The New Glacier Missionary Baptist Church sits on a downtown street of Detroit, Michigan. The church has succumbed to urban decay as the city that once boasted over 1.8 million residents in 1950 is now at 680 thousand residents (2014).
In one month alone, 19 different crimes of a variety of levels were committed within a one mile radius of the church. The church is now unsafe to rebuild as the floor is falling in and a section of the roof is completely gone.
Prior to the church building being used by New Glacier Missionary Baptist, it was utilized by the Greater St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church, which bought the property in 1979. As St. Paul grew to over 1,000 members, a lack of space became an issue. So, the church sold in 1984 as St. Paul moved to a much larger space.
The building was eventually purchased by the members of New Glacier Missionary Baptist Church.
This photo was taken from the second floor balcony inside the church.
Empty Places: Waiting rooms for death
Documenting History: The building sits in a somewhat undeveloped area of Nashville, Tennessee. It was built in about 1913 and was used by the Tennessee Masons as a group home of sorts for widows and their children. The money to allow orphans and their mothers to stay in the property came from a fund that was developed in 1886. At one point the four story home and two other buildings on the campus had 400 residents that included widows, their children and the elderly.
In 1941, the State of Tennessee used the massive structure that looks like a mansion as a hospital to treat patients with tuberculosis. In the 1900’s, tuberculosis was the leading cause of death in the United Stated. It was known as The Great White Plague. Those who suffered were isolated from society in homes or hospitals like the one pictured. Structures like this one were known as “Waiting rooms for death.”
The building was later used as a health department office in the 1970’s through about 1994.
61 Drive-In, Memphis, Tennessee
The Drive in that was once a part of a growing Memphis, Tennessee area opened with a single screen in 1958. It is located on Highway 61 and was called the 61 Drive-In. The theater closed down in 1965, but later reopened in 1968 as the Southwest Twin Drive-In with two screens, which was owned by Malco. The drive-in closed for good in 2001.
During the better times, the drive-in saw up to 850 cars per night. It was one of two drive-in’s located in Memphis.
Actor Forest Whitaker stated, “When I was a kid, the only way I saw movies was from the back seat of my family's car at the drive-in.”
Old Memphis Church
Once a vibrant church in Memphis, Tennessee... now a building that is set to be torn down. The chapel in this church has already caved in and a few Sunday school classrooms are left behind. This is one of the few rooms that still survives, barely.
The Memphis First Seventh-day Adventist Church opened this worship center in 1902, as best I can tell. Little information is available today about this structure. The building also served as the Memphis Junior Academy that was operated by the church. The school later moved in 1954 to North Mendenhall Road.
Empty Spaces: Chattanooga Foundry and Pipe Co.
A look inside the old Chattanooga Foundry and Pipe Co. that was built in 1882…
The company was built by a man named David Giles. The massive factory that had a medical office on site, was once alive with well over 1,000 employees during its heyday.
In 1899, the company was incorporated into the United States Cast Iron Pipe and Foundry Company. It was one of 12 companies in 8 states to receive a new name under the umbrella of U.S. Pipe. Of the original company that was part of the 1899 corporation, only two are in operation today. Those two plants are in Alabama and New Jersey.
In the 1900’s, the plant in Chattanooga cranked out not only pipes, but also brakes for some of the first cars in the United States along with cast iron fittings, valves and hydrants.
By 2003, the plant announced plans to fire 243 of their 345 workers. The firing came just two weeks before Christmas. In 2006, everyone was let go and the plant closed for good.
The massive structure is now a graveyard for outdated rusty machinery, soot, and metal shavings.
Sad eyes in a third world country
I never aimed for the photos of children I took to come across as sad while in Haiti. In fact, most children smiled continuously and played exhaustively.
However, this shot of a young man with family and friends building a church in the background struck me as overwhelming sadness. I cannot explain what he was thinking, he just seemed so alone.
Anne Hathaway once stated, “Loneliness is my least favorite thing about life. The thing that I'm most worried about is just being alone without anybody to care for or someone who will care for me.”
Haiti is filled with over 10.3 million residents and is equal in size to the small state of Massachusetts. However, Haiti has nearly twice the population of Massachusetts. In case you’re curious, Massachusetts is the 7th smallest state in the United States when you look at the total square miles of land.
Of course the striking contrast of Massachusetts and Haiti... places like Boston are filled with high rises that hold populations in check while Haiti is filled with make shift huts made of mud and bamboo sometimes without doors.
Closed down factory
Inside an old and closed down factory in Nashville, Tennessee it looked as if some things were left behind and the workers ran out of the building in fear, like an old horror flick. Other areas were neatly cleaned in what looked to be an attempt to sell the property. However, the small offices within the the 250,000 square foot structure still had old paperwork sitting on bookcases. Safety glasses were next to a paper towel in the kitchen, toilet paper still hung in a bathroom stall and an office chair sat quietly covered in dust.
Human skulls in Haiti
Voodoo grounds outnumber viable church grounds by a huge percentage in Haiti. Voodoo is the religion of the majority in Haiti and it is taken very seriously. My son and I found these human skulls on a voodoo ground that was located behind a school and 100 yards from a Christian church. Of course, most church members never venture onto the Voodoo grounds fearing evil spirits.
A man by the name of Bob Corbett wrote after extensive studies in Haiti in 1998:
The priesthood of Voodoo contains both men (houngan) and women (mambo). Their functions are: healing, to perform religious ceremonies to call or pacify the spirits, to hold initiations for new priests, telling the future and reading dreams, casting spells and creating protections, creating potions for various purposes which include love spells, healing spells and even death spells.
Trains and Homeless Camps
The train blew past at breakneck speed, bringing to mind the fact that many of our nation's homeless are encamped within mere feet of eminent danger. The wind generated by the passing of the massive cars filled the covering of a nearby tent causing it to billow and jerk. Some of the boxcars were stacked two high, barely clearing the height of the bridge leaving only about 2-feet to escape peril.
About a week ago at this very location a young homeless man, named Austin, was struck and killed by a freight train as it barreled through the underpass he called home. The 27-year old was wearing headphones and apparently didn't hear the racing, steel giant closing in on him. The train was Florida bound when it struck the him at 7:00 Sunday morning (10/18/15).
Why, I wondered, would so many homeless choose such a dangerous locale to set up camp? Then it occurred to me...we push them to the fringes. For much of the housed population, misinformation, prejudice, and fear of the homeless has caused them to be viewed as dangerous and undesirable by default. In Nashville, Tennessee this overarching view has led city council members and government officials to push many homeless off of city or state land, sighting that their presence was a public nuisance and endangerment to the average citizen. Such a lack of empathy in decision making forces the homeless to seek other less noticeable places, spaces unsuitable for development...like those next to railroad tracks.
Empty Places: A tour of an old club where Jimi Hendrix once played
The legendary Jimi Hendrix once wandered into a small club in Murfreesboro, Tennessee and did what he did best, played the guitar. The Eldorado Club, which was also known as Dance Land, was mainly attended by African Americans in the 1950's and 60's. It was located on Asbury Road near the Stones River Battlefield. It is now just a shell as the roof has fallen in and growth has taken over the building and the surrounding land.
I walked through the building with 75-year old saxophonist Raymond Summerour who once played in the club with his band called The Dukes. Summerour told me he came to Murfreesboro in 1960 and his band played at the club on Friday and Saturday nights, sometimes up until 4 AM. He told me that he remembers the day Hendrix walked in like it was yesterday.
“When Jimmy walked in we didn’t know who he was,” he told me. He said he singled to him that he wanted to sit on the stage and play along. Summerour invited him on up and stated, “When Jimmy unleashed, he got up on the stage and we were just playing regular rock n’ roll, we didn’t play the stuff that Jimmy played before he died, that hard rock type stuff, but Jimmy got up there and man let me tell you - - when he unleashed he really got down on that guitar. He was playing with his teeth, he was playing with that guitar behind his head and the crowd just went wild.”
At the time, Hendrix was in the U.S. Army. He was stationed in Clarksville, Tennessee and part of the 101st Airborne Division in 1962.
Summerour mentioned a few more names that visited the club in the 1960’s. He told me that Ike and Tina Turner were there, William Bell, Bobby Marchan and Jerry Butler all visited the club. The famous blues musician who died in 1965 known as Sonny Boy Williamson also played at the club once in Murfreesboro.
Today, the club sits in ruins on a small county road. No one would ever suspect it is where history was made.
"Music doesn't lie. If there is something to be changed in this world, then it can only happen through music." - Jimi Hendrix
Mental Health in a Third World Country
We tried to understand what he was saying when we saw him walking on the downtown streets of Santo Domingo, but he made little sense as his words were slurred together. His appearance was disheveled and his clothing dirty. He was standing in the middle of the road when I walked away.
Mental illness in the Dominican Republic is similar to the problem we face in America. A lot of it goes untreated.
The World Health Organization reported on the Dominican, “With respect to financing of mental health services, this study shows that allocation of resources is very low. SESPAS allocates less than 1% (0.38%) of health care expenditures to mental health services, and 50% of these resources are directed towards Padre Billini Mental Hospital.”
In addition to the one dedicated mental hospital (only 150 beds), there are also 56 mental health outpatient facilities in the country, of which 4% are for children and adolescents only. However, there is no review body to oversee inspections at the mental hospital in the Dominican nor sanctions on any of the facilities that violate a patients’ rights. Furthermore, physical restrain or seclusion of patients is not monitored by any organization in the Dominican Republic, according to the World Health Organization in 2008.
What I found interesting is that the World Health Organization reported that 30% of the patients in the single mental hospital in a rural area of the country, have been patients for 10-years or more. In other words, new treatment for patients is hard to come by. Affective disorders (depression, bipolar disorder, and anxiety disorder) and schizophrenia are the most common mental disorders in the Dominican.
Families have stepped up to monitor mental health care facilities in the Dominican. 45 family members have formed committees to defend the rights of persons with mental disorders in the country.
A 2011 report by the World Health Organization showed that the majority of primary health care doctors and nurses in the Dominican have not received official in-service training on mental health within the last five years. So the problems continue to grow. The American Public Health Association reported this year (2015) that residents in low income countries fail to receive care for mental health. The organization wrote, “80% of patients with severe mental illness do not receive necessary care.”
Clothing brands? Who needs that?
The kids, the shoes, the clothing… No one cares and you don’t hear children making fun of one another for the brand of shoes one wears or the other one does not.
In America we have become a brand driven society. I am sure that parts of the Dominican are like that today, but I have yet to see it with my own eyes.
In places like El Caobal, Dominican Republic most of the children wear shoes that were donated by churches in America. You see boys wearing pink and purple New Balance shoes, yellow Converse, Keds, Reebok’s from the 1990’s, girls wearing boys Nike’s and more, but no one cares. Another thing I noticed is that school uniforms are a part of the dress code at the schools I visited – and kids don’t care.
When the bell rings and school is over, I love how I see traces of Murfreesboro, Tennessee all over El Caobal and LaRepressa. I see MTSU shirts, Blackman High School clothing, Oakland, Riverdale and Smyrna just to name a few. I think it is neat that local residents in my very own community have made such an impact on the Dominican in small villages most of us will never see. New Vision in Murfreesboro has played a huge role in bringing love to these areas.
Protecting Schools:
Schools in the Dominican take the protection of school grounds serious. The schools I visited were wrapped with concrete walls topped with razor wire protecting them from the outside world during school hours.
The children at the schools in the Dominican, while poor financially, are filled with joy. For me, it was like stepping back in time watching kids play together without a playground or a video game to keep them occupied. They wholeheartedly played together.
Children, a camera and a little protest
I sat down on the hot concrete with my camera and was instantly surrounded by about 15 kids. I was in the city of Caobal in the Dominican.
As I snapped photos of the children hovering around me, each one wanted to see what the photo looked like after I took it. I don't think any of them had ever seen a regular camera before. Sure, they have all seen cell phone cameras, but a real camera, no.
While we were behind the concrete walled and razor topped confinements of the elementary school, there was fear of a protest taking place outside the building. Evidently, one had occurred the night before that included the burning of debris in the streets that acted as a road block of sorts. The problem... a lack of electricity for about five days. Residents feared that the government had shut down the electrical grid to their communities over political arguments.
While there was not a protest going on when we left, there was one later in the day. It was said that when National Police arrived to disperse the crowd, they fired they guns into the air. No one was hurt.
The National Police force in the Dominican is the largest police force in the Dominican Republic under the control of the Ministry of Interior and Police. When the U.S Occupied the Dominican from 1916 to 1924, the United States Military helped to create the Dominican Constabulary Guard (DCG), which acted as national police. It later became the Dominican National Police.
A group known as "InSight Crime" reported in March of this year, "A top-level prosecutor in the Dominican Republic said the military and police are involved in 90 percent of organized crime cases, putting a hard number to official involvement in criminal activity after years of high-level corruption scandals."
InSight Crime is a foundation dedicated to the study of the principal threat to national and citizen security in Latin America and the Caribbean: organized crime.
Diabetic in a Third World Country
For those who know me, you know I don’t like to be real serious. I prefer to see people smile and laugh. When I was in the area of LaRepresa I met this woman who had a great sense of humor.
She lives in a small wooden home made of what appeared to be wooden slats or clapboard. My friend Leslie greeted her by saying “Feliz Navidad (Merry Christmas).” That is just about the only thing that Leslie can say in Spanish, but this young lady got a real kick out of it considering it is October. She even did a little dance for us and then invited us to sit on her front porch.
Her home, with a thick concrete floor, was very neat and clean inside. I noticed on a shelf she had several whiskey bottles, all empty. I jokingly said to her with the help of a translator, “I see you are a big fan of whiskey.” She laughed and said, “No, no – I like the bottles, they are good for decoration (No, no - Me gustan las botellas, que son buenos para la decoración).”
Our conversation then turned a little more serious. She told of how she suffers from diabetes and her blood sugar level is currently too high. I felt bad for her because high blood sugar levels can make you feel sick to your stomach, weak and groggy. Despite those pains, she still managed to laugh at some of the things I had to say when I told her I was a crazy American (Americano loco).
She told me she receives her medication from the nearby Farmacia del Pueblo El Caobal (The Pharmacy in El Caobal). I asked if she was out of medication and she smiled and said, “No.”
In 2014, there were 669,000 cases of diabetes in the Dominican Republic. Keep in mind the country is about half the size of the state of Tennessee, but has well over 10-million residents.
Despite her illness she had a great laugh. She loves her husband who works hard daily and she loves her home. You can’t get much better than that.
“I see skies of blue, and clouds of white,
The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world.”
-Louis Armstrong
Speak Life to all
Photo taken in the Dominican Republic.
"Lift your head a little higher,
Spread the love like fire,
Hope will fall like rain,
When you speak life with the words you say."
"Raise your thoughts a little higher,
Use your words to inspire,
Joy will fall like rain,
When you speak life with the things you say."
-Toby Mac
Hide and Seek in a Third World Country
The traditional game of hide and seek is not just found in your backyard. It is also found on the small streets of the Dominican Republic.
This young boy was walking with a group of his friends when he quietly ducked behind a rock as his buddies continued to walk. He then peeked over the large stone to see if they noticed that he had mysteriously vanished. They noticed and started laughing when they saw his head appear behind the rock that was sitting in front of a small roadside store that normally sells fresh avocado's. However, the store was closed as it was a Sunday.
It was refreshing to see all the children in the Dominican playing outside as opposed to the quiet streets in America. It seems as if many children here lock themselves in their bedrooms while glued to gaming devices and telephones. In some areas of the U.S., sounds of children no longer fill the air because parents are overly concerned about their children being kidnapped or attacked in some way. I too have that fear at times, but have to remind myself that it is unlikely.
When I was younger, I would ride my bike to Kroger with friends and hit the candy aisle. I bet I did that when I was as young as 11 and we lived about 3-miles from the store. I know times are different, but I dislike the fact that a few thugs in our community have risen the fears that parents face to an unreasonable level. And to think crime is higher in most third world countries, but the children feel more freedom when compared to our own backyard.
"Children learn as they play. Most importantly, in play children learn how to learn." - O. Fred Donaldson
Sleeping on the streets
His bone structure could clearly be seen through his leathery skin as he slept next to the street. This photo was captured in Santo Domingo this past week. I shot this in an area that is well-traveled by locals and rarely seen by tourist. This man was asleep on a busy sidewalk using his hands to cradle his head and to protect it from the hot concrete. When I walked back by 30-minutes later, he was gone.
WAGES: In the overcrowded and dirty capital of the Dominican Republic, the average wage amounts to $86 U.S. dollars per month. Those who are paid a bit more earn a whopping $172 U.S. dollars monthly. In Pesos, that is between 3,000 to 6,000 each month.
TRASH: While sections of the Dominican are beautiful, most areas are littered with trash, discarded tires, water bottles and more. However, most Dominicans are more resourceful than those in America.
Here (America), we may gather with family for a cookout and utilize paper plates, plastic forks and styrofoam cups. After we use those products, we throw them away. In the Dominican, residents will re-use the same materials for a week and sometimes longer. While Americans throw their products into the garbage which will eventually head to a landfill, many residents there will throw the same items into the street and later burn them. In other words, our trash collects in larger quantities and it ends up in a nice neat pile. Their trash is less in quantity, but piles up in the streets to eventually be burned.
CRIME: Crime in the Dominican is something that you can’t ignore. In a national report filed by the United States Department of State, the crime rate for the Dominican is recorded as HIGH listing Santo Domingo as one of the top cities for Robbery, Assaults and rape. Alcohol abuse and drug trafficking is also listed in the report as being major problems in the third world country.
GOOD NEWS: Churches throughout the world are slowly taking notice of the growing problems in third world countries like the Dominican and Haiti. New Vision Baptist Church in Murfreesboro has literally changed the face of LaRepresa, Dominican Republic in more ways than one. The church is now aiming their sites on other nearby areas as well. New Vision has even opened a Christian School in one village that has a state of the art computer lab to help children learn more about technology. One missionary even stated that he feels more comfortable allowing his daughters to walk through the LaRepressa village than he does allowing them to walk around Murfreesboro. To me, that speaks volumes of the changes taking place in the hearts of those who call that area home.
Ramone at age 80
80-Year old Ramone lives in a small concrete home with curtains for doors. He invited us in asking his guest to sit on his vanilla colored sofa. He then started to talk about the passing of his wife just two months ago. Tears of sadness mixed with the joys of his memory of her ran down his face as he talked about how she loved to sit and talk with visitors.
Prior to living in the village he calls home today, he lived on a mountain side in the Dominican Republic. He was a farmer by trade and spent years and years in the field. He would then sell plantains, beans and bananas that he harvested to locals.
A woman who was in the home helping him fixed us coffee just like his wife once did in years past. Ramone loved his wife so much and brought out a small photo album with pictures of the two captured by missionaries in LaRepresa. Those photos are his prized possession of his memories.
“Remember that creating a successful marriage is like farming: you have to start over again every morning.” - H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
Sitting in Santo Domingo
He was quietly sitting on a concrete bench in an area of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. This is an area where locals shop the market that is filled with chickens, fruit, shoes and even cellphones. It is an area that tourist rarely visit, but filled with thousands of daily shoppers buying food and merchandise for their families.
Santo Domingo is the capital of the Dominican Republic and one of the Caribbean's oldest cities. The city was founded in 1496 and some of the roads are still made of old cobblestone.
I was told that many of the clothes and shoes that are sold on the streets come from Haiti. Evidently, people donate clothing by the truckload in Haiti and some Dominicans will meet with Haitians at the border to gather the clothing and then sell it to support their families.
The population in Santo Domingo is around 3-million, according to some of the residents who live in the city. lthough, the last census in 2010 showed just under 1-million. However, the census is next to impossible to get accurate counts as many live on the streets, under bridges and share small apartments with multiple families. 3-Million is likely more accurate. When you are in Santo Domingo you literally brush shoulders with thousands of people as everything is so busy.
The city and the villages in the Dominican are filled with trash on every corner, some trash burning in the streets. The water is unsafe to drink for both locals and tourist. Therefore, water is sold in plastic bags, jugs and bottles.
My birds
Residents in the small village of LaRepresa, Dominican Republic don’t have tons of possession’s, but what they do have are possessions they love.
This older woman is showing us her prized birds that she keeps in her small wooden home with a rusty metal roof. The birds are kept in a cage hanging from the rafters in her home. As you can see, this room is her kitchen / living room.
Electricity is scarce in most Dominican villages. The week I was in LaRepresa next to the town of Caobal - the electricity was out for about five days and the river where the locals go for bathing, washing clothes and recreation is nearly dry as rain has been something that has lacked in recent weeks.
Despite the lack of “stuff,” residents invite strangers inside their homes and sometimes offer the only chairs they own for visitors to sit in as they stand. They also work hard to be hospitable by serving visitors coffee made with freshly harvested coffee beans.
"Unnecessary possessions are unnecessary burdens. If you have them, you have to take care of them! There is great freedom in simplicity of living. It is those who have enough but not too much who are the happiest." - Peace Pilgrim