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abandoned: The All-American Ruins Podcast — Places & Travel
abandoned: The All-American Ruins Podcast

abandoned: The All-American Ruins Podcast guides listeners through immersive audio fantasies, recreating host Blake Pfeil’s experiences exploring abandoned spaces across the United States and around the world. Along the way, the show asks critical questions about American history and culture, community, economics, the environment, and mental health while encouraging folks to activate their imaginations as a tool for healing.

Winner: Ambie Award (2025 – Best DIY Podcast), Signal Awards (2024 & 2025 – Best Experimental Podcast; 2026 – Best Live Recording), Oscar-Qualifying HollyShorts Film Festival (Best Podcast), Bushwick Film Festival (Best Podcast), CineHealth Media Festival (Best Podcast), Sydney Web Fest Michael Ajakwe Award for Innovation (2025)

Nominee: UK Press Gazette Future of Media Awards (2024, 2025, 2026 – Regional Podcast of the Year), Ambie Awards (2024 – Best Indie Podcast, 2026 – Best DIY Podcast), Associations for International Broadcasters (2026 – Most Innovative Audio Production)

To learn more, visit www.allamericanruins.com.

Latest Episodes:

Running Toward Ruins (Cement Works at 5th Binnewater - Rosendale, NY) Nov 05, 2026

Show notes

The Wallkill Valley Rail Trail was once an abandoned train line that connected the defunct Rosendale cement industry to the rest of the world. It’s also a safe haven for runners. In the series finale of “abandoned: The All-American Ruins Podcast,” Blake explores the evolution of his spiritual connection to abandoned spaces -- and discovers the startling realization that he’s lost sight of why ruins -- and running -- have always served as sanctuaries to him.

***

This is just a temporary sign-off. We’ll be back in a couple years. For now, thank you for everything. It has been my honor to explore these abandoned spaces with you.

With love, Blake

***

🏆 The Ambies — Winner, Best DIY Podcast (2025)

📡 The Signal Awards — Best Experimental Podcast (2024 & 2025)

📰 Press Gazette Future of Media Awards — Nominee (2024, 2025, 2026)

***

🎧 Note: For the best immersive experience, find a quiet place and wear headphones when listening to “abandoned: The All-American Ruins Podcast.” 🎧

***

Further Exploration

📜 Transcripts: https://abandonedpod.com

🗺️ Continue exploring: http://www.allamericanruins.com

✉️ Advertising inquiries: advertising@airwavemedia.com

ℹ️ Learn more about your ad choices: megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Unleashing an “American Zoo” (Catskill Game Farm - Catskill, NY) Oct 15, 2026

Show notes

In 1933, Roland Lindemann opened America’s first privately-owned zoo: the Catskill Game Farm. By 2006, it was completely abandoned, along with its charmed memory, but in 2022, Emmy-nominated filmmaker Tim Travers Hawkins accidentally stumbled upon boxes of 16mm film archives and documents buried beneath layers of rubble on the property, which began to unearth a darker, far more complicated of the Catskill Game Farm than the world ever could’ve known. Until now.

American Zoois the new documentary from Tim Travers Hawkins, which made its Catskillian debut at the Woodstock Film Festival in 2026. This episode features a truncated interview with Tim and Blake on a weekly radio program on Radio Kingston / WKNY called Cinema Kingston! (which happens to also be co-hosted by Blake).

***

🏆 The Ambies — Winner, Best DIY Podcast (2025)

📡 The Signal Awards — Best Experimental Podcast (2024 & 2025)

📰 Press Gazette Future of Media Awards — Nominee (2024, 2025, 2026)

***

🎧 Note: For the best immersive experience, find a quiet place and wear headphones when listening to “abandoned: The All-American Ruins Podcast.” 🎧

***

Further Exploration

📜 Transcripts: https://abandonedpod.com

🗺️ Continue exploring: http://www.allamericanruins.com

✉️ Advertising inquiries: advertising@airwavemedia.com

ℹ️ Learn more about your ad choices: megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

URBEX PODCAST PALS: "Echoes of Elsewhere" Oct 01, 2026

Show notes

Podcast recommendation alert! This isn’t a new episode of “abandoned”—it’s a special preview from our urbex podcast pal Courtney Autumn, host of “Echoes of Elsewhere.” Join Courtney as she welcomes “abandoned” season 4 guest host, writer, and urban explorer Stev Hull-Allen for a conversation about the strange attraction to abandoned places—and what ruins can reveal about identity, memory, mental health, and the elasticity of time.

🏆 The Ambies — Winner, Best DIY Podcast (2025)

📡 The Signal Awards — Best Experimental Podcast (2024 & 2025)

📰 Press Gazette Future of Media Awards — Nominee (2024, 2025, 2026)

***

🎧 Note: For the best immersive experience, find a quiet place and wear headphones when listening to “abandoned: The All-American Ruins Podcast.” 🎧

***

Further Exploration

📜 Transcripts: https://abandonedpod.com

🗺️ Continue exploring: http://www.allamericanruins.com

✉️ Advertising inquiries: advertising@airwavemedia.com

ℹ️ Learn more about your ad choices: megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

S1 ARCHIVES: “Hello, I’m Shelley Duvall” (The Nevele) — HUDSY TV Adaptation Sep 17, 2026

Show notes

To celebrate the award-winning “All-American Ruins” short film arriving on HUDSY’s YouTube channel on Sept. 24, we’re returning to the Season 1 story that inspired it. Revisit Blake’s surreal exploration of the legendary Nevele Grand Hotel—and a version of this Hudson Valley juggernaut that, after years of devastating fires, no longer exists quite as it did then.

🏆 The Ambies — Winner, Best DIY Podcast (2025)

📡 The Signal Awards — Best Experimental Podcast (2024 & 2025)

📰 Press Gazette Future of Media Awards — Nominee (2024, 2025, 2026)

***

🎧 Note: For the best immersive experience, find a quiet place and wear headphones when listening to “abandoned: The All-American Ruins Podcast.” 🎧

***

Further Exploration

📜 Transcripts: https://abandonedpod.com

🗺️ Continue exploring: http://www.allamericanruins.com

✉️ Advertising inquiries: advertising@airwavemedia.com

ℹ️ Learn more about your ad choices: megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Urbex Privilege with callie mackenzie Sep 03, 2026

Show notes

Who gets to wander freely—and who gets to decide where we belong? Blake sits down with activist, multidisciplinary artist, and social change worker callie mackenzie for a candid, exploratory conversation about race, ruins, trespassing, land ownership, and the privilege hiding inside the practice of urban exploration.

callie mackenzie (she/they) is a social change worker living at the intersections of art, music, and social justice. For her complete bio, visit calliemackenzie.com.

Songs by callie on today’s episode include:

“roller coaster” from the album “what that heart do” (2025)
“kerfuffle” from the album “what that heart do” (2025)
“i can’t talk about freedom” from the album “the wreckoning” (2022)

callie’s complete music library can be accessed at: https://calliemackenzie.bandcamp.com

bell hooks interview audio courtesy of Othering and Belonging Institute
“Kwanzaa: A Celebration” courtesy of WXXI (Rochester, NY)
“Theatre Acknowledgement” courtesy of CBC

🏆 The Ambies — Winner, Best DIY Podcast (2025)

📡 The Signal Awards — Best Experimental Podcast (2024 & 2025)

📰 Press Gazette Future of Media Awards — Nominee (2024, 2025, 2026)

***

🎧 Note: For the best immersive experience, find a quiet place and wear headphones when listening to “abandoned: The All-American Ruins Podcast.” 🎧

***

Further Exploration

📜 Transcripts: https://abandonedpod.com

🗺️ Continue exploring: http://www.allamericanruins.com

✉️ Advertising inquiries: advertising@airwavemedia.com

ℹ️ Learn more about your ad choices: megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Conspiracy Theory (Green Mountain Race Track - Pownal, VT) Aug 20, 2026

Show notes

While exploring the ruins of the Green Mountain Race Track in Pownal, Vermont, Blake meets Dina (and her silent husband Mike), self-proclaimed conspiracy theorists who believe the world’s buildings weren’t built by us at all but inherited from a lost Tartarian Empire — what Bloomberg News once dubbed the “QAnon of Architecture.” As Blake tries to follow Dina's train-of-thought, he realizes that, really, there's a small conspiracy theorist living inside each and every one of us.

Dina is recreated by Terri Weagant.

🏆 The Ambies — Winner, Best DIY Podcast (2025)

📡 The Signal Awards — Best Experimental Podcast (2024 & 2025)

📰 Press Gazette Future of Media Awards — Nominee (2024, 2025, 2026)

***

🎧 Note: For the best immersive experience, find a quiet place and wear headphones when listening to “abandoned: The All-American Ruins Podcast.” 🎧

***

Further Exploration

📜 Transcripts: https://abandonedpod.com

🗺️ Continue exploring: http://www.allamericanruins.com

✉️ Advertising inquiries: advertising@airwavemedia.com

ℹ️ Learn more about your ad choices: megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Stev and a Buzzard in the Ballroom (Colonial Terrace - Peekskill, NY) Aug 06, 2026

Show notes

Guest host Stev Hull-Allen (Blake's brother in a past life) guides listeners through the abandoned Colonial Terrace, a crumbling catering hall where every room seems to hold onto a different version of the past. As his imagination weaves in and out of oral histories, textbook memories, and invented folklore, Stev explores what abandoned buildings can reveal about timing, healing, and the strange feeling that some friendships don't begin so much as they find their way back to us.

***

🏆 The Ambies — Winner, Best DIY Podcast (2025)

📡 The Signal Awards — Best Experimental Podcast (2024, 2025)

📰 Press Gazette Future of Media Awards — Nominee (2024, 2025, 2026)

***

🎧 Note: For the best immersive experience, find a quiet place and wear headphones when listening to “abandoned: The All-American Ruins Podcast.” 🎧

***

Further Exploration

📜 Transcripts: https://abandonedpod.com

🗺️ Continue exploring: http://www.allamericanruins.com

✉️ Advertising inquiries: advertising@airwavemedia.com

ℹ️ Learn more about your ad choices: megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lurana, You Were on My Mind (Nopeming Sanitorium - Duluth, MN) Jul 23, 2026

Show notes

Inside the abandoned Nopeming Sanatorium, Blake talks to his grandmother (Grammie), Lurana — whose dementia carried her away before she passed. Like an insistent phantom moving through its rooms and hallways, signals reverberating inside the walls of Nopeming’s medical past radiate against Blake’s cherished memories, turning the adventure into a ghostly conversation across time about forgiveness, sobriety, and the confounding kinship between grief and love.

🏆 The Ambies — Winner, Best DIY Podcast (2025)

📡 The Signal Awards — Best Experimental Podcast (2024 & 2025)

📰 Press Gazette Future of Media Awards — Nominee (2024, 2025, & 2026)

***

🎧 Note: For the best immersive experience, find a quiet place and wear headphones when listening to “abandoned: The All-American Ruins Podcast.” 🎧

***

Further Exploration

📜 Transcripts: https://abandonedpod.com

🗺️ Continue exploring: http://www.allamericanruins.com

✉️ Advertising inquiries: advertising@airwavemedia.com

ℹ️ Learn more about your ad choices: megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I Remember You Well (Taney Motel - Branson, MO) Jul 09, 2026

Show notes

Blake finds sanctuary on the grounds of the abandoned Taney Motel in Branson, Missouri — a refuge tucked inside a world of risk. Wandering around the vacant property, Blake reflects on growing up queer, the quiet negotiations of safety, and the fragile, hallowed spaces that marginalized communities create when the outside world doesn't have room for them.

🏆 The Ambies — Winner, Best DIY Podcast (2025)

📡 The Signal Awards — Best Experimental Podcast (2024 & 2025)

📰 Press Gazette Future of Media Awards — Nominee (2024 & 2025)

***

🎧 Note: For the best immersive experience, find a quiet place and wear headphones when listening to “abandoned: The All-American Ruins Podcast.” 🎧

***

Further Exploration

📜 Transcripts: https://abandonedpod.com

🗺️ Continue exploring: http://www.allamericanruins.com

✉️ Advertising inquiries: advertising@airwavemedia.com

ℹ️ Learn more about your ad choices: megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dylan & Blake on a Friendship, Cemented (A.J. Snyder Cement - Rosendale, NY) Jun 25, 2026

Show notes

In the ruins of an upstate New York cement factory, Blake and New York Times best-selling author Dylan Thuras wander toward a mysterious “document storage house,” discovering they’re not just exploring a place but each other’s relationship to creativity and the myths we build to live inside it. Among empty boxes, industrial ghosts, and imagined histories, the duo considers what it means to construct something out of nothing, outgrow it, and still carry its faded transmissions — like a friendship — once it becomes memory.

🏆 The Ambies — Winner, Best DIY Podcast (2025)

📡 The Signal Awards — Best Experimental Podcast (2024 & 2025)

📰 Press Gazette Future of Media Awards — Nominee (2024 & 2025)

***

🎧 Note: For the best immersive experience, find a quiet place and wear headphones when listening to “abandoned: The All-American Ruins Podcast.” 🎧

***

Further Exploration

📜 Transcripts: https://abandonedpod.com

🗺️ Continue exploring: http://www.allamericanruins.com

✉️ Advertising inquiries: advertising@airwavemedia.com

ℹ️ Learn more about your ad choices: megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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