Digital Ink'd

I’ve had a strange fascination with an old petroleum products company along Riverside Avenue in Newark. Over the years, whenever I’m in the area, I make it a point to swing by and see what’s happening with the place. Once, I got curious enough to explore it more thoroughly. I was shocked by what I found—piles of paperwork scattered across the floor of an upstairs room. There were old timecards, business letters, and accounting sheets, all left behind in heaps of yellowing paper. Given the state of decay, I was honestly surprised the building hadn’t gone up in flames by then. In a smaller office, I found something else—Dexsil Clor-N-Oil-50 PCB testing kits, just lying on the ground. These kits, used to test transformer oils for PCBs, still go for about $123 on the market. Finding them just tossed aside felt strange, almost careless. On a later visit, after a particularly harsh winter, I noticed water pooling in the basement. A burst pipe, most likely. I had no intention of venturing dow...

The final piece of Bushwick Inlet Park is finally taking shape as demolition work has begun on the old CitiStorage warehouse in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. This week, it was revealed that the demolition started over the summer and is set to wrap up by the end of the year. After that, an environmental assessment and cleanup will take place, depending on what contaminants are found in the soil, with funding help from ExxonMobil. Once the area is cleared and any harmful materials are handled, the Parks Department will design the new park space. Just a few months ago, I noticed more graffiti popping up along the warehouse's walls, a sure sign that the building’s security cameras were no longer working and that the owners weren’t too concerned about the property anymore. At the time, I didn’t check back to see if the place was easy to get into. Life gets busy, and with so many sites to explore along the East Coast, some locations just slip your mind. But not this time. After work, I headed ...