I can't figure out what this building was once used for. The basement has some very odd paintings on the walls, it seemed almost like a hangout for military kids for some reason. Anyone got any ideas?
Continuing out abandoned base tour, we find some nice housing for the officers. Nothing tooo high class, but the location is fucking hot.
This old building once seemed to have served as some sort of military command office. Today, it is nothing but collapsing floors and rotting mold... You know that smell... Smells like... victory.
OMG!!!
TUNNEL OF DEATH!!!
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C'mon... you know we had to. 4 years ago, this firehouse (as well as a few others) was shut down by a city government bent on saving as much cash as it could. I knew immediately that I'd have to find my way into at least one of them, permission be damned.
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While the High Line was being rebuilt from an abandoned railroad viaduct into the stately park it later became, one of the former meat packing slaughterhouses along the viaduct became the office for work crews taking part in the project. Here's a quick tour of their facilities...
6 years ago, on a hot and muggy night, myself and a few other insomniac explorers snuck up onto and wandered down the high line... Back then, the entire route was abandoned and left to rot for 20 years.
Today though, it's a different story. This once forgotten corner of the city is now being revived as an overhead park. It looks like it'll be a pretty nice place ones it's done, and will enhance the west side of Manhattan. Not bad for a place that Rudy Ghooliani tried to give away to developers in one of his last acts as mayor of NYC... (and yes, I really did need to take yet another jab at that shortsighted moron).
Before it can be open as a public park, a lot of work has to be done to clean up the old weeds, rubbish, rails and ballast rocks. The start of this work of course prompted a surprise and entirely uncalledfor broad daylight inspection of the progress on this project thus far. this inspection reveals that this location is still full of fun times to be had before you know, the 'normal' people are given access...
History
In 1973, the entire block of North 4th street between Bedford and Berry was the scene of protests and destruction dealt by the scandalous hands of then NYC Mayor Lindsay. Lindsay forcefully evicted families from their homes to make way for a huge expansion of the S & S corrugated box company factory.
NYC was once a very middle class manufacturing city. Over 1 million people worked here in jobs building everything from staples to light switches. S & S corrugated made machines for constructing corrugated boxes. They employed 600 people
in a factory just across the street (on 4th btw Berry & Wythe) - and in 1973, NYC was losing thousands of such jobs per year. When S & S went to City Hall and told the mayor they needed to expand their factory in order to stay in Brooklyn, they devised a plot to simply kick out everyone living on the block just east of their present factory in order to build a huge new wing. The mayor, likely paid off to do so, went right along with this plan.
The mayor and S & S likely did not realize that the 94 families whose homes were slated to be demolished would not go quietly. They organized. When their voices were not heard, they blocked traffic on the BQE during rush hour (this became a favorite tactic of local political activists). Such protests were just plain unheard of at the time.
They blocked traffic on the BQE during rush hour (this became a favorite tactic of local political activists).
Eventually the Mayor 'compromised' by agreeing to build replacement homes just across N. 3rd street. These homes still exist today. It begs the question though - if that property was available, why the hell didn't S & S just build their factory there?
Some protested right up until the very end: "Seven cops couldn't push me off the stoop of one house, even with the glass flying all over" Frank Kulikowski, a hulking man who is the neighborhood's friendly grouch, said last week".
S & S did indeed expand their operation and for several years survived. At some point in the 1980s or 90s though, S & S closed down, leaving their brand new factory building empty and obsolete. For a short while it was rented out by a company that maintained arcade games. In the end, throwing all of those families out of their homes proved to be a complete waste of time, money and strife.
Today, (June 2013) the entire neighborhood is better known for trendy loft apartments and stores than manufacturing. This building remains exactly as it was when we explored it in 2007: a large empty completely abandoned shell of a building. It is rather amazing that it has been allowed to sit in this condition for so long. The exterior walls were used as a legal graffiti canvas in the early 2000s. Whatever becomes of it, it most certainly will never be a factory again.
Adventure
There's something inherently funny about walking up the front stairs of a building and looking out onto the street below (because there are no walls up here anymore) - especially when that street is full of people going about their lame ass boring lives. There was but a sheet of plywood between us and them, but when you think about it, it may as well have been the great wall of china. This is the barrier between those who explore and those who will never understand the pleasures of crossing lines, physically and mentally.
Beyond the thrill of the location, this building offers absolutely nothing.
Original writeup, July 8, 2007 under the title 'barging in on bedford'. History added June 11, 2013
Sources:
NY Times: A Battle leads to a New Northside: August 20, 1974
People Power: Grass Roots Politics and Race Relations By Judith N. DeSena
History
There's not a whole lot about these buildings online. The whole block consisted of one story tall, flat brick buildings with no signs on the front. They were simply too small to be used in any major manufacturing. I did get a hit on one of the addresses: 2
05 N9th street. Apparently a business located here was shut down by the feds during the 1920s prohibition for selling kits to create your own alcohol.
If you have more information about the history of the any of these buildings that were on N9th street, by all means comment below.
Adventure
So I'm driving down this street when we realize all of the the buildings on it are about to be boarded up... which is typical really. I drove by here last weekend and there were no boards. Hell, there was a roll down gate a little ways up that we tried to slide open only to find another gate behind it... and here we are a week later with sure signs of impending demo/redevelopment.
So we park and start shooting the block. A quick look at one of the doors shows it's as open as your mom on prom night, and the hallway and interior doors look inviting, so in we go...
But what a god damned tease that was, for there is nothing in here worth the time to even look at, except maybe a stinky smell and piles of trashbags.
Turns out the place must have been used by some armoured car company at some point, as there was a big empty vault and signs to suggestion that cash from banks and betting operations came in here...
Within a week, this entire row of buildings was bulldozed.
History
Colonna & Company was a supplier of Marble, located in Long Island City just north of the 'Big Allis' power plant on Vernon Blvd.
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