Exploring location files
I’m calling this one SOF gas in tribute to the NE Queens writers that ripped the face off this spot.
Abandoned for a few years now, this gas station is prime real estate for viewing graffiti from passing subways, as well as a reat place for an improved game of drunken soccer on a Saturday night.
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.
Major props to my science lab partner, P-Zak, Esq.
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…
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.
Check out my Abandoned Trains book series, which goes in depth on dozens of abandoned trains spread across the United States.
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.
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.
Anyway-
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.
