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Showing posts from June, 2017

Greenpoint Nurses' Residence: Inside Brooklyn's Abandoned Quarters

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1940s Greenpoint Hospital Campus Tax Photo There is a certain kind of quiet that only abandoned buildings have. Not peaceful, quiet. More like held-breath quiet. The kind that makes you hyper-aware of every footstep, every creak, every shadow shifting at the edge of your vision. I found that quiet on a cloudy afternoon in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, standing outside a chain-link fence and looking up at the old Nurse Quarters of Greenpoint Hospital. I had stumbled onto the building almost by accident. I was deep into researching other vacant structures across the borough when the Nurses' Residence turned up on the blogs. The fact that it sat close to home made the decision easy. One overcast day, I drove slowly down the block on a hunch, scanning the fence line. That is when I spotted it: a gap, barely noticeable unless you were looking for it. No rope. No gear. Just an opening and a window of time between passing cars and foot traffic. I slipped inside. The entrance foyer stopped me cold...

Hidden Gems #2: The Graffiti Dog House

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Beware of the dog! This small two story family house sits quietly between two other structures as cars whiz by. The heavy and colorful graffiti and rotting wood standing out. This local monstrosity caught my eye on the way to another local gem. In the corner of my eye, I saw her bright colored paint and knew I had to pull over and give her the once over. Someone actually lives here based on the padlocked chain around the door. Who would live in such substandard conditions? A roof is a roof in the quicksand of gentrifying neighborhoods and sky-high rents. This house goes way back past 2007 as being boarded up. It wasn't until 2013 it received its base color of yellow and blue before receiving its graffiti marks sometime around September 2013 and September 2014. The house on the left was also vacant before being renovated. Still continuing this series and feeling out where its headed in the future. So far I like the juxtapose of the old standing house mixed in with oc...

Boat Graveyard

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A fascinating ensemble of two dozen marooned and ghostly flotilla lay rotting away in the small Coney Island Creek. No one knows their names and when they first appeared abandoned in the small waterway. These vessels were brought here for illegal disposal burned out and marooned forever. Never to sail again. The famous yellow submarine You can access this 'little' yellow submarine burrito by canoe, boat or even by low tide.

High Over Brooklyn

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When you can see the outline of Manhattan all the way at the end of a Brooklyn park. Getting better at it with the aerial shots but need better composition. Work in progress...

Mad Dog One

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Taking my craft to the skies... Today I called out of work to take myself down to one of the many New York City parks available in the city. It had been a long time since I ventured inside Calvert Vaux Park. A few years ago, I came to this park on the fly because word had gotten out for the next crazy Xandernation pop up party. I persuaded my good friend M to tag along with me that night. Just weeks before, Alex Shlaferman, the host of the party, had thrown another party on the ballsyous of all places: the Manhattan bridge . Yes, the bridge! This time I wanted to find out what all the fun was about. Finding our way inside the dark park. We made our way to the very back of the park where a huge crowd had coalesced around the DJ setup jumping to the heavy mix of dubstep. We partook in some alcohol being shared wildly around and taking in the copious amounts of marijuana smoke wafting from the crowd. After enough dubstep to keep me awake for eternity, my friend and I decided to le...

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