Nearpara Rubber Company: From Tire Reclaiming to Toxic Brownfield

Image
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...
Post a Comment

Concrete City








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 building. What was left of the remaining auction pieces was a lease which no one wanted apparently at this waterfront property.





Zombies inside? Too much Walking Dead?















According to the history of this place, the company was having financial difficulties for several years before bellying up. Striking workers were a present site outside the facility. Now, the property languishes, no longer mixing materials for solid foundations.


When art imitates life. Whilst leaving another spot whilst here we had encountered someone coming onto the property. We scuttled up the hill and explored for the next 45 minutes before leaving. To our surprise, we met an established artist who had a passion for painting abandoned spaces on canvas. We chatted for a bit and was thoroughly impressed. Here was someone who didn't create art by using a camera but manually drawing with her very hands. Sometimes you meet other explorers, other times you meet painters.





































Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Samigon 35mm f/2.8 - Sample Review Two

Image
I started trying to see what this lens can really do in sunny conditions today. I was a bit disappointed in how it renders the background considerably softer and not very sharp. Outside is very bright and I opened it all the way to f/2.8. This lens is very soft. You can see that with soft areas of the picture with my bicycle handle and the background. (I should park my bike out of the way sometimes) It is not really a good wide-angle lens to use. I feel this lens is more adaptable for up-close shots rather than wide shots. I think I will try that today and maybe tomorrow and come back with a couple review shots to determine if I should keep this lens in my camera bag or return it to fleBay. I am going to do some more research on this lens because it seems this copy or glass isn't very good. Well off to test this alternative lens some more. Lens info: Samigon 35mm Auto Wide F/2.8
Read more

Nearpara Rubber Company: From Tire Reclaiming to Toxic Brownfield

Image
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...
Read more

Inside Yonkers' Abandoned Glenwood Power Plant (Photos & History)

Image
A former coal-fired power plant in Yonkers sits quietly by the waterfront, its redevelopment ambitions repeatedly running aground against community resistance and logistical hurdles. Once an industrial hub, the site has spent years in limbo, tangled in unrealized visions of transformation and contention with local stakeholders. The most recent development proposal called for a 157,000-square-foot mixed-use office space. However, the Yonkers Planning Board faced strong pushback from residents. Parking became a flashpoint, with the community voicing concerns over how the new project would accommodate vehicles. Efforts by the developer to secure parking access at nearby Trevor Park and the John F. Kennedy Marina were met with such resistance that the plans were scrapped altogether. Adding to the tensions, critics took issue with the property owner's financial contributions to the city. Many residents felt the developer had been avoiding paying a fair share of Yonkers' property tax...
Read more

Inside the Abandoned St. Michael and St. Edward Church in Brooklyn

Image
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...
Read more

Inside the Abandoned R&S Strauss Auto Service Center (Photos)

Image
  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...
Read more