This place was begging for a good explorer party. A proper send off for a facility that literally helped build the NYC we know today.
As mentioned in part 1, the Ferrera plant on the Gowanus was coming down fast, and the entire lot was wide open with absolutely no legal notifications that you couldn’t be there. In fact, while scouting the location we noticed several cars drive directly onto the property, as confused drivers couldn’t tell where Hoyt street came to an end. With zero demarcation between public and ‘private’ property, no one could rightfully be charged with trespassing for being here. And with the property owned by NYC, our tax money is payment enough to have fun here.
Given the absolute rarity, complete legal accessibility of this location, and the lightening fast timeline to demolition, we decided this was the perfect location for an obscure AF party. A beach theme was chosen, given the leftover sand aggregate dunes at the rear of the property. Arrangements were made, beach toys acquired, and comedian Joseph Loonam gave an awesome performance behind a knocked over sand tower.
This party was later covered in Gothamist and the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. Strangely, the Eagle didn’t bother to contact us at all, and their article wrongly claims party-goers graffitied the location. Not a single person was seen with a can of spray paint that entire night.
Blowing Up Spots
A few people questioned me in private over this whole explorer party BBQ thing, as if it were bad. Some claimed by having a party here, we were ‘blowing up a spot’. Here’s my counterpoints:
A) When a location is about to be destroyed by capitalist forces using heavy machinery, explorers lose nothing. This facility was abandoned a few weeks at most. Literally no other ‘urban explorer’, graffiti artist, or anyone else even realized this place was accessible.
Now, had this been a long abandoned place filled with interesting historic stuff, and it wasn’t being bulldozed into obvliion, then you’d want to say nothing to no one about it.
In this case, one cannot ‘blow up a spot’ when there is a demolition crew coming by every day to literally destroy the place. One cannot ‘blow up a spot’ that literally no one else was going to or doing anything creative with.
B) By hosting an event here, we provided fun like minded people with a venue to chill out and explore a location that they would have never known about, and that would be gone within days of the event. We literally gave it all back to you, the people. Do as you wish, none shall stop you.
The world needs to know that here in NYC, we haven’t rolled over and shown the capitalist scum our belly just yet. You can still have fun in the ruins here for free.
An addendum
Another bit I heard from a few people was confusion overan apparent ‘sudden interest’ on our behalf in hosting events. Sure, it’s been awhile, but anyone surprised by this party simply doesn’t know about the past of this organization. We’ve lead invitation-only walking tours of tunnels. We’ve had private parties in ‘bandos and between 2003 and 2006, played host to SantaCon after parties (when Santacon was still weird and not some bro-booze-fest). Amazingly, the only person to ever be arrested at one of our events was a security guard. Our friends in Philly routinely host trackside BBQs and raging all-nighters in abandoned factories. There’s a grand tradition of explorers hosting parties without permission, and we’re always happy to continue that tradition. You can too. Just find yourself a bando and throw a party.
With a little luck, we’ll be doing plenty more of these down the road. Never let a good ‘bando go to waste. NYC needs more free fun. If you don’t like it, suck it. If you didn’t find the spot before it got blown up, explore harder, or go cry on the gram.
For even more photos of the cement plant, head on over to this Film Journal post, especially if you’re a film photography nerd.
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interesting.i don’t find people giving the finger funny but that just me
True words at the end. Party hard and loot as much as you can when the wrecking ball is already at full swing! Oh, and may I yet ask again for another episode of the 24 days of looting before christmas???