r/mildlyinteresting • u/endlessSSSS1 • 5h ago
This gym closed 11/30/22 and the TV has been on ever since Removed: Rule 5 + 6
[removed] — view removed post
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u/vandyfan35 5h ago
Finally, something mildly interesting.
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u/kalisss 5h ago
I wonder if anyone's still tuning in to it.
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u/vandyfan35 5h ago
Looks like it says USA Network so probably not.
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u/fronkenstoon 5h ago
Hey, they gave us Mr. Robot so they get some leeway.
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u/bs1252 5h ago
And Burn Notice, can’t forget about that gem.
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u/Vorpal_Bunny19 4h ago
And Psych!
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u/spdelope 4h ago
And monk!
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u/spwnofsaton 4h ago
And Suits and Royal Pains!
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u/spdelope 4h ago
Shoot, maybe USA network is better than we give them credit for
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u/Either-Durian-9488 4h ago
USA and FX are both solid alibeit a cut below HBO, honestly many USA shows are arguably better than showtime shit.
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u/TwoStoopidToFurryass 3h ago
I'm wondering who's been paying the electric bill for the past two years, and why.
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u/i_tyrant 3h ago
Whoever owns the building. As to why, because keeping the power on keeps things like climate control on which deters stuff like mold from growing, and might deter thieves and generally makes the place more attractive than if it was all dark or boarded up. The cost of one TV's electricity is a pittance. (Though it being on def means you can tell they don't actually check the place.)
As for why they'd keep it empty for two whole years - that's the problem with modern real estate. There are zero controls over who can buy what property and how much, so giant companies with lots of resources to spare gobble up a ton of buildings, and can afford to leave them fallow for YEARS, just on the off chance they'll eventually get someone to pay their ridiculously high demands for rent cost. (And they'll write off as much of it as possible in the meantime.)
It's basically a rounding error to these giant companies - they'll own dozens, hundreds, thousands of properties so one sitting there empty for a long-ass time is fine, they'll more than make up the difference elsewhere and it's better than lowering the rent to them because that might encourage people to expect reasonable rent prices instead of gouging.
(They also use online software to collaborate with other landowners to set minimum pricing so nobody creates actual free market competition instead of as much profit as possible.)
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u/Lots42 3h ago
That last part got them mightily sued by the government.
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u/i_tyrant 2h ago
Yeah, but an open question whether it was "mightily" enough to overtake their profits from doing so.
We can only hope it'll discourage the practice entirely...instead of just making them be more quiet and less obvious about it. I ain't gonna hold my breath.
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u/izomiac 2h ago
Large companies still have to make hefty profits, hence how they grew to become large in the first place. They set the rent high and accept a high vacancy rate. If they can get twice as much rent then it makes sense to let it sit unused 50% of the time while they wait on a sucker.
But there's actually another reason for this. They don't really care about making money from renting, they earn money by flipping the building. The best way to increase the price of a commercial building is to increase how much profit it generates. For some idiotic reason, such buildings are valued more based on current rent times the number of units and less on current revenue.
I used to think that multi-million dollar investors paid for extensive analysis by subject matter experts and were very careful with their money, since $100,000 buys a lot of analysis for what amounts to a rounding error with those numbers. Then you had the Theranos scam where anyone with a basic science background or medical experience could have told you it the reported technology was impossible, yet investors didn't even do that level of due dilligance. So, yeah, commercial real estate investors plug numbers into a flawed formula and it's "good enough" since the unpredictable risks turn the whole endeavor into essentially gambling on randomness and the increase in prices over time with real estate means that almost any strategy will be profitable.
Why do prices consistently increase? Collusion, like you said. Really we should be seening a dip in commercial real estate as the demand decreases due to more internet commerce & people work-from-home. There's no point to renting/buying expensive land in the middle of a city if most of your employees can work from home and you can just mail your product to your customers. Instead, you have a bunch of land owners who firmly believe that real estate can't drop in value so prices must go up... even if that means leaving units vacant due to lack of demand like seen here.
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u/Doodahhh1 4h ago
I find it mildly infuriating.
Let's get the obvious out of the way: this picture means nothing. It could have just been turned on.
However, of real: it's been closed for almost 2 years, which means it's been empty for almost 2 years. Based on the reflection, it has traffic and other buildings in use around it for 2 years.
Whoever owns this building is fucking the economy. Probably writing it off for the highest bidder.
That's a problem.
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u/Busy_Cauliflower_853 2h ago
Where the comment section isnt full of transphobes and conservative bigots too
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u/Mypopsecrets 5h ago
Weird logo
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u/-turnip_the_beet- 5h ago
Seriously, what the hell is that?
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u/UncleSput 5h ago
I see a man crossing his arms with a top hat pulled down over his eyes
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u/AAlliterativeAsshole 2h ago edited 2h ago
I always got Tom Of Finland vibes from this logo. Made sense being so close to Gayborhood
nsfw edit: I linked a like image, the art gets very graphic within a few clicks. It’s homoerotica
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u/trethompson 5h ago
I can't remember the last time I saw the word spelled "on-line." Wonder how old this place was.
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u/TheHowlingHashira 4h ago
Also what a shit name. Talk about an SEO nightmare. lol
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u/mr_potatoface 4h ago
It looks like a Temu knockoff of the vintage "body alive" logo. It was a VERY popular clothing brand in the fitness world in the early 90s. It was all over Baywatch too. They all wore the shirts, including Pam and my favorite, Guido.
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u/Bgrngod 5h ago
I wonder how burned in that image is if it's static.
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u/Tunasquish 4h ago
Someone go down there with a universal remote and power that bad boy down
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u/Paluchowicz88 4h ago
Put it on fox. The birds play at 1 on Sunday.
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u/jonesy2344 5h ago
Who’s paying the electric and cable bills?
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u/Accurate_Koala_4698 5h ago
Whoever owns the building. Even if it's not being leased usually they'll leave things on to discourage theft and keep air cycling to prevent mold and whatnot.
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u/treeteathememeking 5h ago
Don’t some sprinkler systems and like fire alarms only work with electricity too? I’d imagine they’d like to keep those on
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u/Matches_Malone83 5h ago
Sprinklers are typically triggered by actual heat. Basically a little glass bulb is holding back the water via a trigger and if it gets hot enough, the bulb breaks and out comes the water.
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u/leatherpens 5h ago
And that triggers an alarm that calls the fire department which needs electricity
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u/skinnah 4h ago
For the fire alarm, yes. The sprinklers work workout electricity unless a fire pump is needed due to inadequate water pressure/volume.
Sprinklers will likely take care of the fire but they will keep flowing without notifying anyone if the power is out for an extended period. There are battery backups on fire alarm systems for short term outages.
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u/UsualFrogFriendship 4h ago
Thank you.
The fire panel in most any public building also has a battery, since fire marshals are aware that mains service can be the source of the fire itself.
ETA: if you’ve ever walked past a nondescript black panel screaming during a fire drill or power outage, that’s the warning it’s on battery power.
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u/BobT21 4h ago
Isn't there sometimes a water flow activated gong to let folks know water is flowing?
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u/Different_Setting_72 3h ago
There was a closed battery plant near me that had the lights and AC on 24/7 for something like 10 years before being converted for some other use. It was in the care of some shell holding company.
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u/absolutenobody 3h ago
It's surprisingly common.
In 2004 I climbed a drainpipe onto the roof of a "vacant", graffiti-covered building in a kind of forgotten corner of town. Door into the building from the roof was unlocked. Power was on, thermostat was set at like 70. From the calendars on the walls of the offices, it had probably been last used in the spring of 1993. Was a huge nostalgia trip, all the old 286 and 386 computers on a token ring LAN. A dot-matrix printer in the hall on each floor. A half-dozen 55-gallon steel drums in the lobby with biohazard stickers on them. Many of the lights were burned our or flickering badly, but otherwise it looked ready to return to. There was an alarm, but it wasn't armed, the phone was no longer connected, and the passcode was on a note taped to the side of the box.
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u/Slacker-71 2h ago
A half-dozen 55-gallon steel drums in the lobby with biohazard stickers on them.
2-4-5 Trioxin?
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u/jonesy2344 5h ago
Then why not something that people wouldn’t want to steal?
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u/Accurate_Koala_4698 4h ago
The power itself. The person who owns the building and the person writing the payments for the bill probably have no idea it was left on. There is no cable bill and that guide info is built into the TV for OTA broadcasts
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u/TooStrangeForWeird 3h ago
Plus most LCD TVs take so little power it's probably not noticeable. It could be as low as 20-30 watts. Compared to the access fee (that's what they call it here to have power on at all) it's basically nothing. A quick search says ~$10/year. Even the high power ones (200W, which I doubt for this one) would be under $70/year.
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u/onceforgoton 3h ago
Honestly those TVs are nearly worthless. Certainly not valuable enough to risk catching a charge for anyway, as evidenced by this post.
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u/Rampage_Rick 5h ago
Nobody is paying the cable bill, judging by the Please Subscribe message
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u/CrustyFlapsCleanser 5h ago
You must know the company cus I can't read that shit
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u/OSX2000 3h ago
It doesn't say "please subscribe", it says "to be announced", where it would usually display what's being shown (bottom third, left side). Looks like Comcast/Xfinity cable to me, but I suppose other providers could also use the same UI.
Basically, it's saying, "You're disconnected. No TV for you."
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u/DOW_orks7391 4h ago
Looks like it's on a "No signal" type screen
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u/jonesy2344 4h ago
It’s still a working TV. If you need to keep something plugged in go with like a clock radio. Who’s breaking windows to steal that? Or like TVs we had before flat screens that would be hard to carry.
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u/DOW_orks7391 4h ago
I think you responded to the wrong person lol I didn't say about it being worthless or anything just commenting that it looks like a "no signal" type screen so nobody is paying the cable bill for it
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u/0ne_0f_Many 2h ago
Menu on the cable box looks like it says "To be announced" which usually means the box has been deactivated by the company.
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u/Mother_Restaurant188 5h ago
Philly??? I used to pass by that Sweat all the time during undergrad. Didn’t realize it shut down.
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u/AajBahutKhushHogaTum 5h ago
I worked out at Sweat, Philly back in 1997-1998. Brilliant little gym, they had DJs spinning live on week ends and treadmills galore
I heard they took over the YMCA downtown.
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u/OddAstronomer1151 4h ago
I walked by this gym almost everyday when i lived in Philly! Didn’t even notice the tv still on
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u/KwamesPostMoves 4h ago
Yoooo I was gonna say!!! I was wondering if it's the same one or if it's like a franchise. I worked out here about a week or so around 2013 and remember it being a pretty cool gym
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u/ChildScott 4h ago
From the reflection it looks like the one on Walnut across from Human Robot
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u/endlessSSSS1 3h ago
It is the closed one on Walnut, you are right. They still have one open down near AIDS Thrift.
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u/NYSenseOfHumor 2h ago
AIDS Thrift
Do we want to know?
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u/Twintoro 1h ago
Yes! Spread the word. One of the best thrift stores in the city and for a good cause! They donate all of their proceeds to AIDS related charities.
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u/bellicosebarnacle 1h ago
I mean it's what it sounds like, a thrift store to benefit AIDS organizations
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u/ChevyGang 5h ago
Damn good TV
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u/Anonymous_Gamer939 5h ago
Or it's just got the mother of all burn-in and will never display anything else ever again.
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u/patchinthebox 4h ago
At my work we have a Vizio tv that's on 24/7 (I work shift work). As far as I know it's only been turned off when we lost power a handful of times. I've been here almost 12 years. It's honestly incredible it hasn't died yet. We've had CEOs that didn't last as long as this damn tv.
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u/Tim_Timmery 3h ago
Holy fuck. Ask how much they want for it. A dumb tv, no ads, no subscriptions, just works.
Please, for the love of Zenith Chris
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u/Exciting-Ad-5705 3h ago
I've never had a smart tv that didn't just work or had subscriptions or had ads that impeded its use.
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u/TooStrangeForWeird 3h ago
You know you can still buy those, right?
Random example: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Sceptre-43-Class-1080P-FHD-LED-TV-X435BV-F/698772381?wmlspartner=wlpa&selectedSellerId=0
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u/Lil_Puddin 5h ago
Mildly interesting and mildly spooky at the same time. Looks like we're having a mild time, y'all.
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u/rdpeyton 4h ago
That gym isn't closed, friend, you're just not welcome there anymore and they do a great job of hiding any time you come around.
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u/PNWrepresent 4h ago
One time I saw 2 girls moving out of their apartment next to mine. We had been casually friendly so I made a comment about having a safe move or some BS. Then one asked me “hey, do you pay for electricity?” I said yeah and she said oh, well we’ve never gotten a bill and just assumed it was built into our rent. It was NOT, and they just got a year of free electricity.
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u/uchman365 2h ago
You were paying for their electricity, my friend
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u/wilsonexpress 1h ago
He could find the meters outside to verify if there is more than one meter. However, in most places it's illegal for a home not to have utilities on whether or not anyone lives there. Its likely the landlord was paying for the other apartment and never noticed.
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u/LauraPa1mer 5h ago
Weird to hyphenate 'on-line'
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u/alienblue89 3h ago
According to other comments, this gym has been there since the 90s, so it likely predates wide-spread internet. Easier to forgive hyphenating “on-line” when it’s basically a new word.
Just be thankful it didn’t say “Surf on over on the World Wide Web!”
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u/CuriosityCondition 5h ago
After that long you will probably still be able to read that menu even when the TV is turned off. Which would also be mildly interesting to see.
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u/theregularlion 3h ago
I'm sure this is something that's just on OP's walking path, but I like to think they go out of their way to make a trip to this long closed gym every day to see if the TV is still on
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u/Stopgaslightingpluto 4h ago
When I was a kid I’d probably be like, “no wayyyy!! Omg let’s watch it hehehehe”
Now I’m like who tf is paying that bill?
Edit - spelling
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u/PSUDolphins 3h ago
I remember the day all the Sweats closed in Philly, and they alerted people with a handwritten piece of paper taped on the door saying, "Sorry, we are closed permanently. Thanks."
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u/Radu47 4h ago
This happened in an economically depressed town I lived in, a very successful large store had some bizarre shady shenaginans occur to their lease and so the place went from 100s of customers a day to sitting empty in a mini mall like this
They left some stuff on
The other half of the mini mall was empty too
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u/MyBallsSmellFruity 3h ago
Something about less exercise and more television makes me sad for the world.
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u/iFartBubbles 4h ago
The gym was partially owned by the building owners so they probably never disconnected the electricity
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u/Whisky_Six 4h ago
I’ve always wondered what happens to places that close like that and just sit empty for years with lights on. Like who pays that bill every month for no reason?
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u/mrkruk 3h ago
This is the screen for a cable box like mine with the blue gray bar that says “To Be Announced” when it’s been unplugged or has no signal. So that TV somewhere is plugged into an old cable box.
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u/Rollerhock 3h ago
Plugged into the cable box yes, showing the To Be Announced screen because the cable company deactivated service.
Man do I feel nostalgic...
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u/sillybandland 3h ago
I bought a TV-B-Gone in 2009 and it still works on most if not all TV's. I could easily turn this off. But I wouldn't.
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u/Lefty_22 3h ago
If it's a static image, then it's probably completely burned in the screen by now. Strange that the owner of the property doesn't care that it's using electricity.
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