Here’s a set of photos showing just some of the Glenwood power plant graffiti. Over the decades, this abandoned power plant became a mecca for writers looking to paint without interference from the police.
Category: Locations
Exploring location files
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NYC Underground LAPP Dance
Surviving a trip into the NYC underground and shooting some quick video and photos is so 1995. Under pressure from imminent death, CHUDS and various people that don’t want you around, the ability to seriously create in this situation is the new standard of excellence.
Major props to my science lab partner, P-Zak, Esq.
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The Blue Bolt Express
Here is the perfect home for those perpetually perturbed by life in New York Above.
Here is where in your darkest hours, the writing on the wall can show you the way.
Here is where boys become men, and where the scared either die a grim death or get over themselves.
Here is heat, hot in the winter and sweltering in the summer.
Here is simplicity: You follow the rules, because death is the only other option.
Here there is only one rule: Survival. Beyond that there are no laws, no heros, no one coming to save you from your demons.
Here is ritual, here is religion. And here the proverbs need not be spoken.
Here is the gateway to Creation. Reinvention. Solitude. Soul building hours alone in the darkness left with nothing but your brain, a camera and a memory card… and the grim reality that yes, sooner or later one of the above will run out…
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Foamer PoBuckerism
Usually when you come across a long line of old railroad equipment, there’s a few possibilities for why it’s there:
1) It’s old and about to be sent to the scrap yard
2) It’s being stored by some museum group pending cash to restore it
3) It’s uhmm… just sitting there…This lineup of mismatched locomotives, passenger cars and former Amtrak baggage cars fall into the latter grouping. They’re all owned by a railroad that doesn’t seem to have any immediate plans for most of this stuff. It’s the equivalent of a buck tooth po’bucker’s lawn – where there’s various cars and appliances scattered about waiting to be fixed or put to use, one of these days.
Ready to see more Dead Trains?
Check out my Abandoned Trains book series, which goes in depth on dozens of abandoned trains spread across the United States.
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The Crushed Office Maze Complex
History:
Sadly this location has no verified history at this time. Rumor is that before it was an office to major corporation, it was used as a bomb factory during WW2. What we can verify though is that the corporation that was located here used the building as its main office until a few years ago. When the company moved out of state, the vast Majority of employees were not transferred and either had to relocate with the company or find new jobs. The 3 building complex was sold to a developer who for some time maintained the property and ran routine patrols around it. Eventually they seemed to have given up on their redevelopment plan and sold it to another party who then left it to rot. Local hooligans and neglect quickly wrecked the placed. Only a gut rebuild could make this property viable again, though in all likelihood demolition is the only option.Adventure:
Entry couldn’t be easier, though whether or not you really want to enter is a whole other subject. The rear buildings are fine, though the main office building was left abandoned with it’s carpeting intact. Carpeting, exposed to the elements, becomes a breeding ground for all sorts of nasty smelling mold. The building itself isn’t much to look at. Trashed offices, tagged walls, broken glass all over. If there were any historic details, they were long removed. The only thing that this place really has going for it is how huge it is – with a maze-like layout one can easily get lost in. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself roaming around trying to figure out how to get back to the point at which to entered. -
Hotbox Stripclub
A few members noticed this club and it sat on a ‘to-do’ list for months. An initial recon run found all the doors locked tight with double layer doors and no windows at all. This should not have pushed this location onto the back burner of the investigations list but it somehow did. Normally such a laps in protocol would never be tolerated but let’s face it, booze money and women are way more interesting than old abandoned buildings – and anyone who says otherwise is a lying sack of cat crap.
Eventually a report landed on my desk about this location – and from all the possible members, it came from a female. According to her there was indeed access . She entered only to find there was a beeping sound from some sort of alarm system. They aborted but were planning to go back. You’d think some of our hyperactive sexually overdriven 20something boys would have lead the pack into this place, but eh… maybe the memo didn’t get on their desks either.
LTV Squad: Now hiring ‘minister of memos’ – please don’t apply, we will find you. At home. While you’re sleeping.
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Abandoned strip clubs are very rare in NYC. Often a club will close, only to reopen a month later under a different name. This one was shut down for over a year, so it seemed clear no one would be reopening this location. With fresh intel on hand we went to take another look.
The access point was perfectly discrete and able to accommodate a team of 4. I personally lead the way inside and confirmed my own suspicion – the alarm was coming from a broken fire alarm panel. At this point it had been beeping for at least a week with no one showing up to turn it off. Clearly no one gave that much of a shit about this place, though the fact that power is still on means someone somewhere is paying the bills.
The club interior proved to be everything you’d imagine – bar with stripper poles on a stage behind it in the center of the building. Behind the stage were all those secret rooms your mom works in. There was a VIP lounge complete with it’s own stained couches and stripper pole.
>But there was something else going on here. In the back there’s a room with a ladder and paint buckets. The bar is coated in dust, but there’s stacks of tools and equipment sitting on it dust free. There’s a jobox locked tight, probably full of pricey power tools.
>Next to a dirty sink behind the bar I find a 2010 yellow pages. Huh. This confirms our suspicions about the power still being on – this place isn’t completely abandoned. That doesn’t really bother any of us, but the extreme heat in here does. The hot summer combined with no windows has made this entire building one big oven. Content with the crappy photos (walls painted black, not really the greatest for photography), we bail out and are pleased to be back on the midnight streets where the temperate is probably around 85… that’s got to be 20 less than inside the box…
Time for more booze. Another night, another mission.
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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. -
McCarren Pool 2003/2004
Wrapping up this week’s series is this set of photos from 2003 and 2004. As you can see, for some bizarre reason the NYC Parks Department wasted a lot of money and paint on priming the entire pool white, and then slapping another coat of deep red paint on the structure. It wasn’t long before people were tagging up here again though…
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McCarren Interiors
Aside from the epic graffiti find, the buildings of McCarren pool supplied a huge amount of decay porn. Sadly though nearly everything in these photos is also gone – victim of the rapidly progressing gut rebuild of the pool.
Basement under the arch
Old refrigerator in the ruined concessions stand in the back.
Basement hallway
Rusted pipes being hauled out.
The ancient coal fired boiler under the arch – this was used to provide hot water to the locker rooms. The muddy waterline shows how deeply it was submerged in rain water while the pool was abandoned.
Ancient sign.
Damaged electrical panel.
