The Ruins

At the northwest corner of the ring road around Columbus (US 270) this community was pretty isolated from downtown until a set of bridges were built in the late 20th century making access by automobile to Columbus proper a great deal easier. As a result, the relatively peaceful country side suddenly became bedroom community and even started to develop its own business centers. In short order the Dublin area became one of the fastest growing residential areas in the entire country for a while.

Dublin has an image as a pretty much upscale suburbs at the outer loop of Columbus. They are trying to give the aura of an Irish countryside appearance with some of the new construction. 

So it became just a matter of time before any older falling down structures were razed, and new ones built in their place. Picturesque stone walls have been put in place along road sides near new constructions (for instance specifically where rte 33 crosses 270 and becomes Bridge Street, melding with rte 161 - for those who live near Dublin and know the area). Bridges have been decorated in more attractive stone facing styles, and the zoning board is pretty conscious of the appearance any new constructs bring to the City.

So it is a great mystery who approved the following false ruins:

This particular pile of stones in the style of a ruined stone cottage never existed as a building of any sort. It is the centerpiece to a roundabout in the middle of a section of Woerner-Temple Rd, near yet another interesting sculpture, the Dancing Demonic Bunnies (view of them hidden behind the ruins in the picture at the top of the page). It's not the only one either, there's another mock ruin visible off the road on the golf course nearby (more pics of this below).

This view perhaps shows more clearly the newness of the surrounding structures. The roundabout also has a lovely garden and a patch of 'wild flowers' which are more reasonably decorative. But only in Dublin can one even begin to imagine building phony ruins to provide atmosphere for the surrounding neighborhood.

Almost an image from a World War I battlefield with that bare tree in the background?

The other ruins just off the fairway of the golf course looks far more real, sitting at the edge of a set of woods. The fakeness becomes a little obvious when you look at how the walls on the top are perfectly even where they are supposed to have fallen over.

As you can see from these closer images, there's no way this is what was left after some part of a building fell in or out, or down. While they've left some rubble on the ground about the 'ruin', the edging is so smooth along the sections they built it simply cannot have been the result of time and weathering.

To add to everything else, the backdrop is the newer house construction going in along the golf course. This neighborhood literally has the golf course weaving in and out of the housing. I'm sure I wouldn't want to be that close to the fairway where someone's slice could easily send a bullet like golfball through my kitchen window, or onto my patio when I'm having a barbeque dinner.

So another question arises looking at this 'ruins'. How come the one internal wall has no door frame? Not that it matters, it's really for aesthetics from a distance, I'm sure.

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