abandoned: The All-American Ruins Podcast

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: [email protected] ℹ️ Learn more about your ad choices: megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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: [email protected] ℹ️ Learn more about your ad choices: megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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: [email protected] ℹ️ Learn more about your ad choices: megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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: [email protected] ℹ️ Learn more about your ad choices: megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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: [email protected] ℹ️ Learn more about your ad choices: megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices