Features Podcasts Family Video Comics Music Tech Science Books Film & TV Games ✚

Jill

Tiny sinkholes are also creepy

Rob Beschizza at 7:05 am Tue, Jun 1, 2010

Tweet
Kindle
sinkhole1.jpg An enormous scary hole appeared following storms in Guatemala, but this one here in Pittsburgh's Strip District almost claimed my ankle the other day. When I looked inside it, I saw something pretty creepy.sinkhole2.jpg Flash on, and the old sewer within becomes less sinister -- if no less of a threat to pedestrians. sinkhole3.jpg

⟿ Follow Rob Beschizza on Twitter.

More at Boing Boing

Ants and Stars: Bruce Sterling and Jasmina Tesanovic visit the Sardinia Radio Telescope in Italy

The Snowden Principle

  • hassenpfeffer

    HTML fail. Supposed to be <strike>Tower of Ignorance<strike> Cathedral of Learning. And now I’ll change it to <strike>Tower of Ignorance</strike> <strike>Cathedral of Learning</strike>big building used as model of Dana Barrett’s apartment building in Ghostbusters.

    • dole

      “Dana’s apartment building actually exists at 55 Central Park West in New York City. The building is actually only 20 stories high. For the film, matte paintings and models were used to make the building look bigger and with more floors. According to the commentary on the DVD, the top of the building is modeled after the top of the Continental Life Building in St. Louis, MO.” – imdb

      Being from St. Louis, it’s one of few cool trivia facts. Harold Ramis is a St. Louis native, thus the connection. I’ll admit that the Cathedral of Learning is impressive and a dead ringer, though.

      • Anonymous

        I was told that Dana’s apartment was actually Buffalo, NY’s City Hall – which looks a lot more like the apartment building in the movie.

  • z00s

    Looks like some jagger bush got warshed in there.

    • hassenpfeffer

      @z00s:

      ….’n'at. Time to redd it up.

  • Drew from Zhrodague

    Pittsburgher, here. Yinz almost need a monster truck of a Subaru to drive in the city, since the potholes reproduce pretty quickly by themselves.

    If we’re gonna talk about beer, I’m gonna mention East End Brewing, which has the best local beer I’ve ever had.

    Hi to all the Happy Mutants in the ‘Burgh!

    • t3knomanser

      Getting a growler from EEB is on my list, Drew. I swear I will, someday. The fact that it actually takes some effort on my part may slow the process, but it will happen.

  • millrick

    Rob? Dude?

    Living in a city where your house could drop into the depths of the earth is creepy.

    Seeing something in a little hole in ground IS NOT CREEPY!

    • hassenpfeffer

      Here in the ‘Burgh (and Greater Appalachia) your house could drop into a sinkhole.

      On the West Coast, your house could drop into the Pacific.

      In the Midwest, your house could go up the next time the Yellowstone-centered supervolcano goes.

      In the South–well, it’s the frickin’ South.

      You pays your ticket and you rides your ride.

  • Gilmoid1

    One time I was walking through a forest on a camping trip with friends. On a path started to soften. I told my friends–”Hey–the ground here is soft.” At which point the ground collapsed under me. I threw my limbs out as I fell; there was a sound of water below. My friends rescued me–the next day the path was bulldozed over.

  • Matt Staggs

    OM NOM NOM NOM NOM!

  • t3knomanser

    Heh. Let’s just hope the Golden Triangle doesn’t fall into the “Fourth River” any time soon.

    For those that don’t know the area, Pittsburgh’s downtown core, the “Golden Triangle”, sits between three rivers (well, at the junction of two which spawns the third), but there’s a fourth river under ground, which powers the minorly famous Point Park fountain.

    Couple that with all of the coal mining in western PA, and I fully expect the entire western half of the state to fall under ground sometime around 2025, probably shortly after the fault line under the Hudson Valley slips, destroying Long Island.

    • starbreiz

      The funniest thing about what you just said is that ever since I moved from Pittsburgh to San Francisco, all of my friends back home keep telling me that California is going to fall into the ocean! :)

  • Robert

    What was creepy? The rock? Or the pillbug on the right?

  • Rob Beschizza

    I get paredolia on the rock in the middle photo. Real bad case, too, man.

  • Ugly Canuck

    I have been told that such urban sinkholes may be home to many exotic smells and perhaps the odd stench, too.

  • Halloween Jack

    You haven’t read Stephen King’s IT, have you, Rob?

  • hassenpfeffer

    I trust you fed the sinkhole a Primanti’s sammich’n'at to appease the chthonic powers.

    • hassenpfeffer

      Sigh. I live in a house in Allison Park (‘burbs) now, but I still miss my bachelor pad on S. Graham in Friendship. Three blocks to the Sharp Edge, easy walking distance to Bloomfield and Shadyside, great run down to the Tower of Ignorance Cathedral of Learning and back.

  • Anonymous

    In my front yard about five years ago, me and my dog discovered a sink hole that was about a meter wide. Using a rope with a weight, I figured that it was about 21 feet deep. Apparently, it was an old septic tank from the 1930s, and the roof caved in.

    As nice as it would be to have my own personal dungeon or fallout shelter, I ended up having it filled with old bricks and sand.

  • Rob Beschizza

    It was right near Primanti’s, too! But no.

    • t3knomanser

      I’ve lived in Pittsburgh for three years now, and I still haven’t stepped into a “Permannies”. But I swear by Pamela’s.

      //And I live not too far from the Sharp Edge in Friendship. WOOHOO! BEER!

      Which, Rob- since you’re a Burgher, I’m surprised you haven’t posted about Kubideh Kitchen. It’s a really awesome project (even if their kubideh isn’t terribly authentic, it’s nice to be able to order kubideh in Pittsburgh).

  • bellhalla

    The killer potatoes will eat us all! Too bad that by the time Rob got the flash on all that was left were some ‘decoy’ rocks.

    The starchy takeover of the world will begin soon!

  • ecobore

    No question.. The Silarians are coming!

  • Boba Fett Diop

    From beneath you it devours.

  • Anonymous

    I would not park my Millenium Falcon in there.

  • spastasmagoria

    I lived in Pittsburgh most of my life… yes, the sinkholes and potholes can kill you! We were on 5th ave in a huge rain storm, and a sinkhole opened up right in the thoroughfare. the truck in front of us lost an axle and we lost ALL FOUR tires and wheels. I fully expect some part of Pittsburgh to develop a super-sinkhole and to lose a major building or something due to rain and mine subsistence.

    • t3knomanser

      Could it be one of the “batteries” in Pitt? They’re pretty ugly. I really love the Pittsburgh skyline, I’d hate to lose a good building. There’s a few anonymous cubes downtown that I wouldn’t mind seeing vanish. So long as the Oliver Building survives unscathed, I’m happy.

  • Cochituate

    Sorry, but with the comments trailing off into references to beer in Pittsburgh, I always think of Iron City, and that makes me think of John Sayles’ PRIDE OF THE BIMBOS, and the Wino’s National Anthem, which had a Iron City chorus. Anyone have the complete lyric? For once, Google failed me.

    I think my girl friend did the book design for this, Sayles’ first book, at Little, Brown back in the day (1975).

  • Anonymous

    Thank you Tango, my thought exactly. Creeeeeepy. I don’t get the third shot though. Is that in the hole, and if so, where did the creepy head go?

  • Trotsky

    Did I just read, click through, sign in, and ultimately post a comment about a HOLE IN THE GROUND?!

    Officially, my lowest point on the Internet.

    • Tango Charlie

      Am I the only one who saw the terrifying tiny blind baby-head in the second photo? Are you guys actively suppressing your imagination?