Bando Death Watch
Demolition of the S.W. Bowne storehouse in Red Hook has continued, and is probably already complete… This historic building was the victim of a “mysterious” arson fire that took place after activists began inquiring about preserving the building. The property owner, of course, has already come up with plans to convert the property into high priced residential towers. I *do* hope the residents enjoy living along a superfund site, while taking in the view of the DSNY household trash transload facility directly across the canal. If this city gave one damn about justice, the arsonists would have been easily caught by now, and the developer would have had to repair the building – not demolish it. Instead, most of our elected officials are still literally sponsored by real estate developers—the kind of bottom feeding billionaire scum who look up to Donald Trump.
Word on the street is there’s some demolition happening up at Hudson Psych center. Hudson Psych, located up in Poughkeepsie, NY was a staple of any urban explorers diet, having a delicious mix of modern buildings and a dangerous, decaying Kirkbride designed main building. It also has a froth, odd history of urban explorers engaging in their topophilia a bit too hard: from the guy who locked up the main building and called the cops on other explorers, to the one who just *happened* to be inside the day the kirikbride caught fire. In the years after the fire, the campus was left mostly unguarded, and a target for graffiti artists. Many will miss this place once it’s gone, myself among them.
Out in Cali, a bando asylum’s days may be numbered. The slow trend of purposing or demolishing all of these institutes continues across the country.
High Rise Corpse
Over in Bangkok, authorities found a month-old corpse in the water tower of an abandoned 32 floor high rise building. Without signs of foul play, perhaps this person fell into the tower and couldn’t get out? Nearby, sneakers were neatly placed on a cloth—as if this person took them off and tried to keep them off the dirty floor. I’ll let your overactive imaginations take it from here but suffice it to say, going into unfamiliar bandos alone is never a great idea.
Municipal Schemes for Bando Dreams
Down over in the West Virginia capital of Charleston, attempts are being made to deal with their abandoned houses. The disturbingly simple fact of the matter is that across the United States, we have more homes than people. And yet, homelessness in major cities is out of control, and racist lunatics like to say ‘there’s no space left in America’, when the reality is there’s more space between their ears than—you get the idea.
The idea of making a registry and fining owners on it *seems* to have worked in Toms River, NJ. But this is Jersey, where nothing really works and everything is an illusion.
Is a Blight Tax the answer? Who is buying these distressed properties? People in need or for profit real estate speculators and developers?
Metal-eating bacteria nom on museum ship!
Out in Wisconsin, what was supposed to be routine maintenance on the S.S. William Irvin instead lead to the discover that the ship’s underbelly is under attack from metal eating microbes! Preservation is an expensive, often under-funded business. Hopefully this won’t be the final voyage of an iconic vessel.
We interrupt our not so normal schedule…
Last week I took off early for a long ass holiday weekend—probably the last one I’ll have this year, so today you’re getting this “off schedule” version of All Things Exploring. After a work trip to Atlanta next week, I’m aiming to stick to a Thursday schedule, with newsletter subscribers getting all this glorious content at least 24 hours in advance. So… head on over to that sidebar and sign up now. See below for what to do…
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