Abandoned adventures, places and history from New York and other states.
Abandoned Church of Divine Flames
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The main attraction 😍😍😍
A surprise I would never forget.
One cold morning, S and I headed across town to check out a church many Instagrammers have trodden upon when this church became known for its abandonment in the sprawling green lawns of this residential neighborhood. It seemed every day when the first image appeared of this church's unique stained glass windows everyone all of a sudden appeared within its walls within the next two weeks. Mind boggling how one picture starts out online and all of sudden everyone knew about it.
S and I parked the car and took a spin in front of the church only to realize that from the street level you could see another feature of this church prominently displayed in full view (main photo above). It was the plastic/glass rods hanging from the ceiling. Finding no entrance from the front, we went around and made our way past the high chain link fence and entered the partitioned side of the walkway to the busted door lock. Making our way inside, I headed straight for the chandelier and clicked away happily until S shouted to come take a look inside the main church hall.
👀
Inside was just the way it was even months had passed since the last posting of this property. Everything was in unblemished condition with the exception of bad graffiti in the balcony seating some immature scoundrel(s) decided to mark up. The red seats, in particular, showing their age where many congregants sat for years and years of church service. Behind the pulpit stood the shimmering and brightly colored stained glass depicting the red hot yellow flames smoldering bush from a green base. It was all there and more from the very first moment I saw it appear in my Instagram feed.
Center Aisle
Balcony
The Biblical Bush
On the side stood the piano forlornly waiting to be hammered into religious harmony. Behind stood a standalone church kitchen and backroom where I assumed the congregation gathered for light lunches and church dinners. Chairs and tables piled high throughout. The only sound emanating from the room was water dripping down from somewhere. A tell-tale sign of an unmaintained roof. After clicking away with delight we headed upstairs to check out the rooms and find the way up to the balcony overflow seating. After finding it and shooting from above, we found more empty rooms, office storage and a standalone room which must have been a church classroom due to the blackboard. Nothing of note besides the balcony existed upstairs. So we made our way down the basement level.
No sweet melodies
Center View
Front of Pulpit
Down in the basement, we found a pitch black room large enough for a dancehall party of 100 people or more. If I remember correctly there was a disco ball or not. It has been awhile since I visited this church. My memory a bit fuzzy of what I explored down in the basement. Nothing of note and no tools to aid us in lighting the room, we made our way underneath the chandelier and clicked away at all angles until we decided our time was up and left.
Office Room
Bumping our fists heading to the car, another exploration completed in the books.
For a long time, this venerable and formidable pump house has withstood the treachery and explorations of many urban explorers. Only a few have ever found its true location within the state lines of New York. Before, only well researched urban explorers found this pump house long before it graced the pages of Will Ellis' Abandoned NYC's long heralded and well-published website. It has stood for many years from the gaze of any unsuspecting explorer travelling within the state who may by happenstance found it just by driving. Unfortunately, you cannot "drive" and see this pump house. This place is located deep in a mixed-use neighborhood encased in businesses no one unsuspecting would find for it to be located there at the end of the adjoining driveway.
Once inside, the treasures to behold can be found. Inside you will find old boilers, coal dust, century-old coal, a flooded basement, three entombed car frames and an infinite supply of remarkable graffiti artwork. Thi…
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There are remedies out there that say you can destroy it by placing the lens on a windowsill and let the sun take care of it. This can be met with some success but in actuality may cause the lubrication on the aperture blades to run or even leak causing the aperture mechanism to stick and lock up rendering it useless.
So take these words of wisdom and inspect lens merch with care.
A remarkable lens from Japan, very sharp wide open, of the famous zeiss inspired design with preset aperture. It's well made, all glass and steel, with excellent color and contrast. The optics in this lens are amazing, it is simple and it works. It's bokeh and colour rendering are brilliant and it's as sharp as a razor. This is one of the mythical lenses of the days of lore, and hard to find even on ebay. There is about 340 degrees of rotation on the focus ring. The lens came with a 2X adapter as well. This series of lenses (model 680) were made between 1962 & 1969. The included tele converter is shown in the picture. This gave the kit the twin tele name.
Also known as the Taisei Kogaku [Tamron] Tamron 680 Twin-Tele 135mm f/2.8. A rare lens with the hard to adapt praktina mount. Mounting this lens onto to a EOS Rebel won't be easy. I have been trying to source an adapter for my Canon 600D Rebel but so far all information has pointed me to praticka B mount adapters…
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