Urban Escape : Concrete City

Concrete City: Abandoned

Nanticoke has its own post-apocalyptic looking ghost town the only thing missing is the roving band of marauders. Referred to by some as one of the failed technological experiments in Pennsylvania railroad and coal mining history, and by others as the first example of modern-day cookie-cutter or tract housing, the Concrete City ruins still stand as a monument to the “company housing” living arrangements experienced by some area workers during the late 1800’s and the early 1900’s. Described as “virtual villas” by the upper class of coal mining families, these houses were regarded as a futuristic marvel when first constructed.

Concrete City consists of 20 buildings. Each one was a duplex that housed two families. Each half of every single standing structure contained a kitchen, living room and dining room downstairs and four bedrooms on the second floor. Concrete outhouses were constructed behind each house.
All of the houses were arranged around a central plaza that was about the size of a football field which contained a pavilion, baseball field and a tennis court.

Eleven years after it’s construction, Concrete City was abandoned because the owners did not want to install an expensive sewer system as required by the township in 1924.