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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Oil Facility Lane #1






Open gate, open invitation in my book.
















Open invitations just scream come right in and explore the place. If open gates give you pause then your thinking wrong because I strolled right in like I owned the place. Entering the doorway I hear the raging waters of a burst pipe filling the basement with drinkable water unknown to the owners and city.












Climbing the stairs to my left were oil meters and switch boxes used to dispense and assess how much petroleum oil was leaving the site and on site. To my right was the thrashed records room by the looks of it due to the huge amount of papers scattered all over the ground. Heading upstairs more office space opened up. Better in appearance then downstairs, the office cubicles contained various old computer equipment and bookkeeping records. Nothing of unique note inside an administrative floor of a fuel facility.




A three-bay garage attachment.














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