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Showing posts from September, 2017

City Gardens: Trenton's Lost Punk Rock Mecca

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The building seemed to sag against the Trenton sky, its walls leaning in a way that looked both tired and dangerous. I was driving, searching for a lunch spot after a morning spent exploring the city's industrial skeletons, when I saw it. A questionable choice, maybe, but curiosity is a powerful guide. I pulled over. Getting inside was one of the sketchiest entrances I’ve ever attempted. But once my feet were on the dusty floor, the danger faded. An enormous space stretched before me. It was sparse, cleaned out. My footsteps echoed where a stage once stood, a fact I’d later confirm in a NNKH YouTube video about the building’s past life as an underground punk club. The video showed a vibrant scene, an electric place. But the ghosts of that life were mostly gone. The long, rounded bar, where thousands of hands must have slapped down crumpled bills, had vanished. The dust-coated wine and shot glasses that once lined its shelves were gone, too. The club’s glittering crown jewel, a l...
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Concrete City

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When the concrete doesn't set in. I never thought this local city whenever I drove to a nearby state ever had any abandoned places for me to visit as I headed north. To my surprise, I came across a well-documented property within the city with real photos of the vacant property in all its glory. On a leisurely Sunday morning, I headed up to my usual haunts and stopped over on my way. Getting onto the property was at first tricky. A and I were about to risk it entering from another part of the property but we decided not to and boy did it turn in our favor. We found our way in by a well-worn path down the road and walked onto the site with abandon. Inside, documented information on the property was correct. The concrete equipment was hauled away during an auction and all that was left was two smaller buildings, one rusted machinery on top of a concrete block and a graffiti-tagged commercial long-haul trailer. The saleable equipment had already left the...
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Hidden Gems #3: The Broken Four Stories

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This 6,684 sf building sits mired in abandonment along a historical street named after a civil rights leader. The current property is owned by a church where to my disgust actually held meetings here before holding meetings elsewhere at other members home. The property has had numerous complaints dating back to 2007 of people freely entering and leaving the building. Perhaps by chance, the caller mistook the church members themselves as squatters or squatters truly were coming and going. In 2014, the building and the adjacent lot were contracted for sale before last year being quiet titled by the owners of the church (other family members) against a family member of the deceased pastor who had no authorization to sell the parcel to a third party. Apparently, she had a disagreement with other family members in the management of the church properties. The building does sit in an up and coming gentrifying area. Now, it sits still vacant with no tenants or reveren...
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Abandoned Additives and Coatings

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Leaking barrels of unknown chemicals Cocaína? I've been watching too much  Narcos  lately. Puta! Where the early morning polyaromatic hydrocarbons give you a straight high. Potential hipster studio warehouse space. You just have to see past the small fauna.  Brick by Brick Boy! This industrial property currently houses onsite environmental contamination relating to metals and polyaromatic hydrocarbons. This abandoned place was previously in use 86 years ago before being owned by the local city when the previous owners did not pay off its financial obligations. The site currently sits open to the elements with a tattered roof and several large holes in the brick-lined building. Surrounding the property, mounds of illegal dumping activities are significantly pronounced. Several barrels of containers housing hydrocarbons leak slowly into the soil. A strong aromatic smell wafted strongly in the air. Hardened and loose unknown...
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Inside the Abandoned Rockaway Metal Products Factory in Queens (Photos)

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Rockaway Metals Products (RMP) began as a sheet metal fabrication factory beginning in 1961. RMP occupied the site from 1971 to 1987 leaving a plethora of hazardous waste materials onsite. From 1990 to 2004 the building housed various tenants which even included an auto repair shop. Rockaway Metals a manufacturer of filing cabinets and other metal products closed down in 1987. It was leased a few years ago to different owners who did not manage the 4.85-acre parcel. The 155,000-square-foot building has long been an eyesore and trouble in the neighborhood since its closure. A coastal storm in March 2018 blew debris materials to adjacent properties. Rockaway Metals was acquired by Nassau County in 1995 by tax deed. The county has held onto the property for 22-plus years. In February 2011, the site was damaged by fire and condemned soon thereafter. For more in-depth legal ownership of the property, you can read more below in the source list under U.S. v. 175 INWOOD ASSOCIATES LLP. ...
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Inside the Abandoned St. Michael and St. Edward Church in Brooklyn (Photos & History)

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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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Inside the Abandoned National Silk Dyeing Co.: Paterson's Forgotten Textile Mill (Photos)

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  The text message from my friend J was simple: a list of addresses in Newark and Paterson. An invitation. An urban treasure map with Xs marking forgotten places. I picked the one on Piercy Street. Pulling up, I saw the building wasn’t exactly hiding. It was a behemoth of brick and colorful lettered graffiti, a whole city block of decay. A door gaped open next to an old loading dock, but the scene gave me pause. Mounds of illegally dumped trash lay along the floor of the loading bay. This part of Paterson has a tough reputation, and the open doors felt less like an invitation and more like a dare. I took a deep breath and stepped inside. The air was thick with the smell of dust and damp. I found myself in a vast, open space littered with plastic containers and skeletal metal shelving. I moved deeper, drawn toward the old boiler house section. Before I reached it, I walked into a room that stopped me cold. Everything was stained a deep, blood red. A fine crimson powder coated the fl...
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Inside the Abandoned R&S Strauss Auto Service Center (Photos)

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  I was driving towards what used to be the Consumers Park Brewery when something caught my eye—the wooden gate doors of the old auto parts store were wide open. Someone had broken in. The building had been vacant for years, even as new construction surged all around it. Right next door, a fresh, modern structure had risen, but this place remained untouched—a relic of the past hollowed out and forgotten. I pulled over without hesitation. These moments don’t come often. A while back, another shuttered dealership had been left open for months, its entrance exposed. Graffiti artists had made their mark on the metal gates, turning the abandoned space into an urban canvas. I had thought about exploring it, but before I could, the gates were suddenly chained shut overnight. The opportunity was gone. Not this time. This time, I wasn’t letting the moment slip away. I stepped inside, finally getting a look at what had been hidden behind those rolled-down gates and green plywood barriers. An...
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Fallout TV Series Filming Locations: A Complete Guide to Every NY & NJ Site

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A desolate sand swept Fallout Santa Monica Pier. Discover the captivating locales of Amazon Prime’s Fallout TV series as Lucy, Maximus, Moldaver, and the dreaded Ghoul vie for the Vault-Tec cold fusion relic. Filmed across various iconic spots in New York and New Jersey, the series brings the post-apocalyptic Los Angeles, California wasteland to life. Here’s a closer look at the real-life locations featured in the show. Let me know in the comments below how much you loved the show. Were you surprised by the New York-centric locations? Episode 1 (“The End”) In a gripping and unforgettable episode, we witness Lucy emerging from the subterranean depths of Vault 33 centuries ahead of schedule, driven by an urgent quest to rescue her father, Hank, the Overseer of Vault 33. This dramatic turn of events follows the brutal infiltration of Vault 32 by Moldaver’s raiders, who cunningly disguised themselves as the already deceased rioting inhabitants of the vault. The story's turmoil begins ...
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