In a nearly forgotten part of queens one can find this tragic concrete cesspool. A true monument to the Bloomberg era of NYC governance. For only under Bloomberg has NYC witnesses an economy that was largely based on one huge ‘redevelopment’ scheme. Old mom and pop businesses, factories, and assorted buildings were forced to sell out – occasionally under the threat of eminent domain ( the most unamerican law ever passed) – and ‘real estate developers’ swooped in to tear down the old buildings and replace them with huge ugly condos. This created a temporary bump in jobs, exclusively in the construction field, but eventually crashed. This crash left ridiculous sights such as Donkey Kong’s Revenge here a common sight all over NYC.
Current History: This mess of a construction site has sat abandoned now for at least 2 years, and has been stalled for at least another year or 3 before that.
Adventure: This place just attracts people, and the instant someone finally cut a hole in the fence and ripped the lock off the back gate, the people flooded in. Me and Sleazy arrive upon the scene and within 2 minutes find a Mexican sleeping in one of the man plywood construction rooms on ground level. Unimpressed with his insufficient stock of alcohol, we make our way to the next set of construction rooms and find blueprints scattered in the wind. Anything of actual value has already been looted, though I can’t say I was expecting to find much here. We head upstairs and find the open exposed mess of the upper floors to be a curious tower over the area. We spot a couple coming through the hole in the fence and wonder if they’ll bother coming upstairs. Eventually we move further up, until we reach the upper level, where a Raccoon curiously eyes us from the top of the stairs. Cute but troublesome, we avoid the small beast and head back down to notGreet that couple that came in. We lurk around and manage to give them the piss shivers without even trying. They leave, and we lurk by the entrance in the dark as the male comes back in, then leaves when we hiss at him. Loser. Who’s afraid of the dark? We eventually leave, searching for better loot, more alcohol, and more lame people to menace. Because when the abandonment sucks, there’s always idiots to fuck with.
On Monday, I posted about a graffiti artist who was killed by an oncoming D train @ 59th street station in Brooklyn. If you’re a foamer, you’re probably thinking ‘The D doesn’t run there’, and if you’re a hardcore foamer, you know there was a service diversion that night, with the D running northbound on the N route. This little detail might have been what cost this man his life.
Very little was said in the news about the particulars of what happened, or who this graffiti writer was. We now know his tag name was Jan. I never met him, but he was about to rent some art studio space from an artist friend of mine. Had he lived a bit longer, I’d likely have met him and perhaps gone on a few adventures with him in the coming weeks. I haven’t seen any of his art myself, so I can’t give an opinion on his talent. From what I can gather though, this was an ambitious fellow who would have made a name for himself over time.
That ambition lead him into what I consider a fairly dangerous subway tunnel in the early hours of monday morning. In case you’re wondering why I chose a not-very-awesome photo to go with this post, it is because it is the only photo I ever took of the location I believe this young man died. It’s a blurry, unfocused, hurried photo that I fired off very quickly late one night. Just beyond the blue lights is the northbound platform at 59th street. I didn’t set down the tripod and get a proper shot here because the area felt just that unsafe. Just plain not enough clearance for my liking, and an air of unpredictability.
While not much detail was printed in the papers of exactly how and where he was hit by the train, one can make an educated guess that it was just south of the northbound platform. The D was only running northbound on the N that night, and it joins the tunnel just outside of the station. The N line joins the R at this point via a ramp that comes upward into the tunnel, so you can’t see a train coming as readily as you would in other straight subway tunnels (thus why I suspect it was south of the station, not to the north, where it’s very straight and there’s plenty of room to avoid trains). The area south of the platform is a no clearance zone, with walls coated in candy stripes and a split switch from the N ramp onto the northbound local and express tracks. There’s also third rails where you might not be ready for them. With bad timing, anyone could get killed here – and with the service diversion in affect, it’s not hard to imagine a writer or explorer waiting for an N to go by, and proceeding to try to enter or leave the tunnel under the assumption that the next N is 20 minutes away (as would be the normal schedule at such any early hour in the morning).
This young man’s death could easily have happened to anyone entering the tunnels of the NYC subway system. Ambition is a devil sometimes. It drives us out of our comfort zones, and sometimes, it pushes too far too fast. Sometimes bad things happen. This is one of those times.
If you find yourself serious compelled to wander the tunnels, please learn as much as you can before you hop off that platform, and even then, may Apollo grant you glory. The risks are the same, for seasoned vets and up and comers alike. Stay safe out there. And for the Train Operator, I hope you get some time off and realize it wasn’t your fault.
At around 4:30 a.m., cops arrested four men who had allegedly sneaked into the Second Avenue Subway tunnel carrying Roman candles and cameras.
The men told cops that they were part of an “urban explorers” group and that they planned to use the fireworks for light for photos.
Eric Ruggiero, 25, of Manhattan; Jacob Bloom, 21, of Glen Cove, LI; Braiden O’Sullivan, 21, of Connecticut and William West, 27, of Massachusetts were charged with criminal trespass after Harlem resident Jerry Jackson alerted cops that the four had descended into the tunnel around 112th Street.
“Just because we got bin Laden doesn’t mean it’s over,” said Jackson, a truck driver and Army vet. “We still have to remain alert.”
Since I know some of these characters, I’m going to straight up put this on blast to counter some of the ridiculous press and internet comments that are sure to come out in the coming hours.
First up, I want to address this ridiculous comment that ‘Just because we got bin Laden doesn’t mean it’s over’. Straight up, Fuck you and anyone who thinks like this. It’s over. Bin Laden is Dead. Al Queda has not been able to pull off any sort of relevant attack in the US in 10 YEARS now. It’s BEEN OVER for years now. How much longer should we all be suspicious of our neighbors and snitching on things that have nothing to do with us?
Immediately after the 9/11 attacks, G.W. Bush very famously gave a speech (probably the only good one he ever gave) stating that we should all move on with our normal lives, not be afraid, and enjoy all the freedoms that living in this country entail. That is exactly what these explorers were doing. ‘Exploring’ is a very healthy, normal hobby for many many people. By living in fear – in this case – fear of 4 white guys in Harlem – the terrorists win. 4 very harmless people get put through the system for the horrible crime of going into an abandoned, concrete tunnel with fireworks aiming to take some very artsy, creative photographs. Instead of ‘if you see something say something’, I say – we have nothing to fear but fear itself.
Is exploring against the law? Sometimes. Should those laws be changed? Maybe. Could situations like this just be completely averted if the MTA opened up places like the old Harlem segment of the 2nd ave subway to tours, or artist productions? You fucking bet.
The Harlem section of second avenue subway runs from 110th street to 120th street. it is a huge open underground space that would be ideal for artist use, public educational tours (school kids would LOVE it), arts and events – all in a neighborhood that arguably could use a very unique attraction. There’s no tracks, no third rail, and no plans to use this segment of tunnel even when the ‘2nd avenue stubway’ finally opens between 63rd and 96th streets.
We’ll update with more info as it comes along. For now, so far as we know, these 4 guys are still ‘in the system’, – i.e. – in a cell somewhere. No contact with family or friends thus far so far as I’ve heard. I don’t know about you, but I’m offended my tax paying dollars are being spent right now persecuting such people, especially considering the current budget problems in NYC. (Really Bloomberg? You want to throw basically harmless people in jail for doing something dumb, and then close firehouses and fire 4000 teachers? Someone tell me how that makes any fucking sense?)
(As for the other idiot that went through the Path tunnel – clearly this person is insane. Only an insane idiot would go near a cross river tunnel, especially one owned by the Port Authority, which has cameras and cops everywhere – and then claim to have left a bomb down there – clearly that guy needs more than a night in jail… he needs some mental help, assuming the story is true)
Update:
Hilariously, Howard Stern chimed in on the arrests:
And of course, it’s movie poster worthy!
Proper credit for the above goes to Rob Dobi.
Just to update, all 4 are out of the system and probably drinking heavily as I type this.
