N Truro Air Force Base

At the tip of Cape Cod, from 1951 to 1985, the Air Force operated a remote outpost to listen and watch for the Russians: the threat that never came but could have.  No air strip; just communications.  The station also had the task of testing new radar and other equipment developed at MIT and other local institutions.

At the end of the Cold War, the Air Force left – they just left.  The Cape Cod National Seashore, administered by the National Park Service, inherited the derelict site, populated by asbestos- and insecticide-filled buildings.  They have been rotting in place for decades, since the Park Service would rather build parks than demolish hazardous waste sites.

The shuttered base has seen every kind of daily and seasonal cycle.  It catches the sun’s rise, the heat of noon, the long shadows of late afternoon, and the dead of night.  It sees beach days, pea-soup fog, and blizzards.

It’s a relic, a reminder, a ghost town sitting on beautiful Cape Cod coastline.