Digital Ink'd

Rockaway Metals Products (RMP) began as a sheet metal fabrication factory beginning in 1961. RMP occupied the site from 1971 to 1987 leaving a plethora of hazardous waste materials onsite. From 1990 to 2004 the building housed various tenants which even included an auto repair shop. Rockaway Metals a manufacturer of filing cabinets and other metal products closed down in 1987. It was leased a few years ago to different owners who did not manage the 4.85-acre parcel. The 155,000-square-foot building has long been an eyesore and trouble in the neighborhood since its closure. A coastal storm in March 2018 blew debris materials to adjacent properties. Rockaway Metals was acquired by Nassau County in 1995 by tax deed. The county has held onto the property for 22-plus years. In February 2011, the site was damaged by fire and condemned soon thereafter. For more in-depth legal ownership of the property, you can read more below in the source list under U.S. v. 175 INWOOD ASSOCIATES LLP. ...

For weeks, I had been orbiting the perimeter of the impending demolition of the Church of St. Michael and St. Edward, a once revered church in the heart of Fort Greene, like a moth drawn to a flame. The neighborhood, a patchwork of tight project housing, seemed indifferent to the fate of this historic edifice. The intel I had received suggested that entry was as simple as scaling a wooden fence, yet the timing had never felt right. Until one day, it did. With a mission in New Jersey looming, I knew it was now or never. The demolition was advancing at a startling pace, the church's twin steeples already reduced to rubble. The skeletal remains of timber beams and rusted steel frames peeked out from the ruins, a testament to the relentless march of progress. Summoning a surge of courage, I seized a moment of quiet in the bustling housing project and vaulted over the fence. My heart pounded in my chest as I slipped unnoticed into the church grounds. The once grand entrance now stood as...

This place holds a special meaning for me. I’ve visited several times, determined to explore every corner and uncover its secrets. But no matter how hard I tried, I never quite managed to see it all. The main front building, the one closest to the road? Never got inside. The massive cooling building in the back with its giant fans and smaller outbuildings? Missed that, too. And then there was the tank farm—a cluster of 22 rusty tanks tucked away in the upper right corner of the property. For some reason, no one ever took pictures of those tanks, even though they sat quietly in the shadows. I only noticed them recently, flipping through my old research notes. That’s when it hit me: I’d never taken the path that led there, too hesitant to get close to the Trenton-Mercer Airport’s fence line. I wasn’t here to get in trouble. I was here for the peaceful, empty buildings, not to risk getting caught wandering near airport grounds. Still, being there felt like stepping back in time. Walking t...

Within the imposing walls of the Bayside Fuel Depot , also known as the Bushwick Inlet Refinery, eclectic art pieces and vibrant graffiti adorned every available surface, creating a sensory overload that was both chaotic and mesmerizing. The cavernous oil tanks and sprawling rooms of the main building played host to a lethal dose of creativity, transforming the depot into an unlikely graffiti wonderland. I arrived intending to document the refinery’s industrial history but found myself captivated by the dizzying array of colorful art pieces that had claimed the depot as their canvas. Every inch of the immense white walls inside and out was covered in a smorgasbord of rainbow colors, shapes, lettering, and characters. Playful figures from Disney classics stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the abstract, the surreal, and the subversive, forming a visual tapestry that mirrored the diversity of the city itself. In my opinion, the Bayside Fuel Depot was on par with the legendary 5 Pointz graff...

  I have a thing for industrial ruins. Smokestacks, turbine halls, boiler rooms with ceilings high enough to swallow a cathedral. Something about these places pulls at me. So when I first stumbled across English Station, a coal-fired power plant squatting on Ball Island in the Mill River between Fair Haven and Wooster Square, I felt that familiar tug in my chest. It started with a set of old photos from 2012, posted by someone who had slipped inside years before the place became a pilgrimage site for urban explorers. The images stopped me cold. Barrels lined the floors in long, quiet rows. The exterior loomed like a fortress slowly losing a war with time. And then there was the shot that really got me: two men standing on the roof of the structure, grinning wide, the whole New Haven skyline stretching out behind them like a reward for the climb. I wanted in. Within seconds, I had Google Street View open in another tab, scanning for an approach. What I found cooled my enthusiasm fas...