Exploring location files
This three floor abandoned factory building dated back to the 1950s. It’s typical modernist styled exterior made it a rather plain looking addition to a neighborhood full of similar abandoned factory buildings. Over the years it served many companies, before being bought in 2011 for 5 million dollars. That’s a lot of cash for stout factory with no expansion possibilities, so demolition to make way for yet another condo building was definitely coming next.
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The Herman B. Snow Rehabilitation Center was the most modern on the Hudson River Psych Center campus. Built in 1971, it was located right along the old railroad right of way that most explorers used to access the hospital grounds, it was also the most accessible. This accessibility made it a prime target for vandals. This entire page is dedicated to much of the graffiti found here in 2012.
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Here is a story that will frustrate anyone who has ever been tasked with trying to get to JFK airport from anywhere in NYC. Instead of reusing a branch of the LIRR which was shut down back in the 1962 (when LIRR was the red-headed stepchild of the Pennsylvania railroad – which looted its cash), the current governor of New York is backing a plan to convert the tracks into a park.
The Glenwood power plant has long been a favorite place for us to visit. Abandoned since the 1960s, these massive buildings have deteriorated significantly over the decades.
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On the one hand you could say these are not ‘exploring’ photos. On the other hand there is the fact that they were nearly all taken in Rockaway just after the sun rose on the Tuesday morning after the super-high tide brought in by Hurricane Sandy caused so much destruction. At the time, NYPD was blocking all non first responders from entering the peninsula. Quite literally we had to sneak onto the peninsula when there was a momentary shift change at the bridge checkpoint.
What we found you can see in the photos above, though photos can never grasp the smells of still smoldering fires, the eerie silence only being broken by harsh gusts of wind tossing debris through the streets and the sirens of fire trucks racing to and from the main land to refuel.
Rockaway, as we knew it, is no more. What reminds is a flooded out mess. Residents will have to decide if it’s worth the thousands of dollars to fix each home, in face of the scientific fact that the ocean is rising and global warming will eventually put the entire peninsula under water – perhaps sooner than later.
As a thank you to veterans I offer this photo: what you’re looking at is most likely a very very old (WW1) machine gun placement I stumbled across today at the old Ft. Tilden (on Rockaway) – This concrete foundation has been under sand for decades, and Hurricane Sandy washed away all of that sand covering it. It lasted through the storm (along with all the other old bunkers) even while the road along the beach crumbled away and is now completely destroyed. The dune that separated the road from the beach has also completely washed away.
As for this gun placement – let’s just say it was built to last by men that didn’t compromise.
This gun placement was one of two, connected to the bunker seen in the above photos – and was known as ‘Battery Kessler’. We’ll be posting a whole lot about Ft. Tilden sometime in the next year.
The bunkers at Ft. Tilden also survived, all very much intact. As you can see one of them (directly behind the gun turret) now has trees stuffed in it from the water that flowed through.
The storm also up/uncovered a long stick of railroad track. This likely came from somewhere on the Tilden property, given how old it looks and the fact that Ft. Tilden once had it’s own military railroad. In different areas this long buried track is also now exposed, revealing rotted out cross-ties and rusted railroad spikes.
More on that in the coming months when we give a deeper dive into Ft. Tilden history.
The Grand Central trolley loop is one of the least known, least talked about, and least documented abandoned tunnel segments in the NYC subway system. These rare photos show the present day (2012) state of this obscure location.
