All language subtitles for Abandoned.Engineering.S09E06.Ruins.Of.Empire.1080p.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-squalor_track3_[eng]

Narrator: Rusting relics
that helped build america.

The structure was home to
revolutionary technologies,

ones that would go on to
help save countless lives.

Ancient technology
in a lost world.

It's like being in a sundial,

these guys are
mathematical geniuses.

A Welsh island transformed
into a magical attraction.

They wanted to
make it their home

but they also had something
else that they were bringing along

which was a little bit unusual.

(Suspenseful music)

And a training ground
for elite communists.

The men who passed through
here went on to prominent positions.

(Dramatic music)

Decaying relics.

Shadows of lost worlds.

Ruins haunted by the past,

their secrets waiting
to be revealed.

(Dramatic music)

(Upbeat music)

At the end of a
blustery beach in wales

there's an imposing
ruin a jagged outcrop.

You sort of at this
idyllic British beach.

And you look over and
you've got this rocky island.

During high tide, this
place is entirely cut off,

trapping anyone on the island.

As the tide drains away,

slowly the bottom steps of
the staircase are revealed.

Battered by the elements,
it's a daunting place.

When you've made it
all the way to the top,

you arrive at this
huge solid steel door,

secured by a big bolt

and it makes you
wonder what's inside.

It's a sort of place
as a kid you think

it would be really
fun to get on to

but also you'd be quite worried

about it being some kind
of strange lair in there.

The locals remember
less permanent structures

added to the roof of the fort.

These were very
basic wooden structures

covered with wire netting.

They also had some
open-air cages up on the top.

Who or what was living here
that had to be kept on the island

with the help of this high tide?

(Eerie music)

Local conservationist Ginny batt

knows more about
the island than most.

I remember this bridge,
when I was a child,

was wooden slats
and rickety and wobbly.

And you could hear the waves
crashing below you like we can now.

I'm not quite so sure whether
or not this bridge is more scary

than the one that I
used to cross as a child.

And I didn't walk slowly like
this over that one, I used to run.

(Birds chirp)

This windswept outpost sits
at the junction of the Celtic

and the Irish seas.

The island is magical,

you know it's got
secrets, got lots of history.

The little promontory itself it
about 600 odd feet in one direction

200 in the other

and it's a
limestone bit of rock,

very easily weathered
away but with water

so you get all of
these sea caves.

Humans have lived
here for 1,000 years

beginning with religious
hermits who used the caves.

The island got its name
after a chapel was built there

dedicated to Saint Catherine.

But traces of the
chapel are long gone.

No one's lived here since
Ginny batt and her parents left.

I have lots of little
memories and little snippets

of things that happened
here while I was a child.

Came up here a lot,

probably not on to this bit
'cause it's quite dangerous

but definitely up onto the roof

and over to here,
this area here.

You can see all of tenby,

the coast,

caldey island,

all the way over
to pendine sands

and on a good day, gower.

It's amazing.

(Water crashing on rocks)

The batt family once lived in
the enormous concrete structure

that dominates Saint
Catherine's island.

When you look at the
structure, the purpose is clear,

this is a fortification that
has fallen into disrepair,

there's more here
than meets the eye.

In the mid-19th century,

the British built a series
of defensive fortifications

along the coast.

It was built here
because of its prominence

and its proximity to
other ports in the region.

But even before
the fort was finished

international
relations had improved

and by 1901, it had
been mothballed.

But the story didn't end there.

We moved on to
the island in 1968.

I was four years old.

So it's great to be back.

Yeah, it's lovely. It's home.

The batt family were the last
of a series of private occupants

to take over the fort.

The first owner had decorated
the interior with no expense spared.

But by the time
Ginny's family arrived,

the strange fortress
home was already a wreck.

(Eerie music)

I find it very wistful,
coming back here.

You know, it's, there's
been through lots of phases

and it's been left
to rack and ruin.

But back in the 1960s

it was perfect for what
her parents had in mind.

They saw st Catherine's island

and discovered that
it was up for rent.

They needed somewhere to
live but not just for themselves,

in tow, they had
something quite unusual,

which meant that the only
place suitable for them to live

was the fort,

out on those craggy
rocks down by the beach.

Ginny's parents had long
dreamed of opening a zoo

and had already started
collecting animals.

They bring in a lot
of exotic animals

and they open a zoo in this
abandoned coastal fortress.

You climb up the stairs

and you're greeted by
the howls of monkeys,

I mean that's got to be the
last thing you'd be expecting.

I don't think anybody had
ever seen anything like this.

There was nothing conventional
about the batt family life here.

When we arrived the tide was in

and dad had to paddle over
in a metal bath to collect us,

so that's one hell of a way to
actually arrive in your new home

is in a bath,

so that was quite an
interesting way to get here.

In march 1968,

st Catherine's zoo opened

and it was a big
hit with the locals.

And it was very
popular, you know,

there were queues across
the beach of people coming,

coming up here

but I think people
were intrigued really

about how my parents managed
to set up something like a zoo

on an island surrounded
by a tide you know,

on an old fort with no
power and no water.

There was a surprise
behind every door.

We used some of
the rooms for living in

and the other rooms were
used for animal displays.

We had a pet room, where there
were rabbits and Guinea pigs and chicks,

another room had little finches
and little marmosets and things.

And out at the back,

in some of the darker
corridors around the back,

there were a nocturnal room

and there were reptile rooms,

'cause my father
was really into reptiles.

The zoo was filled
with all sorts of animals

from badgers and
foxes, to bats and birds,

even exotic monkeys
and alligators.

(Mellow music)

Ginny and her family
shared this place

with more than 100 animals,

parts of the old fort had to
be creatively repurposed.

You had some open-air
sort of cages up on the top

where the gun
turrets used to be.

This is my favourite place.

So up here there were aviaries
all the way around on both sides.

And there were things
like monkeys and hawks,

lots of birds of prey,

and then over the other
side there was porcupines

and then somewhere down
below there was a monkey.

Ginny's upbringing was
certainly not typically Welsh,

in fact, it was
more like a fairytale.

Tucked in little places like
on the stairs as you go up

there's a little hole in the wall
and there were tree frogs in there

so you know, there were
things in little, quiet little places.

One can only imagine being
a, being one of the children

living in this, in this family,

you've got this wonderland
that, that's your house

which is a little zoo and
you've got all these animals.

It must have been a crazy
and wild time for them.

For Ginny, every day
bought a new adventure.

There was a spider monkey.

I remember it pinched
an old man's false teeth

'cause he was making
funny faces at it.

It's a really strong memory.

But for Ginny's parents,

life at the fortress zoo
was becoming a struggle.

You have to remember
that, you know,

we walked up those
slippery, stony steps

and everything was
carried up there, you know.

The animals, the
water, the food,

absolutely everything was
actually carried up there.

It's certainly charming

but there are inherent difficulties
living on a tidal island like this.

Ginny's parents struggled on

but when her mother fell
pregnant unexpectedly,

life in the isolated ruin
was no longer viable.

We moved off the island

because my mum was
expecting my brother

and living on an island
where there's no electricity

and there's no running water,

wasn't ideal bringing
up a little baby.

Then we lived on here
for two, maybe more years,

and then moved off the
island and still ran the zoo.

Eventually running the zoo
became too much for the batt family

and they handed on the Baton.

It was not the end
of the line for the zoo

but as new owners took
over, things started to change.

Monkeys would
escape their enclosures

and climb down
the side of the island

and end up marauding
around the beach.

But by the mid-1970s,

britain had passed new laws

that required dangerous wild
animals to be kept in large enclosures

and the strange configuration
of st Catherine's island

was no longer fit for purpose.

In the end, the zoo was shut
down for animal welfare purposes

but the animals themselves
were actually rehoused elsewhere.

The fortress zoo
was left to rot.

You can't argue with the
grandeur of the location.

How well suited this place
is to house these animals?

Well, that's another question.

(Eerie music)

There are plans in the
works to refurbish the fort a bit,

turn it into more of
a tourist destination

but those are
still in the future.

The monkeys that
used to roam the beach

are now just a distant
memory of a bygone era.

And Ginny is left with memories
of that special family time.

It's an abandoned,
beautiful building

and it should be
open to the public

to see what an
amazing structure is.

I was lucky, I lived on here.

(Dulcet music)

(Pacing music)

In the lovely Croatian countryside
lies a strange-looking building.

We're in a beautiful lush
corner of the Balkans,

right along the frontier
of Croatia and Slovenia,

a beautiful spot once
prized for its good farmland.

But this building does not fit
in with this bucolic landscape,

its sharply angular with
these steep sloping sides.

It's great size seems
to make little sense.

As you walk in there's
this huge lobby area

and there's also this amazing
bar area with fixed wooden stools.

You're struck by the sheer extent
of the place and long corridors,

dormitories on either
side, big conference rooms.

There's a huge room
that seems like a cinema

it's dark and kind
of oppressive.

It's completely rotted out

with seats that are
just destroyed by water.

Inside the derelict building
there's also some kind of library.

The ground is littered with books
and pamphlets and other detritus.

It's really interesting to
look at what's there now

because you do see
scattered amongst it,

volumes of marxist thought.

These books could
be key to understanding

what this place once was

and why the world no
longer has any use for it.

It's almost 50 years

since branko pratengratzer
first set foot in this building,

which dominates the tiny
Croatian village of kumrovec.

(Speaks Croatian)

(Indistinct chatter)

Back then, Croatia was part of

the federal people's
republic of yugoslavia

which was formed at the
end of the second world war.

This union of
fractious Balkan states

was headed up by
communist leader josip broz tito.

Tito's brand of communism,
which was known as titoism,

had a pragmatic approach

and it didn't try to
achieve the level of purity

that the ideology coming out
of the Soviet union possessed.

Tito realises that
there's a real, you know,

lack of solid theoretical
education inside yugoslavia,

people all say, "oh
we're communists"

but they don't understand
why they're communists.

So tito wanted
to set up a school

where they would
learn communist theory

and explain why communism
was necessary for yugoslavia.

This is the josip broz
tito political school.

But why was it built in
the back woods of Croatia?

The town of kumrovec was chosen

because it was josip
broz tito's birthplace.

And in the 1970s

tito undertook to
transform kumrovec

into a centre of yugoslavian
political thought and education.

(Dramatic music)

Tito's political school
opened in 1981.

Branko and the other students
would learn their leader's philosophy

on keeping the
peace in the Balkans.

And so it was a school that was
meant to deepen people's knowledge,

it was one of the most prestigious
schools of political learning.

(Speaks Croatian)

Yugoslavia's brightest
minds were trained here.

(Speaks Croatian)

The students had privileged
access to resources

that were denied to many
in yugoslavia at the time.

(Speaks Croatian)

(Speaks Croatian)

(Suspenseful music)

The men who passed through
here went onto prominent positions

in the Yugoslav
political apparatus.

But the school students would
learn about tito as a former leader.

Tito died a year before
the school opened

and with tito's death this
idea of a yugoslavia united

under the rule of this communist
strong man started to decline.

And the school was
also beginning to wither.

With tito gone,

yugoslavia's member states no
longer wanted to fund his political school

but like yugoslavia itself it
managed to survive another decade.

After the school shut in 1990

it was first taken over
by the interior ministry

and subsequently by
the defence ministry.

(Speaks Croatian)

This is a time when
yugoslavia's breaking up,

it's being torn by these ethnic
fishers between its groups,

the Serbs, the croats,
the slovenians and others

and particularly in Croatia.

In 1991, a bitter war broke out.

(Tense music)

Things get rapidly worse when
the civil war spreads into Croatia.

There's a huge battle
in a place called vukovar,

the Serbs take it,

the Croatian population
then migrates back here

and they use this political school
as essentially a refugee camp

during this Yugoslav civil war.

All of these dormitories that
were created for political cadres

are now used as
bedrooms for refugees.

When the refugees
finally left in 2003,

the Croatian authorities no
longer wanted to celebrate titoism

and the school
fell into disrepair.

(Foreboding music)

(Speaks Croatian)

This building and
what happened in it

influenced the minds of
hundreds, perhaps thousands,

many of whom still occupy positions
of power in the former yugoslavia

so its influence
continues to live on

even after the building
itself has been abandoned.

In a suburb of New York City,

there's a boarded-up
building with an illustrious past.

(Suspenseful music)

There's this well
designed red brick building,

it looks pretty self-contained.

It could be a factory

or maybe even some kind
of old victorian workhouse

out of a dickens novel.

There was a lot of care that
went into these beautiful arches

and lovely brick design

so there was obviously something
that was really important here.

It's the surrounding geography
that offers some clues.

The rivers actually run on both
sides of all of these structures

so these structures essentially
formed their own little island.

It looks like some of
the areas are flooded,

almost as if the site was
designed to be flooded.

The building's interior
is even more baffling.

There's this chaotic
industrial mix of things,

you have these pipes

and machines that seem
to be all over the place.

Everything appears oversized,

this place was the target

of an awful lot of
ambitious engineering.

This facility was at the
vanguard of technology

at a time when these advances
really could save thousands of lives.

(Tense music)

Local historian Elaine gold

explains why it's the
two rivers that are crucial

to understanding why the building
was established in the first place.

This was a mill site from
even pre-rev war era,

it had several
aerations as a mill,

it would have been
a flour mill, sawmill

then it was purchased specifically
for the purposes of this facility.

In the late 19th century,

there was a huge increase
in population in america

and this area felt the
effects more than most.

Hackensack New Jersey is
pretty close to New York City

so as the economy
boomed after the civil war,

the population here
boomed as well.

There are successive
waves of immigration

and these people are filtering
to big cities like New York

and hoboken, New Jersey

and they're settling
in the outlying areas.

The number of people
living here more than doubled

in the first decade
of the 20th century.

It was all driven by
facilities like this one.

The new milford plant of the
hackensack water company.

It was built as a
result of a contract

that was signed with
the city of hoboken

and the hackensack water company
to provide water to that city directly.

It meant that people would no
longer have to collect their water

from local Wells or rivers.

The purpose of this facility was to
pump water from the hackensack river

and to service the
city of hackensack

as well as the city of hoboken.

The steam-powered
pumping station siphoned water

directly from the river

and sent it straight on
to the local population.

We're inside the 1882 pump house

so this was the first pump
house constructed on this site.

The system contained large
pumps, it could pump a lot of water

but demand kept increasing.

It was the constant race to
build bigger and better pumps.

This is the later
part of the additions

to the hackensack waterworks

as the service area expanded
and demand increased.

Height was added to
accommodate these pumps

because they were the
equivalent of a three-storey building.

In 1911, the company
installed pump number seven,

this was a vertical
high service pump

and could pump as much as 20
million gallons every single day.

With each rotation
of the pistons,

that was 6 million
gallons of water pumped.

What you're really seeing here

is not only a chronology
of construction

of the actual building itself,

you're also seeing a chronology
of techniques in pumping.

You can almost imagine how
loud this place would have been

during work time,

I mean, you would have
the clinking of machinery,

the hissing of steam

and the sounds of all of these
pumps running at capacity.

This plant was operating
at a phenomenal scale.

(Foreboding music)

As pumping power increased,

problems with the water
itself began to appear.

In the early years of
the plants operation

there were lots of complaints
about the quality of the water.

They were getting
reports that you know,

the water smelled of old fish,

that the, it was sometimes
the colour of milk

when it would come out

and because the water
levels were low up here

eels were pumped out of
the hackensack river here,

sat in the basin and
then were filtered through

and pumped down
into the, into hoboken

and end up in the
water system down there.

The complaints soon bought
the authorities to hackensack.

So the board of health
actually went upstream

to investigate what types of
things were bordering this river

and they found outhouses
and stagnant ponds

and chicken yards and pig farms

and they realised that all of
this excrement and material

was making its
way into the river.

There were other contamination
problems to contend with,

an influx of immigration
caused massive overcrowding

in and around
New York City area.

In every major city in
history, diseases have spread

because of
contamination of the water.

Cholera, typhus and other diseases
killed an enormous number of people.

The hackensack water
company had to figure out

how to prevent this from
happening to its water supply.

(Suspenseful music)

It's really impossible to
overestimate how important

water treatment was to
Americans at this time.

In 1900, more than 44% of deaths

were attributed to
waterborne diseases

or other types of
infectious diseases.

The company had
to break new ground,

the plant needed to become
more than just a pumping station.

So in 1903

construction began on
two big settling ponds

or coagulation basins.

The process of the water travelling
from the river through the pumps

to the coagulation basin filtered
out a lot of the plant growth

that would have been
coming naturally from the river.

This removed the bulk
of the solid particles

but it was the unseen
bacteria in the water

that was the real killer.

The laboratories here
would come up with a solution

and these processes would
be used all around the world.

Another building here reveals
this revolutionary treatment process.

This is the filtration building,

water would have
travelled through sand pits

and filtered down
into holding tanks

and then been pumped
out for general public use.

Unseen bacteria in the
water could prove deadly,

so in 1908,

the hackensack plant
became one of the first in the us

to use chlorine to
disinfect it's water.

But it didn't really do anything
to solve the issue of the bad taste

and odour of this water.

Another process had to be added.

The chief scientist for
the hackensack company

knew that activated carbon had
the ability to remove contaminants

in a process called absorption.

When any form of carbon is
heated to a high temperature

it leaves a very fine powder
called activated carbon.

It would remove a
lot of the contaminants

that caused bad
odour and bad taste.

In 1931, this water
treatment plant

was the first to use this activated
carbon in a municipal water supply.

By 1943,

there were over 1,200
water treatment plants

around the world
using this technique.

Over the following decades, the
waterworks continued to expand.

By the 1960s,

the hackensack water
company was actually putting out

a maximum output of 100
trillion gallons of water per year.

But hackensack's
new milford plant

eventually became a
victim of its own success.

To meet the ever-increasing
demand for clean water

the company had to
build a larger facility

that simply wouldn't
fit on the original site.

In may of 1990,

all treatment and pumping at
the new milford plant had ceased.

(Dramatic musical sting)

Unglamorous buildings
like this are often overlooked

and underappreciated.

The idea that you can flip
on a light switch and get light,

you can turn on your
faucet and get clean water,

but these things
were really revolutions

and they demanded an
enormous amount of hard work

and creative engineering

on the part of the people who
really made this stuff happen.

Elaine gold wants to commemorate
hackensack's leading role

in building the modern world.

We are eager to
reactivate the site

in a combination of both
museum and public park.

This building really is a
testament to what can be achieved

when you trust
science and technology

and put people's health
and wellbeing first.

In Mexico,

a great collection of ruins
juts out from the dense jungle.

(Dulcet music)

You've got to break
through that rainforest canopy

and only then can you start to
see signs of human habitation.

As you explore further

it becomes apparent that
this was once a fair-sized city.

Thousands of people,

tens of thousands of people
interacted here day by day.

But when they left,
the forest returned.

(Drum music)

The clues here hint
at a complex society.

All over this place, you
can find these epitaphs

but it's almost impossible
to decipher them.

This remote overgrown
place lay hidden for centuries

and even today it's
slow to give up its secrets

but all around is
evidence of sacrifice,

violence and conflict.

When did the last person
leave and why did they go?

(Tense music)

Today, archaeologists like
Adriana Velazquez morlet

decode the secrets of this place

which was abandoned
more than 1,000 years ago.

It's the work of the
ancient Mayan civilisation.

(Speaks Mexican)

Despite its size

the city wasn't
rediscovered until 1931

when an American biologist
spotted it from the air.

(Pacing music)

This lost world is calakmul,

one of the largest and
most powerful Mayan cities.

(Speaks Mexican)

As the early archaeologists
cut through the thick jungle

they stumbled upon
calakmul's pyramid,

the highest in the Mayan world.

(Speaks Mexican)

(Speaks Mexican)

This king's name
translates to claw of fire

and at the age of 36, he
took possession of the throne.

When claw of fire took over,

he inherited the really rather
large and powerful snake kingdom.

This kingdom, this snake kingdom

extended for miles
around this place.

Claw of fire ascended
to the throne in 686 ad.

A series of engraved stelae
give archaeologists vital clues

to understanding more
about this mysterious

and once-mighty kingdom.

(Speaks Mexican)

Further ruins unearthed here

reveal more about how the
calakmul kings governed their people.

Two structures work in
tandem to track the sun

and identify significant dates
in a sophisticated calendar.

(Speaks Mexican)

You are effectively in an
enormous astronomical observatory.

These guys are
mathematical geniuses.

But unlike any other
Mayan discovery,

the murals of calakmul gave
archaeologists a unique insight

into what went on here.

Some of the ornate
murals and decorations

that are inside
these structures,

they're depicting the everyday
life of ordinary citizens of calakmul.

(Speaks Mexican)

They help to decode
one set of calakmul's ruins

that previously
made little sense.

(Speaks Mexican)

The Mayans used
trade to keep the peace

along with a more
savage form of diplomacy.

(Speaks Mexican)

This game was very energetic,

very vigorous, very colourful...

(Chuckles) ..And
quite possibly deadly.

Yet despite its violent nature,

the Mayans used the
game to prevent conflict.

But in the late 1990s,

archaeologists discovered
something troubling

on the outskirts of the ruins.

There is a defensive
wall built around this place,

you don't build a wall like this

unless you're really
trying to keep people out

'cause they are coming to
kill you and burn your town.

This wall is there to stop this
city from going up in flames.

For more than 100 years

claw of fire's predecessors
had consistently won battles

against calakmul's main rival,

the city of tikal.

(Speaks Mexican)

(Speaks Mexican)

And in the late seventh
century in calakmul,

the young claw of fire
was flexing his muscles.

His opposite number
was another young gun,

the king of tikal known
as god that clears the sky.

They were both relatively young
rulers when they came into power

and they had a lot to prove

but they also potentially
had quite a lot to lose.

In the year 695 ad,

the two faced
each other in battle.

These two cities are going
to try to destroy one another.

Calakmul had won many
great victories over the years,

but this time claw of fire's
warriors were soundly beaten.

(Speaks Mexican)

Archaeologists now
believe that claw of fire

lived out the rest of
his days in calakmul.

The city itself
continued to grow

but it never ended
its rivalry with tikal

and in the eighth century, the
population began to decline.

By about 900 ad, it
had been abandoned.

(Suspenseful music)

Archaeologists
are still convinced

that many of calakmul's mysteries
remain hidden by the dense forest.

No doubt when this
place was inhabited,

the forest was pushed back
for agriculture, commerce

but when they stopped it
grew through the very stones

that they had cut to
make this their place.

This place no longer
belongs to people,

this place belongs
to the rainforest.

But there is hope that the jungle
will one day give up its secrets

and finally reveal how
claw of fire's snake kingdom

met its end.

Captioned by
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