Nearpara Rubber Company: From Tire Reclaiming to Toxic Brownfield

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The Last Days of Nearpara Rubber I smelled it before I saw anything worth photographing. That warm, faintly sweet bite of old rubber, the kind that hits you somewhere between a tire shop and a summer highway, drifted through the first building the moment I stepped inside. The structure was burned out, charred and broken, rubble underfoot. But the smell was alive. And then I saw the pile. In the corner of the room, faded brown and heaped maybe two feet high, was a mound of baby bottle nipples. Dozens, maybe hundreds, of the small rubber tips, just sitting on the floor of a collapsed industrial building in Trenton, New Jersey. I stood there for a moment, genuinely confused, and then kept moving. Nothing like the smell of warmed-over rubber. Twenty minutes later, I understood even less. Through another door passage, I found the main source of the smell: six open metal trailer containers, still loaded with bagged baby bottle nipples, sitting in open air. Bags of them, mountains of bagged n...
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My Führer...

Nazi Germany Adolf Hitler Graffiti Cartoon Face
Underground German American Führer 1 - Buddy, what you looking at?

Underground German American Führer 2

 A very colorful portrait I call the German Hitler. This boxed looking portrait reminds me of the Führer in a whimsical caricature light. I am so pleased to release these never before seen graffiti people rarely see this deep in Brooklyn where I live. It really shows the character and flavor of these unknown artists whose works most people will never know about except those who traverse this graffiti line I frequent. Bringing these artworks to life and spreading it to the masses is a duty. What is so different from a Rembrandt and a Picasso in a museum to a tagged wall filled with such vibrant works of color and composition? I hope you like it as much as I do because it brings a smile to my face trying to figure out what mood and mindset the artist came to creating such pieces.

 Lens Info: Super-Takumar 55mm 1:2 @ f/2

 © Digital Ink'D Photography

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Nearpara Rubber Company: From Tire Reclaiming to Toxic Brownfield

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The Last Days of Nearpara Rubber I smelled it before I saw anything worth photographing. That warm, faintly sweet bite of old rubber, the kind that hits you somewhere between a tire shop and a summer highway, drifted through the first building the moment I stepped inside. The structure was burned out, charred and broken, rubble underfoot. But the smell was alive. And then I saw the pile. In the corner of the room, faded brown and heaped maybe two feet high, was a mound of baby bottle nipples. Dozens, maybe hundreds, of the small rubber tips, just sitting on the floor of a collapsed industrial building in Trenton, New Jersey. I stood there for a moment, genuinely confused, and then kept moving. Nothing like the smell of warmed-over rubber. Twenty minutes later, I understood even less. Through another door passage, I found the main source of the smell: six open metal trailer containers, still loaded with bagged baby bottle nipples, sitting in open air. Bags of them, mountains of bagged n...
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