Digital Ink'd

I attempted two times to infiltrate this little church at a three-way intersection and failed miserably. On the third attempt one early cold morning, I found workmen going through the front door with toolboxes and scaffolding past the doorway peeking back at me. According to the developers' plans, common area furniture will come from ceiling beams and the facade schist will have a future in the backyard garden once the senior housing development is completed. The Home Street Presbyterian Church was abandoned in 2009 when funds for boiler repairs were lacking after a furnace fire. The congregation disbanded after internal feuds between the two groups led to dysfunctional maintenance and upkeep. The assembly was finally dissolved in 2011. The church has stood since 1910 when the Foxhurst section of this neighborhood was more suburban. Around this period, the frame houses began to shift into an urban sprawl compromising Italian Catholics and Eastern European...

Open gate, open invitation in my book. Open invitations just scream come right in and explore the place. If open gates give you pause then your thinking wrong because I strolled right in like I owned the place. Entering the doorway I hear the raging waters of a burst pipe filling the basement with drinkable water unknown to the owners and city. Climbing the stairs to my left were oil meters and switch boxes used to dispense and assess how much petroleum oil was leaving the site and on site. To my right was the thrashed records room by the looks of it due to the huge amount of papers scattered all over the ground. Heading upstairs more office space opened up. Better in appearance then downstairs, the office cubicles contained various old computer equipment and bookkeeping records. Nothing of unique note inside an administrative floor of a fuel facility. A three-bay garage attachment.

Starting off hopefully with a series of archive posts from today. For now, it will contain either one or several photographs of various decay and abandonment that will be posted in a full write-up, an undiscovered location, or something from the past, present, or future located in my two-year Lightroom catalog. Or it may never be written up or shared as a full album set. I currently have written up a post from this place but still debating whether to publish it or not. The only first time I have ever been caught exploring abandoned buildings. The pictures from here definitely carry significant emotional and mental weight. One, because I could have been asked to delete my pictures. Two, I could have had a criminal record or not based on a judge's leniency, or lastly having a gun-toting security officer pointing a gun at me. You definitely don't find intact glass in abandoned places and this place certainly had a lot of it. 

When I first saw this bridge I knew I had to come back and shoot from various angles. I am glad I did because I am very proud of the aerial photo above.  A dreamy water background with fall leaves still floating in the water. Giving it an almost star-like appearance against the vertical juxtaposition of the train bridge.  A definite top fave for the year!

Currently on site are ten 50-foot fuel containers. The seven-acre site is under NYC ownership for a long-awaited future park that may be called "Maker Park". Although Bushwick Inlet Park exists down the road. The city envisions a much larger park on this waterfront property to the chagrin of residential developers. Trust, there will be taller buildings close to this park with waterfront views once the building begins. As it stands, no plans have been laid out by the city for when development will begin or the long decontamination of the oil depot will take before any park can be situated here. Bayside Oil Depot has historical roots dating back to the Civil War. Charles Pratt seeing fortune during the beginnings of Pennsylvania oil fields established Astral Oil on the banks of Bushwick Inlet in 1867. Soon other oil refineries dotted the banks of Williamsburg and Greenpoint. Astral Oil was the first modern refinery in the nation and produced what some called th...

Chemical Lane This property once housed a chemical manufacturer over the years that produced the ubiquitous varnish lacquer so prominent in household and commercial applications. Over the years, the site housed many chemical companies that stored a wide array of chemicals in the warehouses situated on the property. Not before long, after sitting for over 20 years a three-alarm fire broke out consuming the wood-framed roof of two of the buildings. Currently, the owners cannot be found regarding the contamination of the soil surrounding the facility. The city is currently looking to condemn the site and transfer the property to a developer who would be on the hook for cleaning up the site.

Am I too late? When the exploration party is over. Front side view Peep that taxi? Just waiting over here to crush stuff. See my mess? On my first arrival at the site, it was becoming dark, and vehicular traffic was heavy up and down. On my second visit, construction crews were digging into the roadway just meters away from the open entrance. On the third and lucky visit, I found the site had been cleaned up and a partial demo of the interior and exterior had occurred. Feeling defeated I headed straight in past the many waiting TLC Uber/Lyft/et al drivers waiting for riders to summon them. Inside was leveled front to back. Nothing remained inside except for dirt and loose piping. At the back of the property, a small back room had been leveled and piled in a heap of rusted metal and building debris. Back of property interior Side rooms or what is left of them. Cleared a path from front to back. One room inside had a lone busted boile...