The J.W. Cooper School is located in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania. An hour Southwest of Scranton, it is in the heart of the Anthracite coal belt, an area hard hit by the decline of coal use, and general downturn of northern industry. The school building is now a Community Center, hosting a handful of events in the crumbling auditorium. It is also hosts numerous photo workshops. Photographed in August 2018
There’s a local private school which has an abandoned wing, as the result of having built a new pool building a number of years ago.
Little information is available about this school. Thousands pass it on Route 5 near Schenectady, NY, every day and likely never give it a second thought. Abandoned for over 15 years, it is rarely possible to get inside. After watching it for well over a decade, an opportunity presented itself. Photographed in the summer of 2018.
Built in the 1950’s, this building is typical of Elementary Schools in the Northeast. Declining enrollment in the 1980s made the school unnecessary. After being used for administrative offices and special programming for 35 years, it was sold as a surplus property in 2017. The expected reuse hasn’t occurred, and the the building has been vandalized in the intervening years.
