So far as I'm concerned, there is only one bridge in NYC that matters. Only one bridge worth climbing. Only one bridge shrouded in more ghost stories and urban legends than you could fit into a 200 page issue of Weird NJ. Entire movies have been written about this bridge. Hell Gate Bridge. This is its story.
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While exploring, it is not uncommon to come across old graffiti. however, it is uncommon to come across graffiti inside of a building that is at least 20 years old.
Witness the photos above, and get an education in handstyle circa 1985 - to find a room that is still decorated like this in the year 2005 is utterly baffling.
This is another MTA exhaust ventilation fan plant construction site. This project, costing nearly $30 million dollars, involves the expansion of yet another preexisting fan plant to better remove smoke and increase air circulation within an MTA Subway tunnel.
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What is the "Sea Honk"? And how many red pills do you have to take before you finally find it, whatever it is?
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In the spring of 2001, the MTA proposed the construction of this fan plant. The construction consists of a large hole, 70 feet deep, ripped open cut-and-cover style below a local Manhattan street. This location had previously contained an MTA subway emergency exit with an extra ancillary space constructed specifically for future utility use such as this.
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the first time I ever entered this drain, it was a cold rainy day. The water level was far too high to navigate this tunnel without ending up with some very cold very wet feet. So we came back one night when it was a little dryer, and found that despite the absolute blackness of this tunnel (no lights anywhere, no lights coming in from the manholes above), the tunnel was not without color. The bottom of the tunnel floor was thick with a golden brown sediment, perhaps some type of soil that had run off into this drain from some of the pipes and smaller drains that feed into this very large (and very smelly) drain.
So we're driving through the ghetto and we come upon this shithole. It's a series of abandoned warehouse buildings that are basically gutted. There is utterly nothing left sans graffiti (of good quality) and one or two signs. Oh, and let's not forget the coal silos, abandoned freight tracks, and 2 nice bashed up stolen cars.
Me, Filthy and Snatch are determined. We were here just an hour ago trying to pry our way into the old Nelson Galvanizing warehouse, all to no avail. We left, hopped in the ride and went to a construction site, combing the building in search of tools. Nothing. So we stop by my place again, get what we need, and come back 5 minutes later. As Snatch would later say 'it's open like your mom's bedroom!'.
Open indeed. both me and Filthy had wanted to come in here for quite some time. She always saw it around the hood, and I saw it ever since childhood when the place was active. Back then, LIC was still just barely clinging to it's industrial past. This was one of several steel fabrication shops in the area. It's also a superfund site, and is listed as one of the area's highest contaminated plots of land
Today though, the space has been taken over by a taxi repair shop. They leave their junk, stripped of parts taxis in this warehouse while they keep mechanics on duty in another building maintaining the rest of the fleet. You see, NYC taxi's are owned by many different companies, just aboutt all of whom maintain a large fleet of cabs with several crashed or worn out cabs kept at their base as a part supply for those that they keep running. Taxi garages have always found the LIC area home, right along side the manufacturing shops and steel fabrication shops, thus the progression of this lcoation, from steel to taxi, keeps the location 'in the LIC family'. To me, this is much better than had the place become condos...
Besides, there are still plenty of remains from the old steel shop. It is as if they locked the door and walked away. An ancient truck sits rusting in the back of the warehouse, along with piles of bricks and debris. Towards the front are stairs up to a second level, where the offices once were. The floors have sagged and appear ready for collapse. Nevertheless we carefully made our way in to the corner office, where piles of paperwork and unopened mail sad on old wooden desks. There was no graffiti, and no signs that anyone had been up here in at least 20 years.
It was a better bargain than we had wagered for, and well worth the effort.
Update: 2013: The Nelson Galvanizing building was bulldozed last year. All of the wrecked vehicles were removed. Today (March 2013) the land is nothing but an empty lot. No soil remediation has taken place so far as we know. It joins a long list of former
industrial sites across NYC that are no more.
Up until the mid 1990s, this emergency exit was known as 'The Condos'.
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When the MTA closed its first station platforms in decades, we made a point of being the first in.
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