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Showing posts from September, 2018

Nearpara Rubber Company: From Tire Reclaiming to Toxic Brownfield

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The Last Days of Nearpara Rubber I smelled it before I saw anything worth photographing. That warm, faintly sweet bite of old rubber, the kind that hits you somewhere between a tire shop and a summer highway, drifted through the first building the moment I stepped inside. The structure was burned out, charred and broken, rubble underfoot. But the smell was alive. And then I saw the pile. In the corner of the room, faded brown and heaped maybe two feet high, was a mound of baby bottle nipples. Dozens, maybe hundreds, of the small rubber tips, just sitting on the floor of a collapsed industrial building in Trenton, New Jersey. I stood there for a moment, genuinely confused, and then kept moving. Nothing like the smell of warmed-over rubber. Twenty minutes later, I understood even less. Through another door passage, I found the main source of the smell: six open metal trailer containers, still loaded with bagged baby bottle nipples, sitting in open air. Bags of them, mountains of bagged n...
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Rockland State Hospital (2017 Visit) Part #2

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My second visit to the institution I had already known beforehand that someone had torched certain sections of the children's ward. I saw all the fire damage in person to my dismay. I would never understand why someone would either torch a place for no reason at all or play around with fire inside old buildings to create that "shot". However, nefarious the reason I came back with my good friend A. I found my way inside the famous bowling alley so many others have come to see. I also gained access to the main auditorium which was completely spotless from any graffiti or mounds of garbage. On the other hand, things became a lot worst inside the small auditorium inside the children's ward if you look back at my visit in 2016. It was inside here that we met other explorers taking in the ward. My friend A collaborated expeditiously into a portrait session and we were on our way less we get caught with the newcomers. Local police are known to patrol the campus freque...
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Rockland State Hospital (2016 Visit) Part #1

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This once 600-acre mental asylum once housed 11,000 patients within its lush acreage and winding paths. A psychiatric hospital that once considered lobotomies and electroshock therapy as a first-rate treatment for the mentally ill. Now, part of the vast semi-abandoned buildings has found the wrecking ball for a different type of electroshock therapy. About 60 acres of land will become a banking data center built by the financial Wall Street juggernaut, JPMorgan Chase. A 150,000 sq ft data center will sit on the grounds where patients actually made the hospital's furniture and ran some of its facilities such as the power plant, farm, and shops. As of now, that facility has been built and paved the way for $40 million in demolition and cleanup costs. I ventured inside the many buildings unused since the hospital began cutting back during the 1970s. As of now, the Rockland Psychiatric Center still treats patients with maniacal depression and s...
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Location: 140 Old Orangeburg Rd, Orangeburg, NY 10962, USA
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Archives #6: Contender For 2018

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Stumbling upon this piece in an unremarkable back room left me utterly astonished. It was a genuine masterpiece, the only example of graffiti I encountered during my exploration. The area was laden with metal piping, making the artist's choice to echo this industrial theme through their work particularly apt. The piece not only showcased their talent but also their keen ability to harmonize their art with its surroundings, transforming an otherwise overlooked space into a canvas that spoke volumes.
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Abandoned Factory Z (Northeastern, USA)

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Update : A full research write-up of International Silver Company's former Factory H boiler house .  This abandoned northeastern factory sits in the back of a quiet residential street surrounded by nature. Next to this two-story building remains another abandoned medical complex boarded up to the gills. Stay tuned for upcoming flicks. Getting into this building was quite hard. We hopped a perimeter fence in the middle of the morning just before a police car was sitting taking a quiet break or making their due diligence check on the property. This property is down the road at a current asbestos abatement medical hospital by the local town/state agency. Once on the property, it offers a mix of old machinery and pipework from this little factory which was probably much larger before residential developers took over. In addition, the building was free of graffiti and its brick-walled facade still looked like the day it was constructed. The only giveaway is the wide-open away roof...
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Nearpara Rubber Company: From Tire Reclaiming to Toxic Brownfield

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The Last Days of Nearpara Rubber I smelled it before I saw anything worth photographing. That warm, faintly sweet bite of old rubber, the kind that hits you somewhere between a tire shop and a summer highway, drifted through the first building the moment I stepped inside. The structure was burned out, charred and broken, rubble underfoot. But the smell was alive. And then I saw the pile. In the corner of the room, faded brown and heaped maybe two feet high, was a mound of baby bottle nipples. Dozens, maybe hundreds, of the small rubber tips, just sitting on the floor of a collapsed industrial building in Trenton, New Jersey. I stood there for a moment, genuinely confused, and then kept moving. Nothing like the smell of warmed-over rubber. Twenty minutes later, I understood even less. Through another door passage, I found the main source of the smell: six open metal trailer containers, still loaded with bagged baby bottle nipples, sitting in open air. Bags of them, mountains of bagged n...
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Inside the Abandoned St. Michael and St. Edward Church in Brooklyn

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For weeks, I had been orbiting the perimeter of the impending demolition of the Church of St. Michael and St. Edward, a once revered church in the heart of Fort Greene, like a moth drawn to a flame. The neighborhood, a patchwork of tight project housing, seemed indifferent to the fate of this historic edifice. The intel I had received suggested that entry was as simple as scaling a wooden fence, yet the timing had never felt right. Until one day, it did. With a mission in New Jersey looming, I knew it was now or never. The demolition was advancing at a startling pace, the church's twin steeples already reduced to rubble. The skeletal remains of timber beams and rusted steel frames peeked out from the ruins, a testament to the relentless march of progress. Summoning a surge of courage, I seized a moment of quiet in the bustling housing project and vaulted over the fence. My heart pounded in my chest as I slipped unnoticed into the church grounds. The once grand entrance now stood as...
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From Excelsior Needle Co. to Timken: The Rise and Fall of Torrington's Standard Plant

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The Standard Plant and a Century of Making Things It was a hot May week in 2023, and J and I were already sweating through our shirts before we even made it to the entrance. We turned into the driveway off North Elm Street and passed a large Caterpillar backhoe holding up the red, white, and blue at the top of the arm. Patriotic machinery. Only in Connecticut. We moved toward the back of the complex with our eyes open, scanning for any sign of people or activity. We found cameras instead. A few of them, well-positioned across one of the buildings and up on an electrical pole, covering angles that made our original entry plan useless. We backed off, found a Plan B, and stepped into a dark room washed in tinted green light, then took the stairs down to ground level. The former Standard Plant sits along North Elm Street at a sunken grade, one story, with another building rising over the roadway to the far right when you're standing in front of it from North Street. It's the kind o...
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Exploring the Abandoned Aerosol Techniques Factory in Milford, CT (Photos)

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When I arrived at the former Aerosol Techniques factory, I was filled with a mix of anticipation and curiosity. Meeting a group of new friends for a day of urban exploration in Connecticut, we had a lineup of intriguing abandoned sites on our agenda. Our itinerary included the hauntingly beautiful Seaside Sanatorium, a former hospital, along with a few other potential spots that we were less certain about. We chose the factory as our starting point, mainly because it offered easy access and was conveniently situated next to a Lowe's hardware store. Walking along a well-trodden path, our group made a seamless transition onto the property. The sense of camaraderie was palpable as we embarked on our adventure with eager enthusiasm. The factory grounds, long deserted, were a canvas for countless graffiti artists. Every inch of the building was adorned with vibrant and eclectic street art, each piece telling its own story. This rich color and creativity set the perfect stage for our imp...
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