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Phase 2I recall first seeing it at an early age. Maybe I was 7 or 8. For some reason or another I was with my family, in a car, navigating through the potholed worn industrial streets. We drove past this bustling industrial campus... It was walled in, and a constant parade of trucks came and left. The sky was gray and ugly. Far in the background was the sign - an ancient oversized relic of industrial pride. I wanted from that day forward that I wanted to get up and close and see it... feel it... look off to the city beyond. 20 years later, my day arrived.Phase 2, as we like to call it, was a massive, massive project. It was, in a nutshell, the second phase of a redevelopment project in Long Island City, NY It entailed the complete demolition and removal of a half dozen large buildings, in addition to the removal of several smaller structures. The vast majority of these buildings formed a Pepsi bottling and distribution center. This campus featured a huge old style pepsi neon sign affixed to the main building rooftop, facing manhattan. This landmark sign, while being deconstructed as I type these words, will be safely preserved and placed in a waterfront park after work at the site is completed. Just what sort of work, you ask? Condos, of course. Several more buildings of high rise condos. 2 of these buildings already exist. they were build during the later 1990's on the location of the former LIRR freight float bridge yard. (this we refer to as 'Phase one'). Ironically, while Phase One obliterated a large messy abandoned field, the landmark Float Bridges (once graffiti covered and rusting into the river) were repainted, restored, and renamed as 'Gantry Park', with massive orange "Long Island' letters painted faced Manhattan. This historic preservation could be seen as foreshadowing of the fact that the Pepsi sign would be preserved as well once development took over the pepsi plant. Finally, Pepsi vacated, and the demolition began. This provided a rare window of time, between Pepsi vacating the property and demolition to be completed, where we might explore this location as fully as possible. Repeated trips were made, each one modified to compensate for ever evolving and devolving security and accessibility. In the beginning, security was high. The sign was still lit up, setting a red glow upon the river..As the buildings came down, fences went up.The sign would be lit one night, dark the next. It seemed as though it would be dark forever at any moment. Old access routes became voided. We crept closer and closer in, until one night we finally reached for the sky, arriving at the still lit up sign just before it's lights went out forever. I personally thought that this was it - the perfect final achievement of exploring this site. But that, of course, was before the raid in broad daylight. Today, nearly nothing is left of this location. Tomorrow, it will all be gone. Everything but the memories and the photos..Surf through the links below, and watch the before and afters..
Aerial Photograph taken in Feb.. 2004 © Andy Hogger.  |
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