AXE® Posted April 23, 2010 Share Posted April 23, 2010 Abomination of a structure by exit 124? Baseball field? Racetrack. Yes I was that close to the compound. And now I know why they are dubbed as such. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bluemoon Posted April 23, 2010 Share Posted April 23, 2010 Nuclear power plant? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NeoConMan Posted April 23, 2010 Share Posted April 23, 2010 Nope. Axe knows where that is - he did lotsa work there. Yeah, I'm about 20 miles further west of that abomination - north of I-10. That was a Harness Racing track built in the mid 1960s - long before I-10 was built past there. You know, the uppity/snooty gang who had the goofy wire-wheeled buggies behind their horse? It only operated a couple of years before it went belly up. I've heard that there was a movie filmed there, with lotsa fire and explosions, back in the eighties. Beyond that, it's a haven for grafitti and pigeons. What you saw was the backside of it, the actual track was on the opposite (south) side. www.ustrotting.com The reason it was never torn down? It's monolithic - poured-in-place concrete like Hoover Dam. It would take A LOT OF DYNAMITE and a lot of time to blast it into pieces small enought to handle. That, and it's rumored to have asbestos mixed with the concrete. Can't have that stuff airborne, eh? Now you know as much as I do about it. :D:D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NeoConMan Posted April 23, 2010 Share Posted April 23, 2010 More links I found; www.phx411.com/featured-articles/2006/december/trotting-park.php [YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ywZSdJjPRU&feature=related[/YOUTUBE] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pohatu771 Posted April 23, 2010 Share Posted April 23, 2010 Nope.Axe knows where that is - he did lotsa work there. Yeah' date=' I'm about 20 miles further west of that abomination - north of I-10. That was a Harness Racing track built in the mid 1960s - [i']long[/i] before I-10 was built past there. You know, the uppity/snooty gang who had the goofy wire-wheeled buggies behind their horse? It only operated a couple of years before it went belly up. I've heard that there was a movie filmed there, with lotsa fire and explosions, back in the eighties. Beyond that, it's a haven for grafitti and pigeons. What you saw was the backside of it, the actual track was on the opposite (south) side. www.ustrotting.com The reason it was never torn down? It's monolithic - poured-in-place concrete like Hoover Dam. It would take A LOT OF DYNAMITE and a lot of time to blast it into pieces small enought to handle. That, and it's rumored to have asbestos mixed with the concrete. Can't have that stuff airborne, eh? Now you know as much as I do about it. That's my family's business - I don't know what it's like on the west coast, but over here the people are far from "snooty." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MojoRedFoot Posted April 23, 2010 Share Posted April 23, 2010 That is the worst place to be sitting. Makes me think of that beer commercial where the girl is holding a candle on a carriage and the horse farts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NeoConMan Posted April 23, 2010 Share Posted April 23, 2010 That's my family's business - I don't know what it's like on the west coast' date=' but over here the people are far from "snooty."[/quote'] Sorry for the slander via sweeping generalization. Considering NONE of those trotter folks are around here, but horse racing is, that's the consensus out here. That track is regarded as a monument to delusional excess, obscene amounts of money wasted. Now a 45 year-old eyesore that ain't going anywhere - only the grafitti changes with the season. And the butt of jokes from EVERYBODY passing through going to and from California. I'm just telling you what I know from driving past it for ten years - my wife for forty. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pohatu771 Posted April 23, 2010 Share Posted April 23, 2010 Sorry for the slander via sweeping generalization.Considering NONE of those trotter folks are around here' date=' but horse racing is, that's the consensus out here. That track is regarded as a monument to delusional excess, obscene amounts of money wasted. Now a 45 year-old eyesore that ain't going anywhere - only the grafitti changes with the season. And the butt of jokes from EVERYBODY passing through going to and from California. I'm just telling you what I know from driving past it for ten years - my wife for forty. [/quote'] I know what it's like, seeing a deserted track. The one closest to home, that I was playing around at 3 years old, closed just a few years later. It re-opened, but only because New York decided to let OTB run live racing and install slot machines. If it weren't for those machines, there wouldn't be any tracks left in New York, except maybe Saratoga and Yonkers. A lot of the New York guys left for New Jersey and Florida - some even go to Europe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NeoConMan Posted April 23, 2010 Share Posted April 23, 2010 That's been the consensus here for decades - can't they reopen it for SOMETHING? It's quite an elaborate building, and now within the suburbs of Phoenix. The new football stadium is not far from there. Hell, let the Indian Tribes buy it and put it to use - those people spend STUPID money on that stuff. I bet they could make it fly, with all the tourism and snowbirds here. That's the only gambling in the state - racetracks and Indian casinos. And I understand the horse track in Phoenix is closing down. Or was that the dog track? I don't remember. But they're near the airport, and Scottsdale where all the money is. West side of Phoenix isn't so well-heeled. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NeoConMan Posted April 23, 2010 Share Posted April 23, 2010 That's my family's business Oh' date=' and I meant to add.... My family has been in the Oil Biz since World War II. Think about that one for a minute - All the bullsh!t about Big Oil, Evil Oil companies, Environmental Destruction, the rackets, conspiracies... I know what it's like to be completely misunderstood. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milod Posted April 23, 2010 Share Posted April 23, 2010 Yeah, I think just about any kind of horse racing just ain't what it used to was. Even here, our "rodeo arena" was built a century ago, but mostly as the infield of what was really seen as important, the horse racing track. An aerial view will still show the outlines of the track, but for all intents it was "done" by the 1950s, although I think some of the girls were still using it for trick riding practice as contract entertainers. Thing is, with Indian gaming, etc., it's just not that popular. I think in ways it's because the whole culture is that much further away from a horse culture. Heck, even here - and mind you, I just got back tonight from a college rodeo - horse racing just isn't something almost anyone thinks about. Rodeo? Yeah. Barrel racing and polebending and such? Yeah. But running horse vs. horse on a track? Not really... Again, though, and I think almost everywhere, the problem is that we've gotten much more "organized' in our activities. The little town where I spent my first elementary school years used to have baseball at least once a week with a town team; rodeo every summer... A four-county fair... Now? Ain't nothin' there but some of that cast-in-place concrete for bleachers as Neo noted. Signs of the times, really. m Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NeoConMan Posted April 23, 2010 Share Posted April 23, 2010 If you're not an adherent to the assimilation plans, there's something wrong with you. Can't afford to take the family to the rodeo, fair, or horse show? How much does it cost each month to keep your family "connected" with cell phones for everybody? How much did you spend on that big TV? Or both of them? Or all three of them? Internet access, probably on the phones too. Cable/satellite so you got two hundred channels of nothing? Games? Probably could buy a horse and pay to feed/board him for a lot less - and learn something in the process... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AXE® Posted April 23, 2010 Author Share Posted April 23, 2010 Thanks y'all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TommyK Posted April 24, 2010 Share Posted April 24, 2010 They thought I was nuts when I told them that when, not if, but WHEN, those wind turbines becomes obsolete, who takes them down? Interesting isn't it? The power company has insulated themselves from the responsibility of removal.. or at least they tried to. This land is littered with monuments to once viable businesses and government entities that no longer exist and these monstrosities are still standing because no one has the loose cash to take them down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NeoConMan Posted April 25, 2010 Share Posted April 25, 2010 I was taking the small ones down in the early eighties - the first time the wind-power craze hit. That's when I first became a crane operator. They were being marketed to farmers, ranchers, feedlots, dairies, etc. Offset power consumption, spin the meter backwards and sell to the untilities at times..... They didn't last. It was too expensive to do maintenance on them - rent a crane for a couple of days? Didn't take long before we weren't working for the windmill outfit so much. We were working more for the owners who wanted the damned things removed. And as I said, these were tiny. Three men could carry the generator, blade span of maybe a dozen feet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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