When the world ends, our cities will crumble and be reclaimed by nature. Yet you don’t have to wait for the apocalypse to catch a glimpse of that vibe—these 10 post apocalyptic spots hide in plain sight across major metropolises, waiting for the curious explorer.
10 Public School 186
Imagine Manhattan’s Public School 186 sitting smack‑dab in the middle of the city’s hustle. Shops buzz across the street, parking is a nightmare, and pedestrians stroll by like nothing out of the ordinary. The façade is boarded up, but the real giveaway is the trees sprouting from the windows, a clear sign that nobody has set foot inside for over four decades. Inside, you’ll find piles of debris and scattered animal remains that complete the eerie tableau.
The school first opened its doors in 1903, but by the early 1970s it ran into a host of problems. Its floor plan didn’t meet fire‑safety standards, forcing the ground‑floor doors to stay perpetually open so children couldn’t be trapped. Those doors, however, became a magnet for crime—robbers held parents at knifepoint, and a teacher’s aide suffered a sexual assault in a classroom. When fire inspectors discovered the alarm system had failed in 1972, the building was slated for closure and finally shut its doors in 1975.
Plans to renovate the school surfaced in the 1980s, but the Boys and Girls Club of Harlem, which had purchased the property, opted to demolish rather than refurbish. Residents rallied to save the historic structure, yet owners claimed the cost was prohibitive. While legal battles continue, the building increasingly resembles a set from I Am Legend, its decay a stark reminder of urban abandonment.
9 North Brother Island
Just a half‑kilometer (about .3 miles) from Manhattan’s shoreline lies North Brother Island, now a protected bird sanctuary in the East River. In the 1880s the island served as a quarantine station for infectious‑disease patients at Riverside Hospital. Its most infamous resident was Typhoid Mary, who passed away there in 1938. Later, the island housed World War II veterans and a drug‑treatment center before being sealed off to the public in 1964.
During the short windows between September and March, when the resident birds are not nesting, a few privileged visitors are allowed back. Thick vegetation has reclaimed the island, draping brick structures, modest bungalows, and a small chapel in green. One classroom still hosts a scattering of old books across its floor, while ivy and trees slowly swallow the remaining buildings.
Photographer Christopher Payne, granted rare access, described the place as “what would happen if people left the planet.” He noted a surreal feeling of disconnection from the world, yet the distant hum of a Mister Softee truck reminded him just how close New York City still is.
8 Miami Marine Stadium
Naumachia—the mock naval battles of ancient Rome—have a modern counterpart in the form of Miami’s Marine Stadium. If you ever fancied staging a dystopian water‑battle, this 6,600‑seat concrete coliseum, built in the 1960s for speedboat racing, offers the perfect backdrop.
The venue was forced to close after Hurricane Andrew in 1992, and since then it has become a haven for graffiti artists, freerunners, and urban explorers. Its massive poured‑concrete shell was designed to be “a piece of sculpture on the water reflecting what nature was providing us,” according to its architect.
Debate still rages over the stadium’s fate. The Friends of Miami Marine Stadium campaign for restoration and public reuse, while others argue it should remain a living canvas for street art, preserving its gritty, post‑apocalyptic aesthetic.
7 Box Hill Brickworks
Melbourne’s Box Hill Brickworks exudes a steampunk charm that feels ripped from a post‑apocalyptic novel. Constructed in 1884, the brick‑making plant ran for a full century before shutting down in 1988. Its towering chimney still dominates the skyline, a lone sentinel over the surrounding area.
The real intrigue lies hidden within the complex: rust‑covered machinery, elevated walkways, and a maze of walkways hovering above the industrial debris. Hand‑written sales ledgers lie scattered in an old office, and a tramway and blacksmith’s shop remain frozen in time, unchanged since the 1880s.
Adding to the eerie atmosphere is an adjoining landfill that looks like a normal grassy field—except for occasional plumes of flame that burst from the ground. When methane from the buried waste doesn’t ignite on its own, local youths sometimes drop matches into sinkholes, creating spontaneous underground explosions. All of this unfolds just beyond a barbed‑wire fence that borders a park frequented by playing children.
6 Bloomingdale Railway
If you’ve ever wondered what urban hiking will feel like after civilization collapses, Chicago’s Bloomingdale Railway gives a vivid preview. This three‑mile‑long elevated rail line was abandoned by Canadian Pacific in 2001, and nature has since reclaimed the tracks, turning them into a favorite route for joggers, cyclists, and even winter cross‑country skiers who glide over the overgrown rails while the city streets are plowed.
The sense of an unattended city won’t last forever. Photographs of the railway show half the frames dominated by vines and weeds overtaking the steel, while the other half are artistic renderings of the proposed park and walkway conversion. Although the restoration project promises a modern public space, many longtime users lament the loss of the post‑apocalyptic scenery they’ve grown to love.
5 Tower Of David
Centro Financiero Confinanzas, better known as the Tower of David, pierces the Caracas skyline as an unfinished skyscraper. Construction began in 1990, but a 1994 banking crisis halted progress, leaving the 45‑story shell incomplete. The tower boasts a heliport yet lacks elevators, windows, railings, and basic utilities.
Since the 1990s, roughly 3,000 squatters have claimed the building as home, turning it into the world’s tallest slum. Motorcycles act as taxis up the first ten floors, after which residents climb on foot to the 28th level, the highest any inhabitant reaches. Inside, a bustling micro‑economy thrives: stores, beauty salons, daycare centers, and even a dentist serve the community, while makeshift plumbing and electricity keep daily life humming.
Adventurous youths often lift weights just feet away from a dizzying drop with no safety rail, and teenagers navigate pitch‑black stairwells using cellphone lights. Though the tower’s residents are wary of outsiders, the surrounding streets of Caracas appear perfectly ordinary, a stark contrast to the vertical shantytown within.
4 Insurgentes 300
Mexico City’s Insurgentes 300, affectionately nicknamed the “Canada” building for the massive 30‑meter lettering that once adorned its side, stands as a testament to nature’s relentless pushback. Though technically upright, the structure leans at a ten‑degree angle after the 1985 earthquake, and its cracked glass reveals a chaotic interior.
Inside, a surprising mix of professions thrives: lawyers, accountants, drug dealers, and prostitutes share the space with dance teachers and screen printers. Originally housing 420 offices, roughly half have been converted into residential units. Despite evacuation orders, occupants have resisted, fighting for repairs for three decades while lawsuits pile up and the building continues its slow decay.
3 Red Hook Grain Terminal
The New York Port Authority Grain Terminal in Red Hook, Brooklyn, could easily double as a fortified bunker against a zombie horde. Its concrete walls, twenty centimeters thick and soaring twelve stories high, present an imposing, fortress‑like silhouette.
Inside, the space feels like a hybrid of factory, prison, and temple—eerie from a distance and downright sinister when shrouded in fog. Several sections have already collapsed into the East River, and more appear doomed to follow. Opened in 1922, the terminal fell into disuse by the 1960s and earned the nickname “Magnificent Mistake.”
Urban explorers prize the site for its haunting beauty, though gaining entry demands research, persistence, and a healthy dose of nerves. One explorer warned that you never know what—or who—you might encounter inside. Even if you skip the exploration, the shattered windows offer a spectacular sunset view that makes the risky trek worthwhile.
2 The UK’s Cold War Tunnels
England may lack a second official metropolis, but Manchester and Birmingham each conceal miles of Cold‑War‑era underground tunnels—literal time capsules built to survive an apocalypse. These secret passageways were constructed in total secrecy.
Polish workers, unable to speak English, tunneled beneath Manchester to prevent any leaks about the project, and the bunkers once stored months’ worth of canned provisions for VIPs. In Birmingham, many tunnel entrances remain classified, adding an extra layer of mystery to the subterranean network.
1 A Lot Of Meatpacking Plants
Founded in 1867, Armour & Company once stood as one of the United States’ largest meat‑packing enterprises. Its decline in the late 20th century left a trail of abandoned facilities across the nation. In Fort Worth, Texas, a skeletal brick structure bears the scars of fires that ravaged it in the 1970s. Demolition attempts left a missing wall section, but the building’s steel skeleton proved too sturdy to tear down, leaving a prison‑like edifice.
In 2007, guard towers were erected to transform the site into a set for the TV series Prison Break,” complete with the words “Penitenciaría Federal De Sona” above a door, cementing its reputation as a faux penitentiary.
Further north, a plant in Navassa, North Carolina, operated only briefly before rumors spread in the 1920s that its owner was discovered hanged amid the machinery. The plant quickly earned a haunted reputation, reinforced by several suicides in the 1980s, anchoring it firmly in local folklore.
The most infamous of these decaying giants resides in East St. Louis, Illinois, a short distance from downtown. Here, the plant remains filled with original machinery, including a once‑cutting‑edge refrigeration system. At its peak, the facility employed nearly 5,000 workers and became a flashpoint for racial tension due to its segregated workforce. Closed in 1959, the plant now stands as a beacon for those fascinated by urban decay.
Alan, an avid urban explorer, admits that as the world teeters on the brink, his hobby of wandering through these forgotten industrial cathedrals may be the only pastime that truly improves when civilization collapses.