Ohhhh Damn.
We back with another fun update—keeping it a little short this week cuz too much stuff is happening. Next week’s edition is gunna be, uh, bigger.
Future Bandos
Add this flour mill in Maryland of destinations you want to sneak into next year. Mon Dieu! Look at the size of that thing!
Closer to home base, the Queensboro Bridge is set to undergo some serious renovations, which will render the upper level closed to traffic. No timeline has been announced, but it might be a nice exploring window…
Brooklyn and Queens want Rail… Staten Island wants… ?!
As all things do, a plan to build a busway in Staten Island along the abandoned SIRT north shore tracks and viaduct has hit a snag at the community board level. Can you really even call it a busway when the last stretch of the route requires buses to mix with traffic on an existing street? They wouldn’t have this issue if they made a longer term investment and reopened the tracks….
Meanwhile, us nerds who have been advocating for more passenger rail through Queens and Brooklyn are finally getting some press.
Basement Life
Did you hear about the fam living in a basement for nine years waiting for the end of the world? That mole person life right there… how ya’all living like that?!
R160s are how old now?!
My numtot brain is confused how the NYCTA R160 cars are now thirteen years old. I do miss the old days where there was a whole lot more variety in subway cars, and trains ran with graffiti and broken doors and end doors propped open to air out the smell. They had more character than these things. GET OFF MY LAWN!
Ghoulish Ghoulingtons
A corpse was found in a Verizon Manhattan Manhole last week, eaten by rats. The apparently homeless man barged through a work barrier and fell in two weeks ago as workers were in the area but relocated to a different manhole. What a horrible way to die. But hey at least this was a Verizon manhole. Con Ed manholes blow up all the time and having a corpse ejected through the air at Columbus Circle… well that’s some Ghostbusters stuff right there.
Meanwhile in Texas, another unidentifiable corpse was found in a San Antonio ‘bando.
Buildings that Should Be Bandos
There’s a building in the Bronx that is infested with drug dealers and bed bugs, and apparently has a load of abandoned apartments too. No one should have to live like this. The property is managed by the Acadia Network, which has a garbage record of maintaining their buildings. Why TF is New York State in business with this horrible group?
ONE LESS BANDO!
A Michigan Bando is being bulldozed to make way for a solar panel array.
A group in Baltimore is attempting to reclaim old architectural wood and bricks from bando row houses that are undergoing demolition. It seems that despite Baltimore’s efforts to demolish their blighted buildings inventory, more and more join the list every month. If tearing down bandos leads to more bandos, maybe just stop?
Bando BBQ!
Newark’s Beer Mansion went up in flames last week, in an apparent derpalicious squatter fire. The historic home partially collapsed, trapping some firefighters for a short time. The building was once home to the Frelinghuysen family, of whom Frederick Theodore Frelinghuysen served as secretary of state under President Chester A. Arthur, the 21st. US President.
International Round Up:
So you’re into abandoned castles? Well, now you know where to find them. If you’re not looking to travel across multiple countries, perhaps the very abandoned mansions of ‘millionaires row’ in London would suit you? Imagine having so much money you can leave your property to rot? You can also visit the old Royal Infirmary site, in Hartshill (UK), where they intend to up the security by… turning the lights out? Uh, ok.
There’s a bando building in China covered in smiling faces. Is yours one of them? Check out the creepy weird exterior video on this one.
Did you know Russia built two Space Shuttles, which are sitting abandoned in Kazakhstan? Paris based urbexer ‘Jonk’ tells a crazy tale of accessing these intergalactic bando beasts.
Archaeologists in Warsaw found a secret tunnel under a church. Not to be outdone, their colleagues in Mexico found a small tunnel to an underground burial space, and in Israel, it’s time to dig down into the Knights Templar, via a junk store. Of course. No word on if the junk store has a cat that guards the door but we can only hope.
Homeowners in Sydney, Australia are concerned about the government’s frankly disturbing idea to tunnel under their homes to construct a new highway interchange.
Alright folks let’s wrap it up.
I’m slapping a hold on publishing history stuff this week, but I’ll be back next week with two articles about abandoned rail infrastructure at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
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Thank you for these, haha. Make my work day a little better every week.
great stuff
Entertaining and to the punch. Love these!