Surviving a trip into the NYC underground and shooting some quick video and photos is so 1995. Under pressure from imminent death, CHUDS and various people that don't want you around, the ability to seriously create in this situation is the new standard of excellence.

Major props to my science lab partner, P-Zak, Esq.

Here is the perfect home for those perpetually perturbed by life in New York Above.

Here is where in your darkest hours, the writing on the wall can show you the way.

Here is where boys become men, and where the scared either die a grim death or get over themselves.

Here is heat, hot in the winter and sweltering in the summer.

Here is simplicity: You follow the rules, because death is the only other option.

Here there is only one rule: Survival. Beyond that there are no laws, no heros, no one coming to save you from your demons.

Here is ritual, here is religion. And here the proverbs need not be spoken.

Here is the gateway to Creation. Reinvention. Solitude. Soul building hours alone in the darkness left with nothing but your brain, a camera and a memory card... and the grim reality that yes, sooner or later one of the above will run out...

Usually when you come across a long line of old railroad equipment, there's a few possibilities for why it's there:

1) It's old and about to be sent to the scrap yard

2) It's being stored by some museum group pending cash to restore it

3) It's uhmm... just sitting there...



This lineup of mismatched locomotives, passenger cars and former Amtrak baggage cars fall into the latter grouping. They're all owned by a railroad that doesn't seem to have any immediate plans for most of this stuff. It's the equivalent of a buck tooth po'bucker's lawn - where there's various cars and appliances scattered about waiting to be fixed or put to use, one of these days.

History:
Sadly this location has no verified history at this time. Rumor is that before it was an office to major corporation,  it was used as a bomb factory during WW2.   What we can verify though is that the corporation that was located here used the building as its main office until a few years ago. When the company moved out of state, the vast Majority of employees were not transferred and either had to relocate with the company or find new jobs.  The 3 building complex was sold to a developer who for some time maintained the property and ran routine patrols around it.  Eventually they seemed to have given up on their redevelopment plan and sold it to another party who  then left it to rot. Local hooligans and neglect quickly wrecked the placed. Only a gut rebuild could make this property viable again, though in all likelihood demolition is the only option.

Adventure:
Entry couldn't be easier, though whether or not you really want to enter is a whole other subject. The rear buildings are fine, though the main office building was left abandoned with it's carpeting intact. Carpeting, exposed to the elements, becomes a breeding ground for all sorts of nasty smelling mold. The building itself isn't much to look at. Trashed offices, tagged walls, broken glass all over. If there were any historic details, they were long removed. The only thing that this place really has going for it is how huge it is - with a maze-like layout one can easily get lost in. Don't be surprised if you find yourself roaming around trying to figure out how to get back to the point at which to entered.

History:



Flux Factory is a well known NYC arts organization. From 2002 to 2009, they were located in a space on 43rd street in queens, right next to the sunnyside amtrak yard - where they held numerous events over the years bringing art to a corner of NYC rarely known for such events (by comparison to Manhattan or the white parts of Brooklyn).



This seemingly out of the way location eventually became a target of eminent domain. The MTA, in its quest to bring LIRR service to Grand Central Station (currently they only serve Penn Station), decided they needed the property for... some strange unknown reason. The Flux building was located north of the LIRR mainline, away from any new trackwork that needs to be done. While the west side of the building is up against the loop tracks that bring Amtrak and NJ Transit trains out of penn station and into Sunnyside yard, it's not entirely clear why they need more space for tracks on this loop.



The Flux Factory and it's neighbors, however, were not historically significant at all. They were squat warehouse buildings, constructed from the mid 1980s to the mid 1990s. The youngest of the buildings was 14 years old. That's a seriously short life span for such a building - especially one that was not located in a prime area where anyone would want to build a condo.



Flux held their last event in their building in April of 2009



Exploring:



The night of our trip is unpleasant. It's hot and sticky, which is great when you're with a woman but no god damned good when you're in the urban jungle. We wait for the nearly constant parade of cars to stop flowing from the driveway that will be our access point, hop the fence and proceed with caution. The first buildings have already been demoed, with huge piles of rubble scattered about. We get up to the front door of what was the Flux building and go up the stairs.



The devastation is quickly apparent. Nothing was left behind. The walls have been smashed and there's a bobcat parked on the second floor. After some time poking around we try to start the bobcat up only to find there's something very wrong with it. One light goes on, and that's it. No amount of unlocking breaks, turning the key, etc - makes it go. Too bad, it would have been a sweat ride. The terrace on the rear of the building has an epic view of sunnyside yard and the NYC skyline. It's sad that this spot is going to be lost forever.



Around back we climb off the rear terrace and head south. The adjoining buildings have bars on the windows and lights on inside. Down on the street, they are not yet boarded up, so it could still be active. We look in the windows though and find that the interior is virtually empty. We decide to take a look in the unlocked roof door.



Inside, the AC is blasting. It's 25 degrees cooler and 500% more palatable. We comb through the second floor looking for signs of life, but only find old blueprints and a 'fun room' with pillow, empty 40s and condoms on the floor.



Things get a little more strange downstairs - this windowless garage area is again fully lit and air conditioned - only now though we come across work vans. They have valid registration, plates, and are full of construction tools. Irked by the fact that we've stumbled into this clearly in-use area, we back out the same way we came in. On the way out we find a gate to the street is completely unlocked and open. Anyone could have walked in here and looted whatever they wanted - and a quick scan of the job site shows a huge amount of equipment ripe for the picking. This would be really irresistible to a more criminal minded crew. We close the gate behind us, and disappear into the night.



1 week later, all of these buildings were gone. I'm glad I got to see them before their untimely death.

A few members noticed this club and it sat on a 'to-do' list for months. An initial recon run found all the doors locked tight with double layer doors and no windows at all. This should not have pushed this location onto the back burner of the investigations list but it somehow did. Normally such a laps in protocol would never be tolerated but let's face it, booze money and women are way more interesting than old abandoned buildings - and anyone who says otherwise is a lying sack of cat crap.

Eventually a report landed on my desk about this location  - and from all the possible members,  it came from a female. According to her there was indeed access . She entered only to find there was a beeping sound from some sort of alarm system. They aborted but were planning to go back. You'd think some of our hyperactive sexually overdriven 20something boys would have lead the pack into this place, but eh... maybe the memo didn't get on their desks either.

LTV Squad: Now hiring 'minister of memos' - please don't apply, we will find you. At home. While you're sleeping.

Anyway-

Abandoned strip clubs are very rare in NYC. Often a club will close, only to reopen a month later under a different name. This one was shut down for over a year, so it seemed clear no one would be reopening this location. With fresh intel on hand we went to take another look.

The access point was perfectly discrete and able to accommodate a team of 4. I personally lead the way inside and confirmed my own suspicion - the alarm was coming from a broken fire alarm panel. At this point it had been beeping for at least a week with no one showing up to turn it off. Clearly no one gave that much of a shit about this place, though the fact that power is still on means someone somewhere is paying the bills.

The club interior proved to be everything you'd imagine - bar with stripper poles on a stage behind it in the center of the building. Behind the stage were all those secret rooms your mom works in. There was a VIP lounge complete with it's own stained couches and stripper pole.

>But there was something else going on here. In the back there's a room with a ladder and paint buckets. The bar is coated in dust, but there's stacks of tools and equipment sitting on it dust free. There's a jobox locked tight, probably full of pricey power tools.

>Next to a dirty sink behind the bar I find a 2010 yellow pages. Huh. This confirms our suspicions about the power still being on - this place isn't completely abandoned. That doesn't really bother any of us, but the extreme heat in here does. The hot summer combined with no windows has made this entire building one big oven. Content with the crappy photos (walls painted black, not really the greatest for photography), we bail out and are pleased to be back on the midnight streets where the temperate is probably around 85... that's got to be 20 less than inside the box...

Time for more booze. Another night, another mission.

This house is a mystery for which I have clues but no answers.



History:

Seemingly abandoned sometime in the last few years, this stately home in a nice neighborhood has  changed owners nearly half a dozen times in the last 15 years. The family that seemed to live here most recently has complete disappeared.

While the home is currently empty, one could get the distinct impression that something rather horrible befell the family that lived here. Some of the last personal property left in the house (and not dumped out back like so much trash) were family photo albums - showing a seemingly happy couple (though rarely seen in the same photo) with young children. They seemed to live in an apartment nearby before buying this house and only living in it a very short while.

I found the wife's /homeowners name via online searches. The only direct hit on her fairly common name was on an NYS.gov website for persons whom the state had received money and were holding should said person or their next of kin come forward. It seems an insurance company had tried to send her a payment but could not get in contact with her.

I once found the name of a recently deceased relative on this list.

Perhaps the family defaulted on the mortgage and left the country. Who knows really. The fact that they seemed to have left so much personal property behind - especially the photo albums - is just plain strange.



Exploring:

Weird place to be, really. At the time, all of the doors to this house were flapping in the breeze. The house itself is large open and airy. A pleasant place to walk through, though we were on the lookout for squatters. Strangely none had taken up residence here.

The house itself has seen some severe vandalism. The walls are punched in all over the place, wiring and pipes have all been scrapped out. Graffiti artists have used it as their own gallery.

Some walls have large cracks - I suspect the building on a whole has some severe structural damage that would make it completely unsellable.

It's always strange to visit a house like this in NYC. The property here is worth roughly $1M - and here it is - abandoned. With property values what they are it's very rare to find a place like this. Assuming this building has a proper owner right now, I can't imagine it will last long.

So we went into this high rise construction site and found absolutely nothing worth seeing. Really!

(well, it's either that or I'm foreshadowing another post again)

This sad old hospital building sits in the corner of an otherwise very active campus, rotting away. The only thing left behind is peeling paint.

As we approach the start of the final season of Lost, I thought it'd be comical to throw this tribute online to Brooklyn's own smashed and lost airliner. Located abandoned and exposed to the elements, these sections of 2 separate scrapped airlines lay derelict on the ground, awaiting an uncertain future.