the 45th Parallel

The Large Tower

In the Northwest corner of the property rises the 45-foot Large Tower. To the north (right) of the tower is the site of the small house, not much more than a garage, where Louis Wippich lived while working on the garden. He built another house, where the current house on the property exists, but never lived there and instead rented it out.

Underneath the site of the Wippich house, there are several derelict underground chambers and damp storage spaces connected by doorways and tunnels. Here a narrow trap door skylight gives us a glimpse of the 45-foot tower high above.

The tower itself is empty. Tall curved glass windows, scavenged from a demolished department store, that once graced the windows of the upper floor of the tower are long gone, vandalized by neighborhood juvenile delinquents. Instead the tower is inhabited by pigeons, and the bottom floor is covered with their cast off feathers, egg shells and occasional corpses.

References and Links to the Molehill

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