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What Are Those Rusted Metal Ladders in Brooklyn Backyards?

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I was taking a walk down my residential street recently when a flash of weathered iron caught my eye. Poking up above a neighbor's inner backyard was a tall, rusted metal ladder. It stood upright, narrow and tall, reaching straight toward the sky. I stopped in my tracks to look at it. To anyone else passing by, it probably looked like a piece of industrial scrap left behind by a careless contractor. But I recognized it immediately. Growing up, we had the same rusted tower planted in our backyard. It stood two feet away from the exterior wall of the house like an unmovable monument. Through decades of changing seasons and vicious winds, it never leaned an inch. My parents never made any attempt to dismantle it or repaint it, even as thick flakes of orange rust gathered along its frame. Back then, whenever I looked out from our second-floor window, I would scan the neighboring lots. None of the other yards on our street had one. Down the enti...
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Archives #4: White Emptiness

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Inside the white Calatraval piece before it became a commercial venue full of tourists from the WTC. A late-night Instagram meetup with fellow photogs roaming the streets of Manhattan. Good times.
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Archives #3: Manhattan Nights

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I normally don't post night pictures. I have always been a day person. I never liked the edited night pictures I've taken in the past nor felt the need to publish them in general. I am hoping that the growing Lightroom experience I have been gaining over these past three years will change that. Here are to more nighttime pictures.  đŸ™ˆ đŸ’€ đŸ‘¶
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Archives #2: Cherry Red Roadster

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Recently and also in the past, I have come across a handful of old cars abandoned in mills, power plants and other buildings. I have started to notice I always come across more frequently than is expected. In one location, I came upon 20-30 trucks and heavy machinery just sitting rusting away behind a fence. Maybe I will share a photo from that place in the future.  đŸ‘€
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Home Street Presbyterian Church

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I attempted two times to infiltrate this little church at a three-way intersection and failed miserably. On the third attempt one early cold morning, I found workmen going through the front door with toolboxes and scaffolding past the doorway peeking back at me. According to the developers' plans, common area furniture will come from ceiling beams and the facade schist will have a future in the backyard garden once the senior housing development is completed. The Home Street Presbyterian Church was abandoned in 2009 when funds for boiler repairs were lacking after a furnace fire. The congregation disbanded after internal feuds between the two groups led to dysfunctional maintenance and upkeep. The assembly was finally dissolved in 2011. The church has stood since 1910 when the Foxhurst section of this neighborhood was more suburban. Around this period, the frame houses began to shift into an urban sprawl compromising Italian Catholics and Eastern European...
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Location: 1017 Home St, Bronx, NY 10459, USA
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Oil Facility Lane #1

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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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Archives #1: Chemistry

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Starting off hopefully with a series of archive posts from today. For now, it will contain either one or several photographs of various decay and abandonment that will be posted in a full write-up, an undiscovered location, or something from the past, present, or future located in my two-year Lightroom catalog. Or it may never be written up or shared as a full album set. I currently have written up a post from this place but still debating whether to publish it or not. The only first time I have ever been caught exploring abandoned buildings. The pictures from here definitely carry significant emotional and mental weight. One, because I could have been asked to delete my pictures. Two, I could have had a criminal record or not based on a judge's leniency, or lastly having a gun-toting security officer pointing a gun at me. You definitely don't find intact glass in abandoned places and this place certainly had a lot of it. 
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Bridge of Winter

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When I first saw this bridge I knew I had to come back and shoot from various angles. I am glad I did because I am very proud of the aerial photo above.  A dreamy water background with fall leaves still floating in the water. Giving it an almost star-like appearance against the vertical juxtaposition of the train bridge.  A definite top fave for the year!
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Inside the Abandoned Albany Central Warehouse: A Forgotten NY Industrial Giant (Photos)

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In the heart of Albany, nestled amidst the echoes of its bustling past, lies an abandoned warehouse, a treasure trove of stories untold until now. This isn't just any derelict structure; it's the cornerstone of my urban exploration journey, the first of many, but forever the one that initiated me into the world of forgotten spaces. Let's call it the ultimate introduction, the genesis of a passion that has since defined my adventures. Our story begins on a crisp, cold morning that promises adventure. I vividly remember the excitement bubbling up as I set off to pick up my companion, referred to here as "A," from Queens. The journey from the familiar streets of our neighborhood to the unknown mysteries of Albany stretched over three hours, a pilgrimage to our very own urban Mecca. We arrived ahead of schedule, anticipation building as we waited in the chilling embrace of dawn, our breaths visible in the air, our spirits undeterr...
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Kings Park Psychiatric Center: The Abandoned Long Island Asylum

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Kings Park and the Education of an Explorer Every pursuit has a place where beginners go first. Skateboarders have their parking lots and curbs. Climbers have their local crags. And if you are just finding your way into the world of urban exploration on Long Island, sooner or later someone points you toward Kings Park. The former Kings Park Psychiatric Center has become, over the years, something like a finishing school for people who don't yet know they're enrolled. Getting onto the grounds is straightforward. Finding a way inside the remaining buildings, if you know where to look, is not much harder. Which is exactly why the Parks Police have written thousands of trespassing tickets here in a single calendar year, why security visibly tightens every Halloween, and why local photography groups have been known to show up with large, enthusiastic crowds of people who want to take what they call "creepy" photos of old hospital asylums. The place attracts everyone, which...
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Inside the Abandoned St. Michael and St. Edward Church in Brooklyn

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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 ches...
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Crown Heights' 73-99 Empire Boulevard Erased for Luxury Housing

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Photo courtesy of NYC Municipal Services / 1940s.nyc From Mack Trucks to Apartments: A Century on Empire Boulevard For most of the twentieth century, the block at 73-99 Empire Boulevard in Crown Heights handled the heavy work of the city. Trucks came in for service. Tires were swapped out. Parts were stocked and sold. The buildings on this stretch of Brooklyn were built for vehicles, and for about sixty years, that's exactly what they served. The site directly neighbors the much taller Ebbets Field Apartment complex, which is the housing that replaced the ballpark. By 2025, both were rubble. By September 2026, the foundation of a 13-story apartment building was going in. A hundred years of industrial and automotive history on a single block, cleared in a matter of months. The main building at 73-99 Empire Boulevard went up in 1925 and opened as a Mack Truck auto service facility. At 29,000 square feet, it was built for the scale of commerc...
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Former H. J. Mills Paper Box Company

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The Box Man's Legacy: How H. J. Mills Went from Match Boxes to a Parking Lot There is a community parking lot in downtown Bristol, Connecticut, that does not look like much. Cars pull in, cars pull out. The lot sits in the middle of the business district, unremarkable by any measure, crossed underneath by a culverted stream called Ivy Brook that runs east to west beneath the pavement. For twenty-three years before the asphalt went down, this ground held a burned ruin, then a vacant lot, then weeds so thick and deep that homeless people took shelter in them. Before any of that, for 120 years, it held a factory. The man who built that factory also ran a newspaper, served in the state legislature, belonged to the Masons, the Knights of Pythias, the Bristol Lodge of Elks, and the Hartford Gun Club, and died in 1933, leaving behind a house that still stands on Summer Street. His name was Herbert J. Mills. His company made cardboard boxes. And al...
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