While discussing a recent buzzfeed post about ‘33 beautiful abandoned places‘, and one from IO9.com covering ‘majestic abandoned power stations‘, we joked that if someone made a similar post about NYC, it would need to have a different, more disturbing theme. I then smacked myself in the forehead and realized I absolutely had to do this, immediately.
So here it is ladies and gentleman, your 10 most disgusting abandoned locations in NYC, curated by yours truly, with photos spanning 15 years. (Photos of the dead withheld out of respect to their families)
1) The Port Morris Tunnel (aka ‘the bronx swamp’), South Bronx
This is an old railroad grade running through the South Bronx which was abandoned in 2003. A long portion of it runs through a tunnel that is now flooded, while the rest passed under several overpasses and vacant, trash filled lots. The entire trackway is now a magnet for junkies who discard their needles everywhere. Back when Conrail ran trains on this line, they were forced to keep snow plows on the front of the engines year-round in order to push aside the daily dumping of trash on the tracks. This is also one of two locations we have discovered a dead body over the years. He was left rotting in the middle of the tunnel (authorities notified).
2 ) The Crap Room, undisclosed NYC abandoned hospital
Before I went into this building, other explorers had warned me that a very disturbed man has lived inside for the last 15 years. The rumor is that when the mental hospital closed, he broke back in and stayed there. I was told that you’d know his room when you came across it. This was an understatement. You could smell this nutcases room from down a long hallway. The stench is unbelievable. Without a toilet, this man has crapped in huge piles – 5, 6 foot piles of feces. Without trash removal, he has littered his room with garbage – 4 foot high piles of rancid trash. He sleeps in this room on a nearby bed.
The smell was unbelievable. There are no words. If this post was a scratch and sniff, you’d already be dead.
3) Triple X Oil, L.I.C. NY
Triple X was a small oil refinery in LIC. In the years before it was demolished, Triple X was home to a dozen polish squatters. They lived inside the building and in the plethora of abandoned cars, vans and trailers on the property. The entire place was covered in empty beer cans and broken bottles. Thousands of alcohol containers thrown everywhere. You’d think that they’d have brought them in for the 5 cent deposits… but I guess they were too drunk to bother. The rubbish is only but one layer to this tasty location of disgusting delights. It is also a superfund site, containing at least 500,000 gallons of contaminated waste oil and unknown quantities of Benzene, methyl chloride, and trichloroethene – plus a stew of other deadly chemicals. Cleanup of this site is still stalled, 10 years after the buildings and trash were removed.
4) Greenpoint Terminal Market (GTW), Brooklyn
Much of the Greenpoint Terminal Warehouses had a rancid, moldy smell to it – due to the huge piles of clothing soaking up all the rain water leaking into the place, and the rotting wood that would often collapse under the weight of all of this wet fabric. This cloth helped fuel an epic 2006 fire that wiped out most of the buildings at this location, making it at the time the largest fire in NYC since 9/11.
5) Washburn Wire Factory, Harlem
We called Washburn ‘the Harlem heroin shooting gallery’ – because that’s what it was. A huge abandoned factory with old needles littered all over the god damned place. You really had to watch your step here, and avoid the little rooms where junkies slept at night – because they stank of grim death.
6) Castle Apartments, Staten Island
This former hospital building has a long sordid history. Within the span of 8 years it went from an intact, viable place to live, to a disgusting bombed out shithole. The dirt, graffiti and grime are not why it made this list though. The walls of the lower floors are crawling with trillions of billions of insects. They’re so tiny I couldn’t get a photo, and so numerous it was as if the walls were alive. I don’t know if they are fleas, termites, or some other little nasty chigger – and I really don’t ever want to find out.
7) Shit Track – somewhere under Manhattan
The shit track is disgusting. You may find this hard to believe, but most NYC subway tunnels are generally free of trash and rats. The rats live in the stations, where commuters drop their trash. If you go deeper in the tunnels, away from the stations – no people + no trash = no rodents. This spot is an exception. A homeless person living nearby has basically created a huge advertisement of his presence by discarding his garage here in the tunnel. The ever growing pile has attracted rats, and sooner or later the police will figure out where it is coming from.
8) Sewers – All over NYC.
The sewers of NYC are disgusting. Most of them are just pipes, though a few old creeks were covered and turned into larger drainage sewers. Often these drainage tunnels become combined with standard sewage lines (like the one in this photo – with actual shit and toilet paper stuck to the ladder). They all have a disgusting smell to them. I only went into one of these drainage tunnels once, and I basically refuse to ever go again. There are explorers out there who enjoy going into these fetid places, and quite frankly, there has to be something seriously fucking wrong with you if that’s your hobby… (the majority of the places seen on this list I came across somewhat by accident)
9) Clothing Substation
This old New York Central RR substation contained an unbelievable amount of clothing dumped on the main floor. The clothing alone would not have qualified it for this list when compared to GTW, though the discovery of a dead body here by one of our associates earned its inclusion. He was laying face down in the pile of trash on the lower level, already decomposing with the grim smell of recent death thickening the air. (Comically nearly a dozen fire and police units arrived and took a half hour figuring out how to get inside – guess they missed that hole in the back wall…)
10) Strip club, Long Island City
Sticky floors and private rooms behind the stage littered with ladies underwear, used condoms, and various stripper bits. I don’t want to know how many STDs and dead kids stained the floors. You had to power wash your boots after leaving this place.
So there you have it – NYC’s 10 most disgusting locations. A virtual buffet of savory dirty delights. Does your city have a top 10 disgusting abandonments list? If not, we’d love to host it. Drop us an email @ control {@} ltvsquad.com
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yeah, it’s called the KPPC, and the place is rancid!
LOL nice work 😀
you might want to invest in a can of wasp spray…i was advised while working for the phone company that when you go into roach-infested slums, you can unwittingly bring home roach eggs on your boots and infest you home. i dont know how effective it is, but so far i have had no roaches. and luckily no bedbugs.
forgot to mention that the idea is to spray your boots off afterward with the wasp spray to kill the eggs, btw.
That tag in #6 is “Classy”
I named the train tunnel the Bronx Swamp due to what was down there. It had at least 3 feet deep water from one end to the next.
I was making a dig at someone else with my usual snark, of course. Apologizes for any confusion.
Is it still full of water and crap? Haven’t been in the area in awhile.