile carcasses swallowed up by lush moss are enticing the public to see the decaying sites for themselves.
“These sites are often appreciated for their authenticity or novelty value as a contemporary ruin,” said Karl Kullmann, who teaches landscape architecture, environmental planning and urban design at the University of California at Berkeley.
Ruin tourism
Ruin tourism draws visitors to such famously dilapidated landmarks as the Michigan Central Train Depot and the former Packard plant in Detroit. In White, Georgia, a crumbling repository of more than 4,000 discarded automobiles encased in trees and kudzu vines known as Old Car City USA draws paying crowds from around the world. In Hot Springs, Arkansas, cycling enthusiasts flock to a re-purposed landfill that features mountain bike trails known as “Tour-de-Trash.”
“This type of tourism attracts people interested in the detritus of capitalism,” said Rebecca Kinney, assistant professor in the Department of Popular Culture and School of Cultural and Critical Studies at Bowling Green State University.
The Detroit structures are “decades-old reminders of the precipitous rise and fall of industry,” she said.
The Graveyard of Ships tour on the Arthur Kill, a waterway separating New Jersey from the New York borough of Staten Island, often sells out and is far more popular than other paddling trips to nearby bucolic rivers and lakes run by Kayak East tour operator John Pagani.
What makes one man’s trash another man’s tourist destination seems to be its ability to spark the imagination, he said.
“One thing people like about the Graveyard of Ships is that it is old and rusted and you can see the wear. You imagine back to when it wasn’t in that state and just kind of think about how time takes over things,” Pagani said.
The draw of the marine scrap yard seems irresistible, even to kayakers who initially contact Pagani with their hearts set on paddling through serene, unspoiled channels and creeks.
“When they see the pictures of the Graveyard of Ships, they’re interested,” he said. “All of a sudden that beautiful scenery just kind of takes a back seat.”
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