Smokers gonna smoke, even if the decades-old War Against Cigarettes has exiled the persecuted puffers to outdoor shelters where no one wants to linger.

Forever A Logan

Someone oughta point out how disturbingly inappropriate it is to display a “SKYJACK” company logo at Boston’s Logan Airport… just don’t mention it when you’re lined up at Security. That said, this rather passive-aggressively designed “Designated Smoking Area” ironically demands users be considerate with their refuse, while the design reflects a bare minimum of consideration for smokers’ comfort and privacy. Flickr member Wil C. Fry snapped the bare-bones smoking shelter in late June of 2014.

Green Deal

Contrast Logan Airport’s glorified bus stop with the much more welcoming set-up above. You’d thing they WANT smokers to stick around… and you would be correct, because the Smoking Area above is an extension of a British pub. Comfort is a relative thing, however, and one wonders how these open-air nicotine nooks will fare over the average inclement English winter… and spring, summer and fall. Flickr member Gordon Joly took the photo above outside a pub in Westferry, London, in July of 2007.

Unfiltered

This abandoned, overgrown and partially-collapsed smoking shelter in Sunnyside, NY appears to have been erected on a roadside – if that’s indeed the end of a yellow guard rail we spy just outside the entrance. We’re not sure why anyone would use this shelter other than to take cover from a sudden storm, which may partly explain why it’s in such a neglected state… of repair, not of the Union. Flickr member Jason Eppink stopped by for a snapshot in June of 2013.

On Location

The long-running (since December of 1960) British TV soap Coronation Street has long-featured scenes shot in the smoking shelter above, proving that even the venerable Rovers Return Inn’s gotta follow the law of the land. When Flickr member Mikey visited the “Corrie” set in Manchester in late August of 2014, he made a point of sneaking ’round the back of the pub to check out – and likely test out – this most famous of smoking shelters.

Inhales In Wales

Smoking may be tightly regulated nowadays but smoking shelter design remains remarkably rule-free. Thus, for every miserable minimalist lean-to there’ll be a sumptuously furnished sanctuary like the hexagonal hut above. Flickr member Permacultural photographed this ornate refuge in March of 2012 while visiting the Artist’s Valley in Furnace, Wales. No doubt one might be tempted to take up smoking just to enjoy the rustic roost’s cloying creature comforts!

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Letchworth Village was hailed as an advanced institution at its 1911 opening but chronic overcrowding and underfunding took an alarming toll on the asylum and its inmates.

Gotham’s Asylum

The deteriorating remains of this residential institution, overgrown with mold within and poison ivy wiithout, lie a scant few miles northwest of New York City in Rockland County. The complex encompassed over 130 buildings at one point – a striking departure from the usual practice of building high-rise institutional asylums criticized by reformers as being detrimental to patients’ care and well-being.

Unfunny Farm

Letchworth Village was all about reform: it was named for William Pryor Letchworth (1823-1910), a noted author, philanthropist and researcher renowned for his advocacy of modern treatment regimes for the institutionalized. Situated in the hamlet of Thiells, the “state institution for the segregation of the epileptic and feeble-minded” initially occupied 2,362 acres of pastoral land. Stately one- and two-story buildings were modeled after Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s plantation home and estate in Virginia.

Fork Gone Conclusion

In accordance with William Letchworth’s theories, Letchworth Village limited accommodations to 70 residents per building and instituted separate living arrangements for children, disabled adults, and able-bodied adults. The latter were put to work on communal farms raising crops and livestock, enabling the institution to be entirely self-sufficient in food production through the late 1950s and early 1960s. Other inmates occupied their time making toys which were sold commercially over the holiday season.

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Poison Ivy League Abandoned Letchworth Village Asylum

These closed & abandoned social clubs recall the pre-internet age when people seeking the company of others did so in person, not via keyboards and webcams.

Scotch Scratched

Even after years of abandonment, the County Social Club in Glasgow, Scotland still looks sharp. Closed in 2006, the combination cinema (until 1981), bingo parlor and social club was built in the late 1930s on the site of the former Lyceum Theater, after the latter burned down in 1937. Flickr members Tom Parnell (itmpa) and 1001things captured the expansive ex-club in 2013 and 2010, respectively.

Thanks for the Memberies

OK, we get that social clubs were (and still are, where available) popular with retired folks but couldn’t this abandoned social club do better than “Retired Social Club”? Seems that uninspired choice was a self-fulfilling prophecy as, according to Flickr member Robby Virus, the “Members Only” club in Saginaw, MI itself retired sometime before July of 2017.

Clubbed to the Curb

Never mind the bollard, it’s an abandoned social club in East London! Whew, no wonder local social butterflies crawled back into their basement cocoons, this place may be the most antisocial social club around. Or should we say “former” social club, as the ramshackle whitewashed hole-in-the-wall looks to have been put on lockdown long before Flickr member Nicolai Grut chanced by in February of 2010.

A Fuller’s Earth House

Sorry Lori Loughlin, there’s no school behind the above blackboard. Though Flickr member Paul (holzey) doesn’t specify this abandoned social club’s geographic location, the “Fullers Earth Union Sports and Social Club” legend above the worn felt-green board leads one to believe it may be the old Tucking Mill works in Somerset, UK, that closed in the mid-1940s. “What’s On”? Not much, not much at all.

Smokin’ Not

A members only social club that doesn’t allow smoking? Yeah, good luck with… oh wait, it’s already closed, to the shock and surprise of nobody. So much for Babylon – the nation-state AND the Chicago social club. Flickr member bluefishtuesday stopped by for a snap in September of 2007, stating “I wonder what goes on here…” Certainly not smoking, or anything else for that matter.

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Members Lonely 10 Closed Abandoned Social Clubs

Telltale signs of snowflake-ization are all around if one knows where to look but these 10 “Beware Of” signs prove we really are living in a world of hurt.

This bit of fore-shadowing comes courtesy of Pixabay member aitoff and Charleston, SC golf bag retailer The Elliott Company. The seriously circumspect sign at the Royal North Devon Golf Club in Bideford, UK could relay several different meanings – just ask any “golf widow”. Note that the golf bag, artfully propped beneath the weathered sign, features a miniature replica of said sign. Impressive, even if you’re not Xzibit.

MAXI Driving Excitement

When driving in the UAE, one must expect the unexpected… if you don’t believe us, just read the sign. Flickr member Jerry “Woody” (woody1778a) snapped the er, surprisingly ambiguous sign while on a 2006 road trip through the Emirates.

Subtracters Say…

I was told there would be no math… oh, you mean snakes. That’s umm, NOT better, right Indy? In April of 2009, Flickr member WordRidden was moved to photograph the above warning sign in Goonhilly Downs, which just happens to be located on the UK’s most southerly point of land… The Lizard. Aha, now it’s all adding up.

Fronds in High Places

Don’t stand, don’t stand, don’t stand so close to tree. Just imagine: if Isaac Newton had lived in Hawaii instead of England there would be no gravity today, and therefore, no need for this warning sign. Seriously though, getting conked on your coconut BY a coconut is no laughing matter. Physics can’t be reckoned with, no matter how many palms you grease. Flickr member anokarina snapped this ominously armed & fabulous tree early in 2013.

Panic at the Disc, Oh!

Alien abduction just ahead, hold onto your butts! Flickr member Michel Curi chanced upon this odd – some might say “otherworldly” – warning sign from Largo, Florida in the spring of 2017. Now he spends his days constructing miniature replicas of Devil’s Tower out of mashed potatoes while muttering “This means something. This is important.”

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Despite the old maxim that living well is the best revenge, these homeowners have chosen to creatively spite busybody neighbors and inflexible authorities.

Zipporah Lisle-Mainwaring can afford to live life lushly in the posh London neighborhood of Kensington while spending the off-season in Switzerland, yet the now 67-year-old property developer has spent the past five years constantly quarreling with her neighbors and the local council. The trouble began in 2012 when Lisle-Mainwaring bought a charming white stucco townhouse and applied for a permit to construct an “iceberg basement” beneath the edifice… permission was denied.

Subsequent basement planning applications were refused as well, so in March of 2015 Lisle-Mainwaring spited both the haughty council and her snooty (snotty?) neighbors by painting the facade of her townhouse in garish red and white stripes… with the last stripe left unfinished just to add visual insult to injury. Flickr member Francesco Camardo‘s nighttime photos above highlight both the paint job (which took just over five hours to semi-complete) and the stuccoed wall’s rich texture.

Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on one’s POV, a court order handed down in January of 2016 declared the striped house “had an adverse effect of the amenity of the area” and ordered Lisle-Mainwaring (above) to return it to its original state within 28 days. Instead, the peeved homeowner has chosen to level the existing structure and erect a four-story-plus-basement home on the lot, ensuring many months of noise, dust, traffic and inconvenience for her neighbors. Now that’s Maximum Spiting for ya!

Gaylordsville “Wedding Cake” House

Some say there are no gossips like New England gossips and when giving condescending townsfolk the literal finger won’t shut ’em up, building an architectural up-yours is the next logical step. Speaking of steps, the step-pyramid-like Wedding Cake House in Gaylordsville, Connecticut really takes the, er, cake when it comes to spitefulness.

Back in the early 1960’s, the state Child Welfare Department removed an infant girl from the custody of homeowner Jan Pol’s foster daughter. Rumor had it the baby was fathered by Pol; something he furiously denied. In protest, Pol built the faded pink structure yet never lived in it a single day up until his passing in 1979. Flickr members Walking Philly and Beyond and howderfamily.com snapped the spiteful structure in 2012.

Plum Island Pink House

Going through a bitter divorce? Best to dissect the separation agreement with a fine-toothed comb and a magnifying glass lest ye end up like a certain bamboozled wife back in the Roaring Twenties. In a nutshell, it seems the husband was required to build his soon-to-be-ex-wife an exact replica of the pretty pink home in downtown Newburyport that they once shared.

Fine and dandy, but she should have checked the fine print: the agreement didn’t state where the replica house had to be built. Once she’d signed on the dotted line, the spiteful ex-hubby constructed the duplicate home way out in the middle of a salt marsh on deserted, wind-swept Plum Island.

It’s not known if the chagrined ex-wife actually lived in the Pink House – without any connection to utilities it would have been difficult to say the least. People did live there later on, however. One family owned the house from 1960 through 2012, eventually selling the house to the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge who are determined to demolish the lead-painted, asbestos-insulated and radon-infested house. Kudos to Flickr members Ron Grant (old 41), Jacob Taylor, and Bud (Bud in Wells, Maine) whose images above capture the Pink House’s essential beauty, sadness and yes – spitefulness.

Lubbock Purple Rental House

Don’t mess with Texas… or Texans, for that matter, even if the folks doin’ the messin’ be Texan too. You might get something like the so-called Lubbock Purple Rental House. This otherwise unremarkable single-family residence drew the ire of city authorities attempting to enforce an ordinance that allows no more than two unrelated people to live in a single-family residence. In 2001, homeowner Bill Davis and the several college students living at the house decided to protest the city’s “harassment” by painting the house purple with black and yellow polka dots. That’ll show ’em!

When a new group of students began renting space at Davis’ house in 2003, the city tried to enforce the ordinance again and Davis responded as before, though this time he eschewed the polka dots and instead painted the lawn and bushes. Kinky! The city was not amused. “We had these ordinances before he bought the house,” explained City Councilman Gary Boren, “but he (Davis) likes to be a sissy and paint his house… and say he’s making a statement. It’s a sissy way to deal with something.” Or, some might say, a spiteful way.

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No Respite 10 More Houses Built Out Of Spite