February 19, 2014 Slideshows » News & Views

Urban-exploring in Charlotte, beyond 

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Urban-exploring in Charlotte, beyond
Justin Driscoll
For Justin Driscoll, the older the place, the better. After hearing about Stonewall Jackson Training School, which opened in 1909, from an older native Charlottean, he stumbled upon the site one night while driving to an auto body shop in Concord. The state juvenile facility has a sordid history — according to an article the Charlotte Observer ran last year, a number of men who lived there in the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s say they were mentally, physically and sexually abused. “The place initially gave me anxiety for the sheer fact there were so many buildings to explore — I was like a kid in a candy store,” Driscoll says. “But some of the buildings were worse than others — this really cold, eerie feeling in some of the rooms, especially one basement. I would be looking through the view-finder of my camera, and it felt like someone was behind me or looking at me from across the room. My pitbull Charlie comes on some missions with me. He is a very happy and fearless pup. On this particular occasion, he just dug his paws into the floor, looked up at me and wouldn’t go any deeper into the building. I’m not trying to make this a ghost story, but something didn’t feel right.”
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