The Octagon, Roosevelt Island – 2005 reconstruction

Published on: April 30th, 2015 | Last updated: May 25, 2020 | Written by: Bad Guy Joe

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Publish Date: 8/7/2005

We make our way around and find an entrance right by a security trailer. This security trailer… it bugs me out a bit. I can’t tell if anyone is in it, but I know someone’s in this building we’re heading for. You can just sorta feel that sort of thing sometimes. You can almost smell it…

To the untrained eye, the photos above might seem like just another construction site. However, in one corner of the building is a wall that predates the rest of the building by at least 100 years.

How is this possible, you may ask?

We’re at the Octagon on Roosevelt Island. This building gained it’s name from it’s octagonal shaped center. Originally built as a hospital, the vast majority of the building was abandoned and later destroyed by arson fires. One small section, the octagon, remained. Later on preservationists and developers who are building this new building on the footprints of the old one decided the best thing to do is to incorporate the old structure into the new.

In a perfect world (according to me) the original small abandoned building would have just been left alone. Rot is a wonderful thing, and a reminder of what happens when we neglect. That said, NYC is very unforgiving, and if a place like this must be ‘redeveloped’, then by all means we need to preserve what is left.

Back to our adventure this night: we made our way up to the roof to look down on the security trailer and take in the view… keeping an eye out for our friends in the Aviation Unit.

After the mandatory photo spree we make our way back out, stopping at the bathroom to find a motherload of SACER tags. Sacer was a well known graffiti artist who died shortly after our visit. For his tags to be in this bathroom, he must have had some role on the construction crew that was rebuilding this place.

Construction sites are sometimes a dull affair in terms of photography, so we kept making our way out towards greener pastures. Just as we were about to head to the exit though, that nagging sense of someone else being around proved correct. I spot two people outside of the gate. Security? Who knows. They disappear soon thereafter, but now we’ve got a new problem. I look over to the building and spot two shadows strolling right towards us. We get duck down and wait as they go by. Who the hell are all these people?

As they walk closer towards us they finally spot us and seem annoyed they’re not alone. It’s a black couple, in their 20s. They drop some lawn chair pillows they had bogarted from some seats on the property and squeeze out of the gate without saying a word. Only at that moment do I notice one of them is a girl with a big old’ butt barely covered by short shorts. Carrying those cushions back out to where they borrowed them from, and their general state of undress, it was pretty clear what brought them here tonight.

I have to suppress my laughter as we exit. If this evening produced a baby, I hope it was given a really creative name.

*Note* updated 2/6/2018 with more context – the original write up kept this location secret & mysterious.
Updated 5/25/2020 with better formatting.

Comments

NOTE: It sometimes takes a short while for comments to be approved - unfortunately there's a lot of spam comments that come in. I absolutely love when y'all share personal stories of friends relatives etc who worked in these places. It really helps capture what these places were like before they closed up shop.

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