Posts

Showing posts from September, 2018

Greenpoint Nurses' Residence: Inside Brooklyn's Abandoned Quarters

Image
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...
Post a Comment
Read more

Rockland State Hospital (2017 Visit) Part #2

Image
My second visit to the institution I had already known beforehand that someone had torched certain sections of the children's ward. I saw all the fire damage in person to my dismay. I would never understand why someone would either torch a place for no reason at all or play around with fire inside old buildings to create that "shot". However, nefarious the reason I came back with my good friend A. I found my way inside the famous bowling alley so many others have come to see. I also gained access to the main auditorium which was completely spotless from any graffiti or mounds of garbage. On the other hand, things became a lot worst inside the small auditorium inside the children's ward if you look back at my visit in 2016. It was inside here that we met other explorers taking in the ward. My friend A collaborated expeditiously into a portrait session and we were on our way less we get caught with the newcomers. Local police are known to patrol the campus freque...
Post a Comment
Read more

Rockland State Hospital (2016 Visit) Part #1

Image
This once 600-acre mental asylum once housed 11,000 patients within its lush acreage and winding paths. A psychiatric hospital that once considered lobotomies and electroshock therapy as a first-rate treatment for the mentally ill. Now, part of the vast semi-abandoned buildings has found the wrecking ball for a different type of electroshock therapy. About 60 acres of land will become a banking data center built by the financial Wall Street juggernaut, JPMorgan Chase. A 150,000 sq ft data center will sit on the grounds where patients actually made the hospital's furniture and ran some of its facilities such as the power plant, farm, and shops. As of now, that facility has been built and paved the way for $40 million in demolition and cleanup costs. I ventured inside the many buildings unused since the hospital began cutting back during the 1970s. As of now, the Rockland Psychiatric Center still treats patients with maniacal depression and s...
Post a Comment
Location: 140 Old Orangeburg Rd, Orangeburg, NY 10962, USA
Read more

Archives #6: Contender For 2018

Image
Stumbling upon this piece in an unremarkable back room left me utterly astonished. It was a genuine masterpiece, the only example of graffiti I encountered during my exploration. The area was laden with metal piping, making the artist's choice to echo this industrial theme through their work particularly apt. The piece not only showcased their talent but also their keen ability to harmonize their art with its surroundings, transforming an otherwise overlooked space into a canvas that spoke volumes.
Post a Comment
Read more

Popular posts from this blog

Inside the Abandoned Rockaway Metal Products Factory in Queens (Photos)

Image
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. ...
Read more

Former NYPD 65th and 73rd Precinct Stationhouse

Image
If you walk down East New York Avenue, it is easy to miss the old police station that once watched over the block. Your eyes go first to the Howard Houses, those tall brick towers that rise on the left like a wall. The former precinct squats beside them, low and dignified, its stone face worn by nearly a century of weather and worry. By the time I began paying attention to it, the building already had an expiration date. The city had picked it as the site of new affordable housing. Demolition was set to begin in full in November 2025. On paper, it was a win for a neighborhood that has carried more than its share of struggles. For the building itself, it was a quiet death sentence. I wanted to see it before it went. The main trolley line that ran down East New York Avenue was the Bergen-East New York Line, operated by the Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT). It served as a key east-west route in the Brownsville area until many city trolley lines were converted to bus routes sta...
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

Abandoned Cotton Mill (Baltic Mills Complex)

Image
A rotten-out four-story mill.  In before the wrecking balls. This mill surely did not need an interior demolition of its own because inside the wooden floors had already sagged and caved in from years of decay and neglect. The solid stone walls stay true to the craftsmanship and mortar the bricklayers hundreds of years ago laid down with expertise and solid workmanship. Now the structure awaits the fateful day when the demolition crew rides in and delivers its final blow into forgotten history. The ground floor was mostly dark and decayed.  A plethora of rotting wood littered the ground. The stairs leading to the first floor revealed there won't be any venturing upstairs. The flooring was completely rotten and caved in. From the steps of the staircase, you could look straight up and see the clouds in the sky. There was no way up without falling right back down to the ground floor. Ground Floor Interior Boiler House Smokestacks Venturing to an...
Read more

Abandoned Home Goods Manufacturer (Bilco Co.)

Image
🏗️ Development Update — The Former Bilco Company Site This site was the former Bilco Company , which manufactured basement hatchways, garage doors, sidewalk doors, and roof hatches on Water Street in West Haven, Connecticut. The factory was demolished as of July 31, 2022 . Surrounding residential houses were fenced and boarded in preparation for future demolition and the planned Haven Mall Outlet project. By April 13, 2023 , houses north of Richards Street and east of First Avenue had been demolished. However, The Haven Mall Outlet project has since been scuttled . The vacant lot now languishes, waiting for a new vision that has yet to arrive. Milling about with gleeful abandon. I finally checked out this complex from a depressing neighborhood where houses are boarded and vehicular traffic is always substantially busy. I was astonished at how easy it was to access the complex. I had previously seen kids hanging aroun...
Read more