History:

Sheba Exports was the final resident of this now completely dilapidated building. Very early in its history, this warehouse was part of a marine terminal. Today, you'd never be able to tell from what's left of the place. The exterior is shrouded on scaffolding, and the majority of the property is tucked behind a fence.

Sheba Exports was in the clothing business, in a very odd way. They exported used clothing to other countries (primarily Pakistan according to the records we found). Second hand clothing isn't just something the cool kids get at their local thrift store. In some parts of the world, it's the only way many people can afford clothing at all. At some point Sheba's went out of business though, and they left behind a warehouse still filled with secondhand clothing that was baled into huge 6x6 foot cubes. Taking a guess from the records we found and the clothing in these bundles, it appears this operation ended sometime in the late 1980s. Leftover inventory was abandoned in place - much like the massive clothing piles once found at Greenpoint Terminal Market. Perhaps the market for secondhand clothing collapsed around the same time?

Today, the remaining set of buildings sit condemned and decaying.







Adventure:

Snip, Snip, Snip. Bold are those who love to cut holes in fences, and bolder still are those who cut chains off doors in broad daylight. This is what real exploring is all about.

The plywood door creaked open with a throaty rumble, the froggy auditory excitement soon replaced by the overpowering, punch-you-in-the-face stench of old, wet fabric. Let me tell you, wet fabric might look hot on a woman but holy shit when you bundle up pallets full of the stuff and leave it sitting for a decade or two, wow. There's no words for a smell like that.

The absolute darkness of the first floor is impressive. There are no windows, and what lays in front of you is a maze of tall, fairly neatly stacked clothing bundles. Think of a corn maze, only one with a distinct smell. Eventually, after what seemed like forever, we found stairs leading up.

Here the floors are bad. You can see the floorboards rotting through in some sections - small holes appear. The walls of the stairs are tin - one of those architectural elements you just don't see anymore.

Second floor, Ladies Lingerie.

Actually, no. The second floor is disgusting. The drop ceiling has collapsed, leaving a slushy stick tacky coating on the floor and anything left above it.



The third floor ironically is much more interesting and significantly less disgusting. It's up here that we found some interesting old files, rare graffiti, and piles - not so much of clothing as what seemed like homeless person bits. Useless crap. Chairs, bow ties, toys, and yes, the occasional hole in the floor.










Content that we've seen what we need to see, read the files we wanted to read, and had sex with your sister in the back room, we're off. Back down the stairs and out into the daylight. By now it seems our bold and brazen entry tactics have not gone unnoticed. We make our way off the scaffold, onto the street, and back to the car. We drive a few blocks and loop back around - at which point we see the police have rolled up and are looking around. We were probably inside for at least a half hour, so either the response time was very slow (if we were seen going in), or incredibly fast (if seen coming out).

And so it goes. Another adventure, another escape. This is the nature of exploring. It's not for everyone, but for us... it's routine...

This place rocks out with it's burning toasty cock out.

I say that because in 2007, it was the scene of a large arson fire, though you'd be hard pressed to find obvious signs of fire damage by visiting here today. Nature has really taken over, washing away the smoke damage  and growing a virtual forest across the warehouse floor.

At the time of the fire, the local fire chief was quoted in the press as saying "It is a very dangerous building/ Basically, it's a shell." Today, it's still a shell, though the danger is clearly exaggerated.

Throughout the years this building serviced many roles, from paint factory to dirt mall. In the 1980s it became vacant and soon began to fall apart - eventually landing in the advanced state of decay you see here. The scant few useful walls have become a canvas for both toys and truly gifted writers alike. It's future, like much of it's past, remains somewhat unknown, though it isn't hard to imagine a bulldozer, landscaping, construction, and a new shitty mini-mall taking its place. This is, afterall, NYC Suburbia - a place not known for valuing its history or even its future for that matter.

I came here to rectify
BROOKLYN ZOO, terrify
-Old Dirty Bastard

Long on the to-do list, inspecting this deep tunnel vent shaft eventually came due. If you're looking for an awesome story of sneaking into this place covertly, you're shit out of luck. If you're looking for dramatic endings, well then keep on reading there, chesty.

Walking right in and down along the cold hard tracks, we're impressed by the darkness. Most subway tunnels have at least a few light bulbs. This one has nothing, for what seems like miles. It's just you, your compadres, the darkness, and the sounds of dripping water pouring in the distance like a chorus of drunken bickering kardashians spreading their legs and rubbing their clits.

What, too much? Please. This is a humid dark wet tunnel, so sexual commentary isn't just for fun - it's downright required. Besides, a train could roll up on your ass in seconds down here, flashing your life before your mere mortal eyes.

We arrive at the vent, which is not a place for mere mortals. Indeed, it's been rather well secured over the years, so you better be a god of escape after entering. There's no way not to set off the motion sensor at the top of the stairs here, and even if you do, there's like 3 more on the way up. Every landing has another fucking motion sensor, and did I mention this is a deep, deep tunnel? You may as well just dial up the subway operations center on one of the phones in the tunnel below and tell them you're doing bad things - because within seconds, they know.

And you, if you're smart, you know. You know all these sensors must mean there's something around here that they're positively obsessed about keeping people like you from getting to see. So you run though the stairs, peering into nooks as you go, and stepping carefully and nerve-rackingly over the dilapidated, collapse-tastic see through catwalks which are perfect for blowing large gusts of wind upward as trains rip buy below at upwards of 60mph.

Click Click Click. Flash Flash Flash. There's no available light here. You don't come here to take artsy photos. You do however come here to take photos of art - which it seems is exactly what they don't want you to get to see. This place has a lot of it - left over relics from when this vent shaft was a hangout spot for anyone with the brass balls to come down here. The best stuff is now behind a fence, that is strangely well mended, and running from floor to ceiling no less. Talk about obessive security.

Eye on your watch, we know it's time to go - because there is no time to be down here anymore. Up still more stairs, popping another two sensors as we go. The hatch to the street swings open into the rainy summer sky. On the corner, not 50 feet away, waiting at the traffic light in plain view is an MTA workbum truck.

You stare towards it baffled. Of all the fucking luck... there's no way they could have gotten here that fast.

And no, they didn't. A split second later the light changes, and they're on their way, strangely not having noticed people coming out of the hatch right-fucking-there.

Luck has been pushed far further that on your average night of tunneling already, so we disappear in separate directions into the darkness.

Read More Here

When several graffiti artists told me there was an abandoned locomotive stuffed far back behind rows of cars at a nearby rail yard - seemingly abandoned. Given the high value of these large American made beasts, it seemed rather unlikely - but sure enough, there it was.
Read More Here

Stumbling awake, with a migraine huge enough I could carry it with both hands. Stomach acid on overload. The bathroom is bright with the noontime sun blazing through the skylight above. Our newly rescued tiny kitten, who has temporarily moved into the bathroom, tries to sit between me and the toilet. I muster just enough energy to slide him away before the inevitable hangover-like situation. How the hell did it come to this?

Read More Here

More than just another synagogue that went bust, but one with enough drama for a feature length movie and a series of matching court battles.
Read More Here

There's no solid evidence that the Edmund Fitzgerald ever docked here, but it's entirely possible.
Read More Here

When the LIRR upgraded their diesel fleet, they scrapped a lot of cars. Some were sold off intact. Former LIRR diesel coaches turn up in the oddest of places. Just driving down the road and looking out the window in Northern Wisconsin and there sits an ex-LIRR diesel coach along with some other derelict equipment. If you manage to find your way here, bring tick repellent.

For the better part of a decade, at the east end of Hope street, lay an impressively large industrial building that seemed utterly hopeless.



History:

The exact industrial history of this warehouse is, sadly, a bit of a mystery to me at the moment. What we do know is that in the 1980s it was mostly in use as artists lofts and small businesses.



The lofts were, at the time, on the very fringe. A comment via Brownstoner tells the story well:





I am one of the original tenants who moved into Hope Street in 1993 - after the last real estate crash. Kalamon Dolgin, specifically Neil Dolgin couldn't give it away fast enough. He even put in gas jet heaters so I could live there. No one wanted to live there, and I had been living in Williamsburg since 1988, so this was a step up. I had crack addicted prostitutes passed out on my door, There was incredible drug dealing, murders outside my window and where the gallery is on the corner of Hope and Marcy was a luncheonette where the retired guys would gather, there were scads of feral cats, the first pigeons with West Nile started dying on the roof, and also I watched 9/11 and the Twin Towers go down from that roof. A former porn actress who wound up doing business deals with Dolgin (one slut to another I liked to think) lived there with her homicidal boyfriend. We were terrorized by the super, the former gang leader of the neighborhood who stole our packages, forged our checks and occasionally attacked tenants who did not know-tow to him, My floor was 6000 square feet and over the years we had a gallery, sculptors, artists, actors, writers, notable people. We really, really used the space. The temperature in the winter in the uninsulated building would go down to the 40's. We bundled up in sweaters and dealt with it.



Also, this was one of the staging grounds to rewrite the NY City amended loft law, which almost, but did not quite pass though the bill was written and it went all the way up to what was then was Governor Pataki, Joe Bruno and Sheldon Silver, but in the way of horsetrading, our bill was traded away at the last moment. It was a good fight, we lost but had a number of planning meetings there with the bill's lawyers, and rezoning happened and we all got evicted. The water got turned off, electric, you name it. A huge number of the people in that building left NY, not all, but a lot of them. We did not receive a buy out. We did go on rent strike and that helped pay the legal fees.



The guy who bought it for 26 million for Dolgin (it had been the first building in their empire, as Old Man Dolgin let everyone know he had shoveled coal) was a decent sort who lost his shirt. He was a small time developer who got in over his head. I often wonder how it went for him, because obviously he got bankrupted.





The last line of the comment refers to how often the property changed hands in the last 5 years. With so much money vested, won and lost via these various 'developers', it was a given that sooner or later some kind of residential conversion would happen with this property. We'll get to that in a moment.



Aside from being one of Williamburg's early artist loft spaces, this building also made the news when it was repeated tagged up by then-infamous street artist Neckface.For further reading on that fiasco, and how the gangsta building super wanted to kill him for it, check out this CityNoise post - which saved a copy of the NY Daily News article



The hope street warehouse was also home to the "65 hope st. gallery" - which, if you google, returns loads of results for artists who exhibited their work in this space.



On the business side, I was only able to track down one company that resided in this location: Z & L Trading Corp - which apparently was a tannery (!). As one customer commented: "I have used Z & L Trad Corp. 65 Hope street Brooklyn NY 11211 for tanning bears for rugs. I have had good luck with them as long as the bear is well taken care of in the first place."



As a personal footnote, I have vague memories of attending some party in this building while it was still lofts. The fact that I don't quite recall the details probably tells of what a good time this place must have been during the newly gentrified years, before the evictions.



Adventure:

Located on a previously deserted street, this building was always easy to get into. Completely emptied of everything, this building presented itself as one of the few rare utterly boring locations in NYC. Nothing really interesting to photograph, a decent if not predictable view from the rooftop, and little by way of interesting graffiti (outside of some stuff in the basement). The fact that I came and went from this place numerous times over several years without bothering to post about it show how uninspired this place was from a illegal partying/exploring perspective.



Present:

As of my time in writing this, work has finally begun on the residential conversion. The good news is that this majestic old industrial building will not be torn down. The bad news is that it will soon house 117 one bedroom and studio "apartments". It will also only have 11 parking spaces. I guess they are aiming to rent it onto to unshowered, bicycling riding hipsters. The fact that the community board rubber stamped such a short amount of parking for a building that will probably contain at least 200 residents is a little ridiculous. Basically they're converting it into a dorm. Surely they will need to pack in as many residents as they can to make some money off this building. A few owners and many millions lost in speculation, this building is a sad tribute to the real estate industry in NYC, though with it's exterior still intact, it will also serve as a reminder towards the industrial days of NYC, and the bad old days of the neighborhood - when crack and gangs were king and the white people were either bold or stupid.