Thresholds #5: What Was There?
Kenosha, Wisconsin
Once, the door looked out at a smoking chimney and a blue factory wall, but now it’s just a flat field with a “For Sale” sign.
Once, the hayloft was full of the sound of wind through the rafters, but now the only noise is the hum of a data center we can’t see.
I remember the way the oak beams felt—rough, solid, and full of splinters—but today it’s just a patch of dirt and gravel.
Where there used to be the smell of old, dry hay and damp concrete, there is only the smell of turned earth and diesel exhaust.
The hayloft forgot how to hold anything.
Even the dust here tastes like something that’s gone for good.
The Context
This barn sat abandoned for years right here in Kenosha. On the day I took these photos, I finally worked up the nerve to explore the whole thing. I climbed up into the hayloft and found those beams of light streaming in; in that moment, it felt almost magical. Looking west through the open door, you could see the coal power plant working away.
Looking back, I caught a view that was about to vanish. Within a few months, the barn was demolished. A few years after that, the coal plant was torn down, too. Today, the barn’s land is back to being a farm field—currently for sale— and the power plant is being replaced by a massive data center. I edited these images to try to capture the mood of that day and the reality of how quickly things decay and change.
I wonder...
Is there a place in your town that has completely changed its “soul” while you were watching? What was there once, and what is there now?
There are so many places that have changed over my life. The home where I spent some of the most wonderful years replaced by a modern home. The school I attended and helped plant the trees along the edge of the ball diamond, now a shopping mini mall. The school where I taught for over 30 years replaced by a newer building that lacks the uniqueness and comfort of the prior structure. A farm house that sheltered families from the 19fh century and was an icon of a former world now a livestock feeding station. I miss them all and wonder what today’s youth will remember when they pause and look around in future years and realize the thins that are missing stimulate memories and are emotional links to their past.
That shot from the doorway is a quintessential image of what chage embodies.
Bob and I had a timeshare near Colonial Williamsburg for many years, beginning around the early 1990s. Today it is more commercialized, many history inns have been replaced, along with a working farm along the James River that had reenactment of Colonial life that did include how slaves lived. It is no longer on the Colonial trail. The tall winding roads with towering pines have been cut down for more housing. We prefer Yorktown, now, but it's main thoroughfares have been completely remodeled , also.
We still visit from time to time to time, but it's just not the same to us.