LTVSquad

Category: Living Spaces

  • LaHouse

    LaHouse

    This house is a mystery for which I have clues but no answers.

    History:
    Seemingly abandoned sometime in the last few years, this stately home in a nice neighborhood has  changed owners nearly half a dozen times in the last 15 years. The family that seemed to live here most recently has complete disappeared.
    While the home is currently empty, one could get the distinct impression that something rather horrible befell the family that lived here. Some of the last personal property left in the house (and not dumped out back like so much trash) were family photo albums – showing a seemingly happy couple (though rarely seen in the same photo) with young children. They seemed to live in an apartment nearby before buying this house and only living in it a very short while.
    I found the wife’s /homeowners name via online searches. The only direct hit on her fairly common name was on an NYS.gov website for persons whom the state had received money and were holding should said person or their next of kin come forward. It seems an insurance company had tried to send her a payment but could not get in contact with her.
    I once found the name of a recently deceased relative on this list.
    Perhaps the family defaulted on the mortgage and left the country. Who knows really. The fact that they seemed to have left so much personal property behind – especially the photo albums – is just plain strange.

    Exploring:
    Weird place to be, really. At the time, all of the doors to this house were flapping in the breeze. The house itself is large open and airy. A pleasant place to walk through, though we were on the lookout for squatters. Strangely none had taken up residence here.
    The house itself has seen some severe vandalism. The walls are punched in all over the place, wiring and pipes have all been scrapped out. Graffiti artists have used it as their own gallery.
    Some walls have large cracks – I suspect the building on a whole has some severe structural damage that would make it completely unsellable.
    It’s always strange to visit a house like this in NYC. The property here is worth roughly $1M – and here it is – abandoned. With property values what they are it’s very rare to find a place like this. Assuming this building has a proper owner right now, I can’t imagine it will last long.

  • Admirals Row

    Admirals Row

    There’s a relatively constant buzz about Admirals Row in NYC preservation circles. Instead of a write up on the history of this place I’m going to instead link you to the Wikipedia page and to a site by some of those trying to save theses structures.

  • Staten Island Smash And Grab: The pilfered apartment building.

    Staten Island Smash And Grab: The pilfered apartment building.


    2002. Slim Jim comes to town for a week of exploring. One of them days we happened across a very odd apartment building in the ghetto. Huge in size and containing some people behind locked doors, and with virtually no vandalism or signs of wear and tear, we weren’t even sure this place was 100% abandoned. We go back at night and see as much as we can while being as quiet as we can…

    2004: A lot more wear and tear, but it’s still in good looking shape. The lights are still on.

    2005: Attempted filming of footage for ridiculous TV show gets nixed due to too much attention from the natives and the crazy white guy that wanted all 20 of us to go back to his place for some V8s.

    2008: Associates tell me of this building now having no windows. We all head back out there 2 weeks later and I get a look myself…

    …and in that look, i must say, wow. In a short span of time, this place has gone straight to hell.

    So far as I can tell a recent fire in the building made it clear to all that it is abandoned. With access holes everywhere, the entire building has been destroyed by locals and scrappers. Halls are tagged to hell, as are apartments. The power is shut off, and whoever was squatting here before has long gone – their apartments completely destroyed.

    The penthouse, fully furnished in 2002, is now destroyed. Huge windows have all been blown out. The couches lay in the weeds below.

    More has come out about this buildings past. Once a hospital, the property changed hands a few times until someone sold apartments here as condos. Not too long thereafter, the building was in the courts, and all the residents thrown out. It seems whoever sold the apartments was not the actual rightful owner. Hard working people were scammed of their cash.

    Today it sits like this, nearly too far gone to be saved. What the next chapter will be, who knows…

  • Vancouver Cesspool Hotel

    Vancouver Cesspool Hotel

    Traveling to other cities is usually an eye opener. Here in NYC, there’s little left abandoned for too long, and almost one of it is actually inside of Manhattan (downtown). Vancouver, however, presented this odd animal: An abandoned hotel surrounded by high rises.

    This place doesn’t have long for this world, of course, but I found it to be most charming. An abandoned building with all it’s doors wide open for anyone to wander into. Given the relative ‘red light district’ feel for one of the nearby streets, i thought I might encounter some shady people in here. That was not the case though…

    You have to love an abandonment where you can park your car right in the parking lot and go to town…

  • Cangros Transmission

    Cangros Transmission

    Cangros was a transmission shop in the heart of an industrial neighborhood. It was in an old school building with large apartments located above the shop.

    The neighborhood, of course, has changed, the business has gone under, and the building, it too will soon likely be gone.  Interesting from the outside yet totally empty on the inside, building is a metaphor for what has become of this area: A soul-less shadow of its former self.

  • Vulture Capitalists: Auntie Louise

    Vulture Capitalists: Auntie Louise

    So the Chef calls me up with a lead on this old house being taken down. I smell cash in the air, so we meet up with another old school mo fo and go right in that side second floor window.

    Once inside it’s apparently that the place is so money. A stack of big coins makes it worth the trip, loads of free old stuff ices the cake.

    It’s not too hard to tell just what happened here: the owners of this house, Louise and her husband, were very old. X rays found on location testify to this fact. One can guess that the husband, apparently ex military and a city gov employee, died first, eventually followed by his wife.

    In fact, that is the sad part of this story. Here was this couple who lived a long good life, apparently raised at least one child, and here is there house, sold to a developer bent on bulldozing it. Everything it seems was left behind. old furniture, books dating towards the early 1900s, a refrigerator with some tasty cold treats. One can only wonder if their sibling or siblings died an early death or just plain sold the house as is.

    Whatever the case may be, Louise or her husband were pack rats, saving everything right down to the ancient baby carriage.

    Sadly, it is all going into a dumpster. The house ready to be bulldozed.

    It is a sad fate that is humbling, yet as a vulture capitalist, one can only pay tribute and divide up that stack of silver coins and alcohol..