Urban Landscaped

Baby, it's icy outside!

2011-02-02T13:10:00.006-05:00

This winter morning, my neighborhood looked like an outdoor skating rink. I slid with every step even though I was wearing my Sorels. It was miserable. Likewise, I look at the ice cascading out of the windows in this Vergara photo, and I feel the cold. Taken in the Henry Horner Homes in Chicago in 1995, this photo speaks to the dead cold of winter as it turns to spring. The ground around the building is mostly ice-free. The ice coming out of this abandoned building's windows is the coldest of the cold. There's movement, but not the kind you can see, at least not before the ice crashes to the ground in its final resignation. I hope my Bronx neighborhood sees this moment soon.

It's been a couple of posts since I've mentioned Vergara, but whenever I research urban exploration photography that I admire, it often begins with me Googling his name. This is how I found the above photograph, from a short Slate blog post from January 15, 2010: "American Ruins: Nature is taking back these buildings." Truth is that a small Vergara slideshow of this sort is nice - in spite of the now often-seen images of the Packard Plant and former Michigan Central Railroad Station -- but I really hope that somebody is shooting for an extensive book of nature taking back buildings. I could look at those photos all day. Would that still be ruin porn or would it be something else? Hmmm...

My Google search also turned up another 2010 Vergara media reference, this one from December 27th in a Times blog post titled "What was your worst travel experience of the year?" Urban explorers often have fantastic stories about unexpected things that happen while they're out in the field, so to speak. But the ruins are an urban explorer's destination. Vergara's awful travel experience is quite pedestrian. Here's an excerpt:

Realizing we were really stuck the driver let us off in a place I could not identify because of the snow, the wind and the cold.
As I got off my feet sank almost up to my knees and the wind blew snow on my face. I could not read the street signs.
I learnt how difficult it is to carry a suitcase and a heavy bag full of Christmas presents when there is a foot of fresh snow on the ground.
Suitcases don't roll on snow.
Hands freeze when uncovered.
On my hair snow turned to ice.
And I didn't know where I was going.

Stay warm, everybody, unless you want to be cold!

Photo caption: Henry Horner Homes, 2051 W. Lake St., Chicago, 1995. Photo by Camilo Jose Vergara.

word seeks, yes, word seeks

2011-02-01T23:42:00.005-05:00

I can't help it; I love the Word Seeks puzzles. Yeah, it's kind of mindless; yes, I should be writing. But during my 25-minute train ride to work, I'm lucky if I'm not sleeping.

So, imagine my surprise when I came across Puzzle #69 in the Super Word Seeks issue dated October 15, 2010. The name of the puzzle is "...Towns". "Abandoned U.S. boom towns are monuments to the rough-and-tumble days of the Old West. Among the most famous of these ghost towns is Virginia City, Nevada, which had been a mining metropolis in the late 1800s." Funny, I hadn't thought of Virginia City and Jerome, AZ as the precursor to Detroit and Gary, Indiana. OK, well maybe I had, just a little bit. Print out the photo from above and search for the words "deserted", "ruins", "explore", and "tumbleweeds"!

For a listing of ghost towns around the country, visit the fine website www.ghosttowns.com. Did you know that ghost towns were this common?!

European Health Spa

2010-12-05T21:02:00.011-05:00

For years, we've been driving down Westchester County's Central Park Avenue, and I've told myself that one day, I'd stop and take photos of the European Health Spa in Scarsdale. Last month, that day finally came. Husband, daughter, and I had a surprisingly good time for an exploration that wasn't natural in its nature and one that we explored in a surface way. As you can see below, daughter now likes to imitate the gestures of statues, which is what really made this pit stop interesting. And, of course, getting her in a "No Trespassing" photo. It's obvious that at one point, the European Health Spa was "visionary" for its creative use of architecture on a strip mall street. But now plants have taken over in much of the inside, and upon a closer look, that fantastic statue is plastic. No wonder it hasn't been taken by vandals. I found a post about this abandoned site dated 2004. I'm curious to see how long it will be before this buiding actually gets demo'd.

2009's UE book of the year

2010-02-10T13:04:00.017-05:00

If you're interested in urban exploration literature, you're already aware of Christopher Payne's photography book Asylum: Inside the Closed World of State Mental Hospitals. Released in late September (2009) by The MIT Press, Asylum seemed to attract more publicity due to its inclusion of an Oliver Sacks essay, but Amazon states that it also won the 2010 Ken Book Award presented by the National Alliance on Mental Illness of New York City Metro (NAMI-NYC Metro). For UE literature followers, it seems to be furthering the trend of UE subject-themed works, ie: photos featuring cans containing cremated human remains, gas station photo essays, and online visual encyclopedias of abandoned theaters.

Although part of UE photography is undeniably the beauty of ruins, there is a significant benefit derived from these subject-themed works. UE photography is shifting from being viewed as an artistic aesthetic and being used as a historical resource.

These UE subject-themed works are serving as journalism, but one that's aesthetically pleasing. Documenting ruins is now valued on a more mainstream level. Like any other genre of photography, the photographer engages in the activity for a variety of reasons; it might be about the modernist aesthetics to one; the photographic act for another. But documentation of what once was is arguably the most important aspect.

Oliver Sacks addresses this topic in the last, lengthy paragraph of his essay. Most of the essay provides a context only possible with works: the history of lunatic asylums, institutionalization, deinstitutionalization. But in his last paragraph, he states "One must not be too romantic about madness, or the madhouses in which the insane were confined...Payne is a visual poet as as well as an architect in training...His photographs are beautiful images in their own right, and they also pay tribute to a sort of public architecture that no longer exists. They focus both on the monumental and the mundane, the grand facades and the peeling paint."

Payne's essay provides a more specific context for the reader. He spends quite a bit of time explaining "the Kirkbride Plan", illustrating it with a four-part photograph and the floorplan of Massachusetts' Danvers Hospital. (The Kirkbride Plan is a design that was used by many mental hospitals and consists of a central administration building with numerous attached pavilions, built in a V formation.) Paynes' "Afterword" is a more personal recount of his experiences and includes beautiful photos of Danvers' demolition. Within the photos, Payne adds a few words as well; his paragraph about "The Quintessential View" is wonderful.

But what of the photos? As expected, they're provoking, thoughtful, and pleasing. A combination of exterior and interior shots, black & white and color photography, they show both the absence and presence of the patients. The buildings have a physical grandeur and importance that conflicts with their abandonment.

So, Asylum is 2009's UE book of the year, mostly because it is one of the few UE books to get mainstream recognition but also because it sheds light on what UE photography often means to the reader and viewer: an edgy, catchy, easy way to learn our history.

A couple of related links:

The New York Times' David W. Dunlap has a nice summary of the book, along with a slide show.

Amazon is so huge now that it's often accurate in regards to rare, out-of-print books. And the customer reviews are pretty great. This details Payne's previous book.

Sewell Chan's article focuses on Queens' Creedmoor Psychiatric Center.

Payne's photographic series on North Brother Island can be accessed here on his official website.

my 2010 calendar

2010-01-30T20:00:00.012-05:00

For the last couple of years, my wall calendar of choice has been the Environmental Art calendars from greenmuseum.org . Unless environmental art is your expertise, there are many relatively unknown artworks highlighted (one per month). Greenmuseum.org is also a wonderful museum site featuring the work of many. (Of note, Greenmuseum.org does indeed exist only online.)

Environmental art is more than Andy Goldsworthy, Robert Smithson, and Christo, and a lot of the work is much more complex. Some of the pieces featured in the 2010 calendar hit on an immediate and seemingly uncomplicated level: for example, Nicole Dextras' Yucca Prom Dress (2005) and Ilkka Halso's Rollercoaster (2004) (which, for the record, I find fascinating).

My favorite work in the 2010 calendar is multi-layered, ie: hits on the "immediate" level but also has numerous other concepts, statements, and implications within the work. Gilles Bruni and Marc Babarit's The Greenhouse and the Shed (2002) is March's art of choice, but I couldn't wait until March to post about it, as I sit here in January in New York and dream about springtime and walking in a green great outdoors.

I'm including the text included in the calendar; as you'll see, there's a lot of information about the art in the calendar in addition to the provocative artworks and photography. If you like to intepret art without any commentary whatsoever, stop reading now and avoid the spoilers....

The Greenhouse and the Shed
Gilles Bruni and Marc Babarit, dead Picea abies cones, boughts and branches, Corylus avellana branches, wire, stones, horticultural protective netting, Val di Sella forest, Italy, 2002.

For nearly twenty years, French artists Gilles Bruni and Marc Babarit have collaborated on experimental outdoor installations, combining agriculture, ecology, architecture and photography. A fallen Norway spruce tree on a slop of the Val di Sella forest in Italy provided them with an unexpected temporary world to explore and transform.

"We are 'sentenced' to share with the plants, the ladybug, the rat, the cloud that passes by, the night that falls, the cold, the rain," the artists say. "Thus we think that we have to find the ways toward a renegotiation of our relationships to the world, and that this renegotiation can, in particular, be done through art: we never actually work in neutral places, we have to take into account a third party with whom we must compromise."

On this Italian forest hillside, death created a space for rebirth, allowing the artists to propose a new order: "casting a net over the summit to protect the planting, protecting the cones to fertilize the compost."

Once the planting and protective structures were almost complete, "after waiting for clouds to appear, on a heavy but clear day in the valley," they took this final photograph, giving the tree another way to live on beyond the forest.

children's book recommendations

2010-01-14T21:14:00.022-05:00

Children are curious, inquisitive, and constantly on the lookout for new people, places, things, and ideas. Most parents love this aspect of raising children, as do I. This exploration encompasses everything in our seen and unseen world, so it makes sense that there would be a few children's books that touch upon urban exploration, even in tangential ways.

In A Curious Garden, (2009) by Peter Brown, a young boy named Liam unwittingly changes a "very dreary" city into a green utopia by exploring an abandoned elevated railway track and turning it into a garden.

He was wandering around the old railway, as he did from time to time, when he stumbled upon a dark stairwell leading up to the tracks. The railway had stopped working ages ago. And since Liam had always wanted to explore the tracks, there was only one thing for the curious boy to do. Liam ran up the stairs, pushed open the door, and stepped out onto the railway.

Inspired greatly by NYC's High Line, The Curious Garden encourages children to explore, to do, and to enjoy the great outdoors. I plan on reading this book to Charlotte until she understands its messages. The illustrations are quite wonderful, including the old dreary "before" scenes.

Up Above & Down Below (2006) by Sue Redding is a book that my nineteen month-old will have to grow into, as she doesn't yet understand that there is something "below" every visible "above" world. Many above/below scenarios are illustrated (in a fresh, modern way), in both the man-made (city streets/subway platform; theater stage/under the stage) and natural (the Arctic/water below the ice; jungle/ground) environments. I hope to see the look on Charlotte's face as she finally understands the under/above concept, and I hope that it doesn't involve monsters underneath her bed.

The most frequent type of children's urban exploration book would have to be "animals-in-architecture" genre, as I've found two of these books so far. Architecture ANIMALS (1995) by Michael J. Crosbie and Steve Rosenthal is a board book with photos and accompanying poems for animals depicted in architecture country-wide. For example, The Owl Cafe in Albuquerque, New Mexico is photographed, and its accompanying poem reads:

Who lives in the desert/In company most fowl/Who watches in neon/Who indeed, this horned owl.

An elephant, duck, swan, stork, squirrel, and walruses are among the other found animals.

Urban Animals (2009) by Isabel Hill differentiates itself by featuring sites only in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Two photos for each site are included, one showing the the animal on the building's facade and then a close-up of the depicted animal. The poetic text itself also provides context:

Over an entrance they shimmer and glow, art deco seahorses stand in a row.
Even if you're "stuck" inside with your dear child, you can share a sense of exploration. Until, of course, they're old enough to go on a physical exploration with you to some of these sites or others.

visiting The Christmas House

2009-12-16T21:01:00.016-05:00

When I was young, one of my favorite Christmas activities was going to this Christmas building in New Jersey. Everything was Christmas, and it was about a half hour of walking through Christmas scene after Christmas scene. My grandparents took my brother and I, so it was also "dress up" day. After all, you couldn't go to the Christmas building without dressing up in your best outfit!

So it made me very happy to find the Bronx version of my Christmas building, and that is The Christmas House, located in Pelham Gardens. I've been noticing The Christmas House for years now; even when it's not Christmas season, the pink paint and styling is seen, and sensed, from about a quarter of a mile away. With a toddler in tow this year, we had to visit it at night, when we could see the house in all its nighttime lighting and glamour.

Unfortunately, not all of the glamour was visible during our visit; since it'd rained a couple of days earlier, there was still a bit of dampness, and one of the family's daughters/installation creators was outside vacuuming the side of the house's concrete pink floor when we arrived. And most of the life-sized figures were wrapped in plastic. There is such an effort made on this installation (each figure repainted every year; $1,000 weekly electricity bills during the viewing season; etc.) that it's only completely visible when there's not a chance that it's going to rain.

Since almost all of the mannequins/models/figures had clear plastic wrap around them, a few questions came to mind: Since this is such an over-the-top, gaudy display, does the plastic wrap actually help me enjoy the installation better? Is this outsider art? Are the people who live here insane? What percentage of people who visit this house think it's beautiful? Why?!

I have a relative who LOVES sculpture that looks like The Christmas House. The over-use of pastel shades conveys delusional optimism. My husband says that the color palette is perhaps Victorian. He also says that a theory recently emerged that Roman statues and sculptures were also brightly painted.

Of course, another obsession illustrated at The Christmas House is the "importance" of celebrities. While talking to the daughter, she matter-of-factly told me "who" was inside, waiting to come out: Michael, Elizabeth, Brigitte, and more. To me, the models partying behind the glass sliding door has always been the most bizarre part of this installation, having nothing to do with Christmas and everything to do with status quo. (The middle-aged daughter also expressed that it would always be "Hollywood".)

I'll be back next year. The daughter gave us the house's phone number so that we could call ahead and find out when all of the mannequins are uncovered and outside, so as not to waste a trip. But I'm just as happy to see them wrapped in plastic, living life fully without regards to time, but physically looking "caught in the past".

would-be P Diddy employees go urban exploring

2009-12-11T20:33:00.007-05:00

I work PR for an organization based on urban exploration, and we've received numerous "press requests" over the years.

One of the more non-relevant ones we've recently received was a request from a producer of I Want to Work for Diddy (season 2). I'd seen a few episodes of this show when the request was made, and I had a difficult time imagining how supplying this reality show with a space would be good PR for my organization. Yes, many of our "press requests" are actually requests for our free service of "location scounting" (as if).

So when I saw contestants running through a dark tunnel during a commercial for the show, I knew that this was the segment that we had been called about.

The segment lasted less than five on-air minutes. Each contestant ran through dark tunnels until they found a note from Diddy. This action supposedly showed Diddy each person's commitment and ability to get through a "scary situation".

It was pretty stupid, and I'm glad we didn't participate.

I'm not including hyperlinks in this blog post. You'll have to Google "I Want to Work for Diddy" to find information on the show.

Concrete Plant Park

2009-11-30T20:27:00.018-05:00

A great article about decommissioned train stations in the Bronx ran in yesterday's Times. Three stations were featured: the Westchester Avenue station, the Morris Park station, and the Hunts Point Avenue station. I had already seen the Morris Park and Hunts Point stations in person, so of particular interest was the Westchester Avenue station, which is also the only one that hasn't been functionally recycled in some fashion. (Morris Park is now a gun club, and Hunts Point contains neighborhood retail outlets.)

But the really interesting story was semi-buried and mentioned briefly:

A trip to the Westchester avenue station is worth the cab fare, in part because right next door is Concrete Plant Park, a combination green space and industrial archaeology project that runs along the Bronx River. Two sides of the station are visible from the street, and two sides are visible on the park side, for a 360-degree view of this train wreck of decay.

So, let me get this right -- an abandoned train station and an urban archaeological site in the same place, in the Bronx?! How could I not immediately visit?

(note: This is an easy Bronx location to visit. The park is located right at the Whitlock Avenue subway station on the 6 line; the park entrance itself is at Westchester Avenue and the Sheridan Expressway.)

Concrete Plant Park is a non-typical name for a green space, but it seems that things are headed in a more organic direction when it comes to NYC parks. Just like the High Line, effort was made to preserve a site's uniqueness. Highly-stylized yet organic-looking seating, wildflowers, and the use of stone landscaping create a sense of calm while accentuating the inherent historical industrial component of the locale. Yay, New York City Department of Parks & Recreation!

Of course, a view of a body of water on a sunny day also helps. Looking just beyond the water, a park visitor sees a group of graffiti'd building. In the center of the park are various concrete plant fixtures, recently painted over with RustOleum (or at least that's what it looks like). The Gowanus Canal also came to mind as an aesthetically-similar project.

A lot of stories already detail the acreage and costs associated with this park, which will be part of the Bronx Greenway (our household is eagerly awaiting the completion of this project, so that we can easily bike through bigger swaths of the Bronx and Westchester County). All I want to convey is my feeling of happiness at discovering Concrete Plant Park. Connecting the Hunts Point and Soundview neighborhoods, I hope that the locals see the Park as the gem that it is. Taggers already got one of the chess tables (Really, they can't go after a bigger challenge?! Tagging a table is lame.), and we saw only three people in the park during our visit. (Two walked though the park together and one spent a considerable amount of time taking in his surroundings.) But it seems like a lot of events are held in the park during warmer seasons (there is a kayak launch), and I look forward to returning. A few child-focused details would've been nice, but there's a lot to take in/see/do. Still, the Parks logo located at the top of one of the towers made me chuckle.

Vergara exhibition at the New-York Historical Society

2009-07-14T07:01:00.015-04:00

Urban Landscaped readers know that I'm a fan of Camilo José Vergara's photographs and books. Vergara has a distinct viewpoint blending UE photography, sociology, and street photography, and he's author of two of my favorite books American Ruins and Unexpected Chicagoland. But his work hasn't been shown on museum walls for a good couple of years in NYC; I missed that party in the late 1990s and early millennium.

Harlem 1970-2009: Photographs by Camilo José Vergara was up at the New-York Historical Society through last Saturday, July 11th. I saw the show on its last day, or I would've posted earlier.

I had incorrectly assumed that Harlem, 1970-2009 would primarily consist of Vergara's "storefront" series, ie: his shots of the same storefront over a period of time (ie: 2038 5th Avenue 1992, 1996, 1999, 2005). I really like this series and saw him talk about it once over a private lunch gathering at The New York Public Library (and I received a place mat of the above series as a souvenir!). But a lot of this work is available on Vergara's Invincible Cities website, and I wasn't chomping at the bit to see it on the wall.

Instead, Harlem, 1970-2009 demonstrated Vergara's mix of photography with a wide variety of styles and subject matter. (Looking at the dates of the work, it also seems that Vergara might've shot quite a bit specifically for the show.) Storefronts, as the section was called, was a small part of the exhibition and consisted of only six groupings (one of which is reproduced on my place mat). Other sections were titled Transformations, Heart of Harlem, Religion, Landmarks and Benchmarks, Graphics, and Obama. If anything, Vergara tried to cover too much territory, covering forty years of Harlem in the one hundred photos on display.

Street photography started the exhibition in a rather calm, understated way. Thankfully, it was assumed that "Harlem" was a known entity; no paragraphs based on the historical migration of people to its area. Storefronts warmed the viewer up to representation through inanimate objects and landscape. Transformations, my favorite section, followed. Transformations consisted of diptychs and triptychs, mainly slightly aerial, of specific intersections , ie: Frederick Douglass Boulevard between West 134th and West 135th Street (1993 and 2008) and Frederick Douglass and West 143rd Street (1988, 2001, and 2007). Parking lots and independent fish markets give way to office buildings with ground level Duane Reade and Chase Bank locations. It's a zoomed-out version of Storefronts and Vergara's answer to Mark Klett's Rephotographic Survey Project from the late 1970s. (I'm not even close to tiring of rephotography.)

The only weak link in this section was the confusing diptych of Untitled (Harlem Welcomes President Clinton), 2001 and Untitled (Marathon), 2008. While Vergara often doesn't rephotograph in a precise manner (he doesn't take out the GPS like Klett does), these two locales seemed disparate and needed additional information for the viewer. Does this duo convey a divestment of Harlem because the 2008 photo has a boarded-up building in the foreground? I don't know. But I bet that Vergara, who holds an M.A. in Sociology from Columbia, had ideas about this.

Graphics featured murals (not graffiti, which has been featured in many shows recently) and was interesting. But fascinating was Vergara's narrative, in words, accompanying the images. In just a few sentences, Vergara dissected Harlem's mural trends from the last 40 years: 1970s murals were "angrily condemning racism and slavery"; "depictions of deceased drug dealers and their victims were popular" in the 1980s and 1990s. "Today the facades of buildings in Harlem advertise such products as gin, beer, Old Navy clothing, BMW sport cars, sneakers, black TV shows or schools, and rappers." Vergara's conversation with a building superintendent is summarized on a label accompanying a photo of a MLK mural located behind garbage cans (Coincidentally,the two men talked on MLK Day). A recent ad for 50 Cent's Formula 50 water is accompanied by labels claiming that 50 Cent and P Diddy are Harlem's current figureheads.

The Religion section of the exhibition featured photos taken from 2007 through 2009; there were photographs of churches and people (in their Sunday finest). Vergara has done the church beat before (see How the Other Half Worships). "Although there are over 300 congregations in Harlem today, many of the smaller ones have closed or moved, and Harlem is no longer an incubator of struggling churches."

The photographs in Landmarks and Benchmarks were not my favorite of Vergara's work, but there were a lot of interesting Harlem factoids. Do you know what "Koch" windows are? Isn't the Mount Morris Fire Watchtower an interesting structure? Why has the building that housed the Renaissance Ballroom and Casino stayed shuttered since 1979? The photographic highlight was the cross formation of "security" photos, but stylistically, they were very different than the Vergara photos we know, and it was a bit of a turn-off.

The Obama and Sculpture sections were interesting, but the exhibition would not have lacked in their absence. The Heart of Harlem photographs were displayed in the center of the space and were nice street photography shots of electic Harlem residents.

Harlem, 1970-2009: Photographs by Camilo José Vergara displayed a broader style of Vergara's photography; in and of itself, this made the show thought-provoking. Aesthetically, it seemed a bit like a Vergara retrospective (without American Ruins, that is) with the cohesive subject matter of Harlem creating the bonds between different types of photographic works.

While I was in the exhibition space, a group of approximately a dozen sightseers entered the space; most were in their 20's, but a few were older. After about ten minutes of looking at photographs on one side of the room, the tour guide/leader of the group asked the then-seated-and-ignoring-the-show group "What do you want to do?" Several voices responded quickly: "Shopping!" The tour guide was disappointed. "Really?" he asked. After several minutes of conversation about future plans, one 20-something male said, "(Let's) Go to 125th Street." The group left shortly thereafter. Most likely, the group shopped and got to see billboards of 50 Cent and P Diddy. But they probably didn't see Vergara's Harlem, and that's kind of sad.

Image is Vergara's 65 East 125th Street (2007).

Plymouth, Montserrat

2009-03-14T08:08:00.006-04:00

I first heard of Montserrat while reading CREEM magazine. Montserrat was the home of AIR Studios, where the English bougeoisie "rock" musicians went to record albums in the 1980s. (The Police, Paul McCartney, and Elton John all recorded there.) Plymouth is the capital of Montserrat and was the only port entry. I missed the news in 1997 when a volcano covered 80% of the city with over 4 feet of lava.

Plymouth is a future archaeological site, although it seems that it would be so cost-prohibitive that the city will most likely never be dug out. It could be a great above-ground urban exploration site, but it is fenced off, due to possible danger of further volcanic action.

Ed brought Plymouth, Montserrat to my attention, so thanks to him for most of the links.

For basic info, start at the Wikipedia entry.

A few photos of the destruction can be seen here.

This page is encouraging tourists to now-safe Montserrat. It provides a nice contrast to the previous photos.

This is a first-person testimonial to vacationing in Montserrat (two different photos of the destruction available). (I like the claim that if one drinks the water of Montserrat, he or she will return to the island.)

Here's a nice Flickr shot of the landscape, taken from the Caribbean sea.

Here's the entire collection of the tagged "Plymouth Montserrat" Flickr photos. This is a great look-through.

Image is of postcard created and photographed by Qule Pejorian and available to share and remix via the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

nostalgia photography

2009-03-06T15:12:00.016-05:00

Is taking photos of abandoned places in America too often an act of nostalgia, and if so, what does that mean about the work? Is "urban exploration photography" an excercise in nostalgia?

Vanishing America: the End of Main Street: Diners, Drive-Ins, Donut Shops, and Other Everyday Monuments by photographer Michael Eastman prompts the question. Vanishing America has received rave reviews, and Eastman is often compared to the important and influential photographer Robert Frank.

There seems to be a good-sized group of photographers documenting the America of yesteryear. Sometimes this fits into my definition of urban exploration photography, and sometimes it doesn't. Michael Eastman straddles the dividing line, and in my opinion, it makes his work less spectacular.

Don't get me wrong: Eastman's photographs are quite nice, and his subject matters are worth documenting. But he's doing too much in Vanishing America, in my opinion, and his supposed subject suffers for it.

Eastman divides subject matter into 10 chapters: Theaters, Churches, Hangouts, Doors, Signs, Stores, Services, Automobiles, Hotels, and Restaurants. There are photographers who could fill a book on one of these subjects, and have done so. (Camilo Jose Vergara's How the Other Half Worships for churches; Zoe Leonard's Analogue for storefronts) and many others who have done extensive work documenting the other subjects and could fill a book given the opportunity (Roy Colmers' Doors, NYC, although dated and New York-based, is much more provoking and less architectural).

Having said that, Vanishing America is supposed to be about Main Street, USA. Most of us miss Main Street, I think, from New York City to New Orleans, St. Louis to Tempe, AZ. But are all of these photos really from what was the Main Street in these cities? I have my doubts, and it's a small photo titled "Dinosaur Parts" outside Sedona, Arizona (p87) that reinforces my reasoning. I ride the route from Phoenix to Sedona almost annually, and this doesn't look like the Main Street of Sedona (which is still very much an active Main Street). It looks like new sculptures created to entertain. And "outside Sedona, Arizona" doesn't scream "Main Street". One photo I really like is the "Interior of a Bar, Clarksdale, Missippi", which serves as an unofficial centerfold of the book, printed on two pages (p122-3) and depicting cheap white blinds with marker writing on each slat ("Bananarama 2002"; "Bacon Luvs Da Blues"; "Rhonda W. Cheryl P. 8/20/05"). But it doesn't speak Main Street, and it isn't really from yesteryear, as indicated by visible dates.

Photos like "Fish, Pest Control, & Roofing, Saint Louis Missouri" (p91), "Geller's Shoes, Providence, Rhode Island" (p127), and "Along Highway 1, Guadalupe, California" (p94-5) do indeed support a theory that Main Street ain't what it used to be. But Eastman's desire to include interesting photos overrides his desire to provide a cohesive statement that isn't just nostalgia. Was "Red Building with Coke Sign, Southern Maine" (p190) really on a Main Street? (If so, wow, look at all of those TREES and SPACE.) And the one photo of NYC "Thirsty? (Slated for Demolition), Coney Island, New York" shows off the great Burlesque at the Beach paintings of Fire Eater and Madame Twisto, but this isn't really Main Street on Coney Island; it's a beach and boardwalk development.

Eastman's photos are nice, but the book could've been better by tighter selection and adhering to the thesis. This is nostalgia in full force.

Douglas Brinkley wrote the excellent foreword. so excellent that sections of it stand on their own, despite the constant crowing of Eastman's work.

I'm genetically predisposed to visit the same locales Eastman shares with us in his dreamlike Vanishing America. Where some might find gloom in these anti-Rockwellian photographs, I find a liberation from the glaring rat race of American life.

Or maybe it's best to think of Vanishing America as a book of Sunday photographs, since Sunday is the loneliest day of the week. Like in the Kris Kristofferson song "Sunday Morning Coming Down," I imagine Eastman surveying an empty Main Street while the new-fangled box-store churches on the outskirts of town are full of repenters. The murals he documents are not the kind Thomas Hart Benton erected to promote the vigorousness of Populist America.

I don't agree with everything Brinkley writes ("You're better off building a fire by the side of the road than trying to reclaim one of these hard-luck properties"; "Michael Eastman still needs to photograph your footprints"), but his essay is thought-provoking and ties the photos together in a way the photographs don't do themselves.

I will use Brinkley's voice to make a final critique of Eastman. Brinkley writes "There are no Tennessee waltzes or Texas two-steps vibrating out of these juke joints, no 'Happy Trails' to close out the day at the music hall." I disagree. There's a photo of the interior of the Broken Spoke, a honky tonk music venue in Austin Texas (p44) across from a photo of an unnamed "Dance Hall" (also in Austin, Texas). The Broken Spoke is indeed still very active and heralded venue, and the photo of the "Dance Hall" looks like a nicely upkept place as well. Austin, Texas loves Americana and to say these photos are part of a Vanishing America is simplistic. People are still living this every day (in this case, probably every weekend). The aesthetic might be different than "the norm" (of non-Austin locales), but that doesn't make it Vanished. In fact, these photos indicate that this culture is CURRENT. These photos, and several others, show that along with the REAL photos supporting Eastman's hypothesis, there are photos supporting Eastman's own aesthetic experience of buildings and status quo. Overall, not only is Vanishing America a nostalgic experience, it's a nostalgic experience of Eastman's own thoughts and assumptions, many of which are stereotypical and simplistic.

abandoned towns

2009-02-22T07:08:00.013-05:00

Now that the economy is in a bit of a free fall (or so it seems), I've noticed an increased number in articles about abandoned towns, cities, and neighborhoods.

In the February 1 issue of The New York Times, there was an article about Braddock, Pennsylvania, a "distressed municipality." Braddock is a former steel factory town.

"Everyone in the country is asking 'Where's the bottom?'" said the mayor, John Fetterman. "I think we've found it."

Braddock's mayor is working to rebuild Braddock, publicizing it as a place to buy inexpensive real estate and build urban farms. He is also personally working to save a handful of buildings.

After reading the article and looking at Braddock's Wikipedia entry, a few factoids stuck out:

The first free library built by Andrew Carnegie was built in Braddock in 1887.

In 1936, the first A & P supermarket opened in Braddock.

Lauren Tewes, the actress who played Cruise Director Julie McCoy on The Love Boat tv series, was born in Braddock. (I loved The Love Boat as a child.)

Braddock will have another moment in the sun when the feature film The Road opens up later this year. (note: The Road was postponed from its November 2008 release after the U.S. financial markets melted, as "they" felt that the public didn't want to see an apocalyptic movie.)

"If struggling communities don't preserve their architecture," Mr. Fetterman said, "there's no chance of any resurgence down the line." Sometime soon, he worries, Braddock will pass the point of no return.

This article makes me want to watch the movie and then visit Braddock and look for locales seen in the film. Perhaps an urban explorer tour guide wants to make some extra money giving tours? I bet the mayor would work with you to set up safe UE tours of Braddock.

Mayor Fetterman's website is at www.15104.cc .
(It's a pet peeve of mine that The Times' "policy" rarely allows for disclosure of websites it cites.)

Here's the Times article and a Pittsburgh City Paper article from 2006.

Image taken from the "Ruins" section of the official Braddock website.

not quite abandoned

2008-12-13T20:09:00.011-05:00

Driven by Boredom had a nice post this week about the closed New York Public Library location of the Donnell Library Center. (In full disclosure, I am on maternity leave from my job in the PR dept. of The New York Public Library.) Yes, it's true; this branch library will soon be renovated and much smaller, located in the basement of a luxury hotel.

The post, which is accompanied by photos, is located here.

The entire group of photos is here.

I know that at least one other photographer took photos of the site as well, since she took photos a few months before it closed and then very close to its closing date. I accompanied her on the first shoot, as part of my job. I hope to see the results sometime.

It is sad when libraries close. In Donnell's case, the building aged really badly. But the books and media within, of course, are timeless (for the most part).

Months before the hotel acquisition was announced, I think I remember am New York listing Donnell as a New York City building that should be destroyed.

Two other thoughts: In May of this year, I posted about my dislike of office urban exploration photography. The Donnell photos fit into this genre aesthetically, for the most part. Context is everything, right?

Looking at these photos, taken of a building right at its closing, reminds me of an instance several years ago when I had the pleasure of being present the day that the old Jersey City Medical Center closed. Ars Subterranea photographers were present, so I hope to also see those photos in a future work.

waterfront Brooklyn, Treasure Island, and an update on the Lams of Ludlow Street

2008-08-01T20:20:00.009-04:00

Nathan Kensinger's Twilight on the Waterfront: Brooklyn's Vanishing Industrial Heritage

Urban explorer and blogger Nathan Kensinger has an exhibition titled Twilight on the Waterfront: Brooklyn's Vanishing Industrial Heritage up at the Brooklyn Public Library (the main branch at Grand Army Plaza) through this month. I haven't had the chance to see the show, but The New York Times' City Room blog ran a story about Kensinger yesterday, along with a slide show of a few of the images, and it looks beautiful. In my opinion, writer Sewell Chan focused a little bit too much on the illegal aspect of Kensinger's exploration, but in his defense, it is eye-opening to come across the concept of urban exploration for the first time. (This is not meant as a slight to Chan; I love his work on the City Room, and in full disclosure, as a publicist, I've worked with him several times on stories.)

"His [Kensinger's] subjects range from the Domino sugar refinery in Williamsburg, part of which was declared a landmark in 2007; the ruins of the Greenpoint Terminal Warehouse, which were ravaged by arson in 2006; and the haunting remains of Dead Horse Bay, where a 17th-century Dutch mill once stood," writes Chan.

The article doesn't say how many images are in the exhibit; if you know, please tell me, as I'm curious.

Here is my favorite image from the slideshow --

Photo of The Batcave by Nathan Kensinger.

Mehdi Saghafi's Treasure Island

Ah, if only I had unlimited funds, the photo book collection I would have! Mehdi Saghafi's new book Treasure Island is now available, at the price of $100, from Photo-Eye. Saghafi works with panoramic images, and his use of various shades of gray is stunning. I'm looking forward to seeing his Delta Project, but in the meantime, Treasure Island should keep people sated.

As Photo-Eye's book copy states, Treasure Island is "a 403 acre island in the San Francisco Bay made in 1935 and used by the military until the mid 1990s."

News about the Lams (from NYPL's Eminent Domain exhibition)
A little over a month ago, the Lam family -- known as the subject of Thomas Holton's photographs in the Eminent Domain exhibit -- lost their home in a Lower East Side fire. They've temporarily relocated to Harlem and are still holding out hope that they'll be able to return to Ludlow Street in the future. Holton has since raised approximately $8K to help the Lams; he's already delivered the check, so to speak. (And I am looking forward to receiving my print!)

abandoned gas stations, Detroit's Tiger Stadium, and more

2008-07-26T15:08:00.017-04:00

I plan on posting more to this blog, really, I do. I've thought of dozens and dozens of posts and not had the time. This is going to change. Here are a few small tidbits in the meantime:

Detroit's Tiger Stadium
The Packard Plant might be the biggest abandoned site in Detroit, but Tiger Stadium is/was the most public, as it's located on a main road and...a stadium. It doesn't cease to amaze me that every major city needs new stadiums built, at the expense of the taxpayers, every few years. Here in NYC, both the Yankees and the Mets are getting new stadiums. Anyways...after approximately eight years of non-use, the powers that be are currently in the process of deconstructing Tiger Stadium.

There was/is an unsuccessful conservation effort of the stadium.
Last September, several photographers were allowed to enter the stadium and document its disrepair.
Faded Detroit has blogged numerous times about Tiger Stadium.

Photo by Derek Farr (DetroitDerek), from Flickr. (He has great photos of the demolition-in-progress as well.)

Call for Volunteers for Open House New York
Open House New York's annual weekend is scheduled this year for Saturday and Sunday, October 4 & 5. I've enjoyed visiting many of the architectural sites open during the event, and I've volunteered a couple of times over the years. Volunteering for a four-hour shift at one of the sites is a pretty stress-free way to contribute to this amazing New York event, and volunteers also get a free tee-shirt and a button that allows them to cut lines (at some locations) during their off-time.

Open House New York's website has more information.
Last year, I blogged about my experience as a volunteer and also about my visits to other sites.

Camilo Jose Vergara's Out of Gas
As the price of gas continues to increase, spending time at the pump grows increasingly painful and more unpopular. Somewhat outside of this context (but can it really be context-free?), The New York Times recently published a brief slideshow of abandoned gas station photos taken by Camilo Jose Vergara. Oddly enough, it was filed in the "Opinion" section.

Here's my favorite photo from the slideshow:

Sykes & Son Tire Repair, Grand River Avenue at Mendota Street, Detroit, 2002. Photo by Camilo Jose Vergara.

Passenger series. New York City; June 24, 2008; 1:25:32 p.m.

2008-07-15T19:02:00.003-04:00

'Eminent Domain: Contemporary Photography and the City' exhibition at The New York Public Library

2008-05-28T16:50:00.013-04:00

One of the many hats I wear at my day job: I'm the publicist for an exhibition that opened on May 2 at The New York Public Library. If you're in the New York City area, Eminent Domain is definitely a worthwhile exhibition to check out. Here's the press release:

Disappearing Storefronts of the Lower East Side, Life with a Chinatown Family, and Views from the Unseen Edges of New York City Featured in Major Photography Exhibition at The New York Public Library

Five Contemporary Photographers Observe New York City’s Ongoing Evolution of Private and Public Urban Space in Eminent Domain: Contemporary Photography and the City – May 2 to August 29, 2008

Shifting views of public and private space through the cameras of five contemporary photographers reveal the constantly changing and often unfamiliar urban landscapes of New York City in Eminent Domain: Contemporary Photography and the City, an exhibition of more than 200 photographs at The New York Public Library.

Eminent Domain features the recent photographic projects of five New York-based artists that deal with the life of the city in terms of passage (of seasons and time, people and place) and exchange (between individual and collective, interior and exterior). The works, by Thomas Holton, Bettina Johae, Reiner Leist, Zoe Leonard, and Ethan Levitas, will be on view at The New York Public Library’s Humanities and Social Sciences Library at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street from May 2 to August 29, 2008. Admission is free.

“Turning on the nature of photography itself – which always complicates the relationship between public and private – all five projects resonate with current debates about the reorganized urban landscape, whether through the effects of gentrification, globalization, or municipal redevelopment,” said Stephen C. Pinson. exhibition curator and the Robert B. Menschel Curator of Photography, The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs of The New York Public Library. “While none of the photographers’ works specifically address the legal concept of eminent domain – or the taking of private property for public use – all of the projects deal with the timely topic of the changing nature of space in New York City today. A photograph, after all, is a transaction between the private and the public that is negotiated through the taking of an image – a kind of eminent domain of the visual realm.”

Thomas Holton became very close with the Lam family in Chinatown, photographing the family of five living its everyday family life, at their apartment, school, and grocery market and even attending weddings and traveling to China and Hong Kong to visit relatives. Holton’s color photos of The Lams of Ludlow Street (2003-2005) are accompanied by Polaroid photos taken by the three Lam children, including their viewpoint as well as Holton’s empathetic perspective on being a Chinese family in New York City’s Chinatown. (image: Thomas Holton. Untitled from the series The Lams of Ludlow Street.)

Bettina Johae’s borough edges, nyc (2004-2007) includes color photographs, digital slideshows, and a new remapping of New York City’s five boroughs. While undertaking a total of 27 bike rides in all five boroughs (The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island), Johae photographed the perimeter of each borough along its farthermost accessible path, displaying areas seldomly seen or included in representations of New York City. A beautiful, abandoned shipyard is located among the green fields of Rossville, Staten Island; traditional houses perched upon garages are spotted in Manhattan’s Marble Hill; and an airplane is shown flying a little too close for comfort above a two-story house in Queens’ Warnerville/Rosedale neighborhood. (image: Bettina Johae. si_4888 rossville, staten island from the borough edges, nyc series.)

Reiner Leist offers a more intimate view of the city in his Window series (1995-present), using a nineteenth-century view camera to photograph the scene from his studio on the 26th floor of an office building on Eighth Avenue. Leist has taken a photograph daily since March of 1995 at varying times of the day. (If he was unable to take a photograph, the day is represented by a black print.) The series becomes an ongoing portrait of the subtle and radical changes in the New York City skyline that includes One Penn Plaza, Madison Square Garden, and until September 11, 2001, the World Trade Center. On display are the images taken on September 11-15 from 1995-2007, including September 12, 2001, which documented the day following the World Trade Center attack. (image: Reiner Leist. September 12, 2001 from the Window series.)

Zoe Leonard’s Analogue (1998-2007) is a lyrical documentation of the City’s slowly disappearing local character in the wake of a global economy. Although centered on the storefronts of the Lower East Side and Brooklyn, the project also touches upon the route and destination of New York’s castoff clothing in the contemporary rag trade. As its name suggests, the series is also an elegy of sorts for a long-standing tradition of documentary photography, which Leonard sees passing with the onset of digital photography. The images on display comprise a portfolio of forty dye transfer prints, an increasingly rare process of color printing that is itself in jeopardy of obsolescence. (image: Zoe Leonard. Drop Off A.M., Pick Up P.M. from the Analogue series.)

Elevated subway cars from the J, M, and Z lines seem to be the subject in Ethan Levitas’s Untitled/This is just to say (2004-2007), but these color photographs also show passengers in various forms of private and public life: A man standing in between cars during a snowstorm smokes a cigarette; Hassidic Jews are engrossed in conversation; a woman staring directly at the camera seems to be the only passenger in an otherwise empty car. The trains become microcosms of the City as the project functions to collapse the distinction between our private and public selves. (image: Ethan Levitas. "#75" from the Untitled/This is just to say series.)

In addition to the five photographers’ works, artist Glenn Ligon contributes a personal written narrative about all of his New York City residences in Housing in New York: A Brief History (2007) which was commissioned for this exhibition. Ligon’s writings are interspersed throughout the exhibition space, reminding viewers that behind the (now) public images lie myriad personal and private stories.

The exhibition is presented in The New York Public Library’s largest exhibition space at the landmark building on 42nd Street, and its design complements the photographers’ themes in creative ways: Ethan Levitas’s large images of subway cars are displayed on the space’s longest wall, side-by-side, replicating a subway train. Thomas Holton’s photographs of the Lam family are shown in a semi-enclosed space reminiscent in size of a small apartment. Reiner Leist’s images of the cityscape outside his window are shown as a selection of framed prints and as a larger group in a digital slideshow so that viewers can appreciate both the intimacy and the seriality of the project. Ten images from each borough of Bettina Johae’s landscapes are available for viewing through flipbooks attached to the wall, and five slideshows of images (one for each borough) are displayed next to Johae’s hand-drawn remapping of the city. Finally, works by each of the photographers are installed outside the exhibition space, in the more “public” spaces of the Library.

Stephen C. Pinson, exhibition curator and the Robert B. Menschel Curator of Photography, The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs of The New York Public Library, acquired the materials on view after receiving funds from a benefactor specifically designated to purchase photographs that enhance the Library’s collection of New York City views from 1950 to the present day. Bettina Johae’s series borough edges, nyc (2004-2007) was the Photography Collection’s first digital acquisition. An online version of borough edges, nyc, also commissioned by The New York Public Library, will be available on the exhibition website at http://exhibitions.nypl.org/eminent.

Companion Volume
Edited by and including an introduction by curator Stephen C. Pinson, Eminent Domain: Contemporary Photography and the City features highlights from the five photographic projects presented in the exhibition. The book includes statements about their work from each of the photographers: Thomas Holton, Bettina Johae, Reiner Leist, Zoe Leonard, and Ethan Levitas. All of their projects intersect and resonate with current concerns about the reorganization of urban space, and its public use, in New York City. Also included as a counterpoint is artist Glenn Ligon’s literal narrative of his own housing in the city as a reminder that behind these (now) public images lie myriad personal and private stories. Published by The New York Public Library. 80 pages, 7 x 8 in., 70 images in color and b/w, eminent domain court case time line, suggested readings. $22.50. Softcover. ISBN 978-0-87104-460-0.

Books are available from The Library Shop at Fifth Avenue and 42 nd Street. Mail, phone, and Internet orders are accepted. For more information, call 212.930.0641 or visit www.thelibraryshop.org.

Curatorial Tours
Curatorial tours with exhibition curator Stephen Pinson are scheduled for Wednesday, May 14 at 11:15 a.m. and Friday, June 3 at 6:30 p.m. Tours are limited to 20 people. Register in advance via e-mail at southcourt@nypl.org or call 212.930.9284.

Docent Tours
Free public tours of Eminent Domain: Contemporary Photography and the City are conducted Monday through Saturday at 12:30 and 2:30 p.m.; and Sunday (through May 18) at 3:30 p.m. All group tours, including school groups, must be scheduled well in advance. Unauthorized tours are not permitted. To schedule a tour, call 212.930.0501. Group tours are $7 per person for adults ($5 for seniors); no charge for full-time students.

Additional Public Programs
Visit the exhibition website at http://exhibitions.nypl.org/eminent for details about additional programs.
Other artists, photographers, and interested public are invited to participate in a collaborative, online project on the theme of eminent domain through a link on the exhibition website.

borough edges, nyc

A series of bike tours to selected edges of the five boroughs, led by photographer Bettina Johae. Each tour begins at 12 noon and will last approximately three hours. Rides will be at an easy pace and for all ages and fitness levels. Interested individuals should e-mail be@bettinajohae.com.

May 11 – The Bronx

May 18 – Manhattan

June 1 – Queens

June 15 – Brooklyn

June 22 – Staten Island

Eminent Domain: Contemporary Photography and the City will be on view from May 2 through August 29, 2008 in the D. Samuel and Jeane H. Gottesman Exhibition Hall at The New York Public Library’s Humanities and Social Sciences Library, located at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street in Manhattan. The exhibition is open during regular Library hours: Monday, Thursday-Saturday, 11 a.m.-6 p.m.; Tuesday and Wednesday, 11 a.m.-7:30 p.m.; Sunday (through May 18), 1-5 p.m. Closed the following days: Saturday, May 24; Monday, May 26; Friday and Saturday, July 4 and 5. Admission is free. For more information, call 212.592.7730 or visit www.nypl.org.

About the Photography Collection
The Photography Collection of The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs comprises approximately 400,000 photographs, including examples of almost every photographic process from the earliest daguerreotypes to contemporary digital images.

The Photography Collection was developed in 1980 when images culled from other NYPL departments and branches were brought together to form a new division. The historically stated focus of the collection has been "documentary photography," a term originally coined in the 1930s to describe the work of photographers who attempted to document specific social conditions. The Photography Collection, which has significant holdings in this area, actually encompasses a much broader range of the medium, including images made for commercial, industrial, and scientific application as well as images for the press and other print media, the vernacular of amateur snapshot photography, and original works intended for exhibition and/or the art market.

Future collection activity and development will focus on fulfilling the department's role as the most accessible public resource in New York City for the study of photographs and the history of photography.

About The New York Public Library
The New York Public Library was created in 1895 with the consolidation of the private libraries of John Jacob Astor and James Lenox with the Samuel Jones Tilden Trust. The Library provides free and open access to its physical and electronic collections and information, as well as to its services. It comprises four research centers - the Humanities and Social Sciences Library; The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts; the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture; and the Science, Industry and Business Library - and 87 Branch Libraries in the Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island. Research and circulating collections combined total more than 50 million items. In addition, each year the Library presents thousands of exhibitions and public programs, which include classes in technology, literacy, and English as a second language. The New York Public Library serves over 16 million patrons who come through its doors annually and another 25 million users internationally, who access collections and services through its website, www.nypl.org.

Acquisition of works for this exhibition was made possible through the Estate of Leroy A. Moses, which provided funds to purchase photographs that enhance the Library's collection of New York City views from 1950 to the present day.

Support for this exhibition has been provided by the Lily Auchincloss Foundation, Inc., and by an anonymous contribution in honor of Elizabeth Rohatyn.

Additional support has been provided by The L Magazine, the exhibition's Media Sponsor.

Support for The New York Public Library’s Exhibitions Program has been provided by Celeste Bartos, Mahnaz I. and Adam Bartos, Jonathan Altman, and Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III.

###

the genre of office urban exploration photography?

2008-05-27T23:54:00.008-04:00

Over the weekend, Boing Boing, Laughing Squid, and other cool blogs linked to Phillip Toledano's Bankrupt series, in which the photographer took photos of recently abandoned offices. I first came across Toledano's work about a month and a half ago while searching for new discoveries of photo books. I wondered then if Bankrupt is related philosophically to urban exploration photography. I think it is, but the series still leaves me cold, and I haven't fully decided why: Is it because there is electricity on in the buildings? Has the building not actually been abandoned? Is it because I spend a good portion of my life in an office and don't regard these images as new, or perhaps different enough from me? Is it the fluorescent lighting? Is it Toledano's aesthetic style? Is it because the rooms' architectural styles are so dreary?

What do you think? Is Bankrupt a twice-removed cousin from "traditional" urban exploration photography? Why or why not? Does Toledano's work resonate with you?

The links:

Phillip Toledano's online version of his Bankrupt series at mrtoledano.com

Toledano's online version of Bankrupt at philliptoledano.net

statement from philliptoledano.net

Do these images "document the high cost of human failure"? (I'm not convinced.)

Is there an "unsettling, Pompeii-like stillness to recently abandoned offices"? (Eh, maybe? I'm indifferent. Convince me otherwise...)

Time Out New York carries the flashlight

2008-05-26T07:42:00.009-04:00

Ars Subterranea was included in Time Out New York's "Extreme issue" a couple of issues ago. Billie Cohen from TONY, who wrote the first significant piece about Ars Subterranea in 2002, accompanied us on a daytime exploration. Since TONY is a NYC-based publication, the site had to be within the City's five boroughs.

Time Out New York / Issue 659 : May 14–20, 2008

Extreme

We’re thrilled for you

Superheroes aren’t the only ones who can leap tall buildings, see in the dark or pummel evil opponents named Drunkin Janitur. In NYC, anyone can—even us.

Illustration: Thomas Pitilli (appearing in TONY).

Urban spelunking

View extreme photos of urban spelunking (Photos Cohen took of the exploration.)

I’m shining a flashlight down a long, dark tunnel. The beam settles on a staircase at the opposite end, seemingly a million miles away. Everything else is hidden in blackness, except for the dust swirling in front of me. “This is how horror movies start,” I say.

The group behind me laughs in polite acknowledgment of the newbie’s jitters. “We usually let the person who’s never done this go first,” my guide, Julia Solis, had said, as if she were giving me a Christmas present.

But it’s a gift I asked for. In this city, as in many others around the world, brave—and, some would argue, stupid—cadres of people climb, shimmy, tiptoe and probe through abandoned buildings, forgotten tunnels and forsaken ruins. They call themselves “urban explorers.” The ones I’ve sought out run a local arts organization called Ars Subterranea (arssubterranea.org), which (legally) presents exhibitions and events in deserted gems such as the old Long Island Railroad tunnel under Atlantic Avenue and the Bronx Borough Courthouse. “Ars Subterranea preserves forgotten architectural relics through creating experiences with sites or locations,” explains Gayle Snible, an explorer who also serves as the group’s publicity director.

Today we’re scouting a site for documentation purposes, and I am sworn to secrecy about the location to protect its integrity. What I can reveal is that it’s a complex of early-20th-century buildings. They are stately, with columned entries, brick facades and big windows, many sealed with cinder blocks. Solis warns me to be careful of the floors; often they are not solid. These, however, are—they’re just covered with layers of brick dust, debris and something that looks suspiciously like asbestos.

Dangers aside, the decay is at once haunting and elegant. “I have a preference for hospitals,” says Solis, Ars Subterranea’s founder. “If you want to see what it means to be human, they’re the best places. You can go to a museum, but in a hospital there’s nothing between you and reality.”

The complex we’re exploring today wasn’t that kind of institution, but we still see rusted bed frames and other evidence of past lives: in the basement, piles of discarded office chairs; in the long dormitory rooms, eroded radiator covers; in one cubby, small plastic football figures; and in a closet, shelves labeled DRESSING TRAYS and MORGUE PACK.

When I emerge from the closet, I don’t see anyone else. I beat back an eruption of terror, certain I’m going to get picked off by some dude from Hostel. But then I hear the rustling footsteps of my crew, each caught up in their own discoveries. One is awed by unbroken lightbulbs, Julia is drawn to staircases, and I find I have a thing for slivers of light shining through very dark spaces. As I build courage throughout the day, I turn off my flashlight to see where cracked walls, broken windows and roof holes let the sun sneak through.

When we finally emerge, I can’t believe it’s still daylight. The safety of noon hadn’t been tangible in the musty blackness inside, but now I hear kids playing ball at a nearby field and church bells ringing somewhere. I make a mental note about the fickleness of perception. Safe in the bright day, I feel pleased with myself, even a bit cocky. I can’t wait to go into the dark again. Although next time, I might bring a bigger flashlight. — Billie Cohen

----------------
-- and a couple of photos I took during our visit:

Sound the Alarm

2008-05-25T22:57:00.016-04:00

Wave Hill was moderately crowded today with visitors wanting to get away from the urban jungle for a short commune with nature. Here are a couple of photos of plants that I particularly enjoyed (the cacti greenhouse is surprisingly extensive):

It was good timing that I was able to see the current exhibition up in the Wave Hill Glyndor Gallery, Sound the Alarm: Landscapes in Distress (up through June 1). Featuring the work of eight artists, the exhibition "calls attention to the indelible impact of human activity on the environment from the Arctic to the Equator," according to the show's curators. Most of the work is interesting, although I only knew Edward Burtynsky's work by name beforehand. Travis Roozee tells a partial story of Centralia, Pennsylvania, a town I've wanted to visit for years now. (He also did a series called Rooftop Brooklyn that I remember, because it's about birds...Bushwick pigeons, to be specific.) Gilles Minasson's photo of teens ice hopping was simultaneously playful and sinister. Sergio Vega's images were interesting, factually, but there wasn't enough of it to be cohesive enough, and the inkjet print quality of his image "Jose Dias Soares Farm at Rochedo (field)" (2007) was distracting.

The find of the exhibition was the discovery of Sasha Bezzubov's Things Fall Apart series. Bezzubov documents the ruins of natural disasters. (Although this article states, too simplistically and mistakenly, that the natural disasters he documents are actually the result of man.) Bezzubov brings his vision to disaster photography, traveling to India (after the 2001 earthquake), Indonesia (after the 2005 tsunami), and California (after a 2003 wildfire). (He's also traveled to Missouri and Floria after hurricanes and to Utah after a wildfire, as seen on his website.)

at the Sound the Alarm exhibition: Sasha Bezzubov's "Wildfire #4, California" (2003) from the series Things Fall Apart.

not at the exhibition: Bezzubov's "Earthquake #1, India" (2001), also from the series Things Fall Apart.

The quality of Bezzubov's images are stunning, similar in style, but not subject matter, to Burtynsky's work. The brochure accompanying the exhibit states that there is an upcoming monograph for the series, and I anticipate it being appropriately breathtaking. (NOTE: If you spend time on Bezzubov's website, click on images twice to view the largest image size available, as the work definitely benefits from being viewed as large as possible.) It is also of note that although Bezzubov is working on a newer series, Things Fall Apart is still an active series of work. I wonder if he is currently in China or planning a trip in the immediate future to document the recent earthquake's after effects.

A Handbook for Adventurers

2008-04-20T21:36:00.014-04:00

As my last post stated, it'd sure be nice to be driving a car through Rodney, Mississippi and exploring its abandoned Civil War-era buildings and imagine what life was like there way back when. But one's inability to travel to other cities, states, and countries doesn't have to hinder his or her's ability to have meaningful adventures. That's what I love about "urban exploration", a term that I personally use in a broad sense.

In 1990, Ten Speed Press published The Urban Adventure Handbook by Alan S. North. North expressed, both in the Handbook and in a subsequent interview, that "The Call of the Wild" is strong for him and that exploring a city is what he suggests as an alternate to when one can't get to nature. Nonetheless, his Handbook covers a wide variety of urban activities in a moderately thorough manner: Buildering, Balancing (predominantly on slack chains), Urban Adventure Bike Riding, Urban Spelunking, and Going High (climbing towers, bridges, high-rise buildings, monuments, etc.). To North, Urban Adventure is about taking risk, but the rewards are great:

Going on URBAN ADVENTURES will change the way you see your urban environment. The structured, asphalt-and-concrete, developed world will become your wilderness playground. An old brick building will become a choreographer and teach you to dance in a vertical world. The blacktopped, potholed pavement will become a rapids-filled river enticing and challenging the deft navigator. A commuter-choking bridge will become a sculpture to climb. The smelly sewers beneath the city will become a Minoan labyrinth.

The Urban Adventure Handbook is quite possibly the first how-to guide for what is now called Urban Exploration. It is the precursor to Ninjalicious' Access All Areas: A User's Guide to the Art of Urban Exploration. The graphics are funny and helpful, and the book has almost a 1970s vibe to it, even though it's from 1990. Technique, etiquette, equipment, and safety are covered. Advice is freely given.

When you get hauled in for trespassing, etc., don't call your attorney, significant other, or mom at an unreasonable hour. (page 137)

Generally, the water found in drainage systems in polluted. It contains lead, oil, fecal matter, urine, and any garbage that happens to wash down the street. So don't drink it. Operating sewers, in particular, are deadly bacteria-infested environments. (page 118)

If a building management authority asks you to get off of the building, it is best to acquiesce. Agree and leave the site promptly before the law arrives. If you are on a public or corporately owned building, you can always return later when no one is there to bother you, and, correspondingly, you will bother no one. (page 45)

These suggestions may seem obvious or even humorous to you. But sections on Foot Placement (when Buildering), Drafting (during bike riding), and Running a Self-Belay (when Going High) are informative.

I've really enjoyed reading and looking at this book, even though I have no intentions of balancing on a slack chain. The below illustrations by Charles K. Neifeld are particularly humorous and/or accurate.

Spring is here!

2008-04-19T17:42:00.005-04:00

Spring is finally here. The weather is fantastic, my lilac tree is thisclose to blooming, and a strong urge to explore is pulsing through my veins. Since I'm 8 months pregnant, I'm living a bit vicariously when it comes to exploration and travel. (Having said that, as of today, we own a car, so who knows, maybe more travel is imminent.)

I found this video on YouTube. The green landscape combined with the sound of the car makes me want to travel to Rodney, Mississippi and see this nearly-abandowned town for myself.

Happy Easter from Wantage, New Jersey!

2008-03-24T00:14:00.008-04:00

I spent Easter with family in Wantage, New Jersey; we saw vultures, a badger, and a pheasant. We spent most of our time in a nice house and also watching dozens of kids search a hill for hidden Easter eggs, but this barn caught our attention when we drove in:

Return to the Bronx County Courthouse

2008-03-16T23:44:00.010-04:00

This last week, I had the opportunity to serve jury duty in the South Bronx. During lunch hour, I walked across town to the Bronx Borough Courthouse, the site of last April's Ars Subterranea event The House of the Marble Mistress. (Truth be told, I was partially visiting the Courthouse and partially frequenting the Caribbean and Soul Food restaurant across the street from it.)

What a difference a year makes; the front entrance wasn't even visible due to the large green fencing and the construction going on in the 'hood. Abandoned since 1978, there are finally plans for the grand building; according to New York 1 News, a charter school will open at the site in September. New (since April) "For Rent" signs were still on the building's exterior on Tuesday, but I hope that this news is accurate. The owner told Ars Subterranea last year that the desired tenant was a school or library (not retail), and it seems like this wish will become reality.

Below is a video that Gothamist.com ran of Ars Subterranea's House of the Marble Mistress event:

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There are also a few pictures on my Flickr.

Ars Subterranea at Anthology Film Archives (NYC) on March 24!

2008-02-27T21:27:00.019-05:00

Ars Subterranea has several projects planned for 2008, and the first one will be a night at the cinema. We'll have the opportunity to view Tales from the Sanatorium, a graphic novel in-progress. Ars Sub Founder/Executive Director Julia Solis will co-present the evening and show us previously unseen work. Other works both old (Met State is a must see) and new (Julia's collaboration with Opacity.us's Tom Kirsch) will be shown. Co-presenter Ross Lipman will also be on hand to present The Disembodied Theater Corporation's work about the High Line, NO WAY OUT BUT ONWARD. It should be a great evening!

from the Anthology Film Archives press release:

REPORT FROM THE GHOST CITY
video performance works by
The Disembodied Theater Corporation and Ars Subterranea
Monday, March 24, 7:30pm
With Ross Lipman & Julia Solis in person!

Anthology Film Archives presents an evening with The Disembodied Theater Corporation featuring dispatches, news, songs, and fragments from the Ghost City: the skeletal remains of abandoned towns, railways, and graveyards that stand as remnants of a lost society. Filmmaker Ross Lipman and author Julia Solis will present a haunting assemblage of ruins, rants, and shards of memory that paint a collective portrait of dystopia. The evening will feature two distinct presentations: NO WAY OUT BUT ONWARD, an adventure in psychogeography through New York’s High Line, and presentations by members of the arts group Ars Subterranea, DISPATCHES FROM THE WASTELAND: three short imaginary narratives set inside abandoned mental hospitals.

NO WAY OUT BUT ONWARD:
An adventure in psychogeography through New York's High Line
PowerPoint performance by The Disembodied Theater Corporation
Written and narrated by Ross Lipman
Suite for Bass, Viola, and Trombone by Laura Steenberge
Photos by Leigh Evans, Ross Lipman, Nina Mankin

The High Line is the abandoned elevated freight rail that runs through the west side of Manhattan. Soon to be the site of an aerial public park, it for the moment remains a haunted paradise above the city—a verdant wasteland inhabited only by occasional taggers, wanderers, and police. In October 2004 a ragtag group ventured up to explore. As they were to learn, it's a space with its own internal logic, interacting with its visitors in a way unique to each. NO WAY OUT BUT ONWARD is a recounting of that day's events, told in PowerPoint, the modern day equivalent of an old-time Magic Lantern performance.

Scene from No Way Out But Onward.

Presentations made by members of the arts group Ars Subterranea
DISPATCHES FROM THE WASTELAND: 
Three short imaginary narratives set inside abandoned mental hospitals

Tales from the Sanatorium
Drawing inspiration from The Canterbury Tales, the graphic novel series depicts an imperious Nurse leading a band of disheveled souls through endless apocalyptic asylum landscapes, occasionally pausing to tell stories. In the first installment, the Nurse recounts her own tale, "Rubber Lullaby." A combination of derelict spaces with mixed-media collage and still photography created by Bryan Papciak in conjunction with Ars Subterranea, Tales from the Sanatorium is a graphic novel set in an abandoned mental hospital – staged like a movie, but photographed as a series of stills.

Scene from Tales from the Sanatorium.

Funeral Play
A surrealistic journey into a hospital bed, based on a forthcoming Furnace Press book by Julia Solis.

Irma
Excerpts from a postmortem diary by Tom Kirsch (http://www.opacity.us) and Julia Solis.

Followed by:

Met State
(Bryan Papciak, 10 minutes, color/b&w, 16mm, 2001)
An award-winning experimental short film by exploring the graphic nature of derelict space through an experimental study of an abandoned insane asylum.

About the presenting organizations and artists:

The Disembodied Theater Corporation is an amorphous performance entity devoted to the temporary manifestation of non-filmic cinemas.

Ross Lipman is an independent filmmaker, photographer, and writer who has presented work throughout the world at venues ranging from the Oberhausen International Film Festival to the Chinese Taipei Film Archive. His works have been collected by institutions and museums including the Sammlung Goetz in Munich. He is also one of the world’s leading authorities on the restoration of independent cinema, and was recently honored with the National Society of Film Critic’s 2007 Film Heritage award. In recent years he has been designing film, video, and performance works exploring urban decay as a marker of modern consciousness.

Ars Subterranea likes to play inside ruins and is comprised of artists, historians, and urban explorers working to create an intersection between art and architectural relics in the New York City area. Ars Subterranea’s aim is to instigate unique perceptions of New York's history by constructing narratives around the city's forgotten relics.

Julia Solis conducts archaeological parlor games and investigates ruined urban spaces. As the founder of Dark Passage, she started the creative preservation group Ars Subterranea in 2002 with the object of staging scavenger hunts and exhibitions in unusual locations in New York. She is the author of New York Underground: The Anatomy of a City (Routledge, 2004) and an editor of Furnace Press, which specializes in publications on urban decay.

Visit the project’s website: http://www.arssubterranea.org/sanatorium/ghostcity.htm

More about Ars Subterranea: http://www.arssubterranea.org

ANTHOLOGY FILM ARCHIVES
32 SECOND AVENUE NEW YORK, NY 10003; (212) 505-5181

About Anthology Film Archives: Founded in 1970, Anthology’s mission is to exhibit, preserve, collect documentation about, and promote public and scholarly understanding of independent, classic, and avant-garde cinema. Anthology screens more than 900 film and video programs per year, publishes books and catalogs annually, and has preserved more than 700 films to date.
Directions: Anthology is at 32 Second Ave. at 2nd St. Subway: F or V to 2nd Ave; 6 to Bleecker.
Tickets: $8 for adults, $6 for students & seniors; $5 for members.

Passenger series. California; December 27, 2007; 6:42:55 p.m.

2008-02-27T19:57:00.001-05:00

vacation photos

2008-02-27T00:44:00.015-05:00

Abandoned locations are of interest during my travels (even if I don't enter them), and sometimes they show up when they're least expected.

In December, I traveled to Arizona for the holidays. Usually, Ed and I climb Squaw Peak's Summit Trail (now Piestewa Peak's Summit Trail) when we visit, but this year we went to South Mountain Park . At the base of the road to Gila Valley Lookout, there were two empty dwellings. Below are photos of one of them; the other was quite kitschy and not as interesting. Although this is a touristy-y site, it was a nice fifteen-minute detour. There wasn't any information available anywhere at the site (or online), so I'm sorry to say that I don't know what kind of dwelling this replicates, what its purpose is, etc.

Downtown Phoenix itself has changed incredibly since I frequented the area to attend alternative art events. I was dismayed to see a "For Lease" sign on the Icehouse - I thought that it had closed - but happy to find out that it indeed continues on as an art space. I saw the best art at The Icehouse in the early-to-mid-1990s, and its work lives on. The second photo taken at the Icehouse is (part of) the area at which I saw Survival Research Laboratories' event A Million Inconsiderate Experiments right before moving to New York City in 1996. Memories...

for the Oscars tonight

2008-02-24T14:11:00.005-05:00

Photo by David Byrne, taken on July 4, 2006 and accessed at http://journal.davidbyrne.com/2006/07/7406.html.

CNN.com ran a story this week about Marfa, Texas and how two films nominated for Oscars this year were filmed in Marfa: No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood.

I haven't seen either movie yet, but I've noted that Marfa keeps getting great press, mostly for its connections to minimalist art and its Prada store, and now for being a thinly-populated town aesthetically friendly to film shoots.

Marfa's on my list of places in the United States to visit, but there are several places ahead of it on the list, including:

Yellowstone National Park - I think this would be a great family vacation, especially if we saw a geyser.

Walter De Mairia's The Lightning Field - I had the opportunity to visit The Lightning Field when I was in art school, and I blew it!

Coyote Buttes North - The Wave - I wonder how old a child needs to be to complete the hike to The Wave....

Applalachian Trail - I'd like to take a day trip to the Trail via the New York Metro-North stop.

The Everglades - I took the Shark Valley tram tour during the dry season, but I'd love to return during the wet season and do a lot of bike riding and spend quality time in the 'Glades.

I went for the abandoned buildings, and I got Iceland and community as well.

2008-02-24T10:02:00.022-05:00

I'm a fan of the Icelandic band Sigur Rós' music - I own a few CDs but have never seen them in concert - but ever since hearing raves about Heima, I've been waiting for the opportunity to see the film on the big screen.

First, I heard that Heima was a great rock doc, and then I read the following sentence in press materials for last night's screening at Scandinavia House: They played in deserted fish factories, outsider art follies, far-flung community halls, sylvan fields, darkened caves, and the huge, horseshoe-shaped Ásbyrgi Canyon (formed, legend has it, by the hoofprint of Odin's six-legged horse Sleipnir). Wow! Since I've also been daydreaming about visiting Iceland, well, that's a lot of reasons to see one movie, right?

Heima was astoundingly beautiful and wonderful. The film documents Sigur Rós playing two weeks of gigs across its country. Each show is incredibly different: the concert in Reykjavík is a large, crowded outdoor event; the band plays at a community center in Kirkjubaejarklaustar at a Thorablod meal (extreme foodies take note!); a protest against a dam is the site of another show; etc.

The music was wonderful, and the movie does provide an overall context for the band's sound. At one point, one of the band members talks about the Icelandic need for "space", and SR's music definitely conveys Space (not the extraterrestrial kind, but the one of topological space, distance, area, and volume).

But moving past the music...the two sites featured in Heima most relevant for this blog are the abandoned fish factory in Djupavik and an artist's former home in Selardalur.

The band's tour journal describes the visit to the abandoned fish factory moderately well, and I'm sure that many of this blog's readers can appreciate the desire to crawl through the pipe leading to the site. (Is this how the audience entered the space?)

A detailed excerpt from the tour journal brings some intimate details:

the pipe is too small for the guitar amp to fit through into the tank and it stands outside in the grass pointing towards jonsi some metres distant. occasionally the gulls and arctic terns wheeling overhead outside are audible through an open square in the roof and these will probably be evident on the finished recording being captured by ken and biggi on the other end of the pipe.

once this is over, the band move to the factory for the first time, where they discover their gear is too tightly arranged between decaying and anomalous american automobiles in the dark concrete skeleton of dead building.

The fish factory looks like a hip nightclub in some shots, and the song's churchlike sound ends with a cacophonic burst of energy.

Performing in the abandoned fish factory. (movie still)

An internet search provides little information about the site in Selardalur, except that it is indeed a tourist destination in the West fjords area of Iceland. The concert segment is filmed at an artist named Samuel's former farmhouse. Looking at the site, I can't help but wonder how much longer that farmhouse is going to stand upright, hence GO VISIT SELARDALUR NOW!

This shot was on the screen for about two seconds, and there was no information about where it was located. (movie still)

Besides these two locations, I enjoyed two other things about the movie: the nature and audience shots. The audience at most of the shows was pretty diverse, age-wise. Senior citizens, infants, adolescents, teenagers, young adults...you name it. Everyone looks beautiful while listening to music. These concerts were community get-togethers.

The following notes reflect the nature seen in this film: strong sense of narration with the sea, waterfalls, fields, mountains, birds in caves, birds in sky, iceberg floating in water, footprints drying in the sand, landscapes of houses/boats/communities, fog & mist moving across mountains, stones, a man who makes instruments from rhubarb.

The trailer for the movie can be seen here.

These Sigur Rós videos were screened before the start of the movie:

Hoppipolla; Glósóli; Svefn-g-englar; Viorar Vel Til Loftarasa; Untitled #1 (aka Vaka).

Passenger series. Lake George, New York; February 18, 2008; 09:32:31 a.m.

2008-02-19T00:48:00.004-05:00

Water tunnel workers memorial in Woodlawn

2008-02-19T00:14:00.011-05:00

My neighborhood, Woodlawn in the Bronx, has strong working class roots, noticed by the presence of an AFL-CIO office and a bar named Aqueduct North, presumably after/for the workers who work on and in New York City's various water tunnels.

Sometime in the last two years, a memorial "for those who lost their lives in the construction of the Third Water Tunnel" was completed at Katonah Ave. & 241st Street. Done by New York City's Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), I think it's an appropriate and artistically interesting memorial. Below are a few photos.

There is also an annual memorial event honoring deceased water tunnel workers; I think it takes place in early spring. If I hear about it ahead of time, I'll post details. Please drop me an e-mail or comment if you hear info about a confirmed date.

The names on the manhole covers are a nice, simple touch.

This graphic shows the meeting of the three "watersheds": Croton, Catskill, and Delaware.

Furnace Press announces winner of Decomposition Series contest

2008-02-08T06:45:00.000-05:00

A little while back, Furnace Press held a call for submissions contest for its forthcoming Decomposition Series, which focuses on "noteworthy abandoned sites in New York State".

I'm part of Furnace Press, and I saw the entries. They were good, and it was competitive. But a winner was picked, and by the end of 2008, Furnace Press will publish Elevator Alley: The Working Landscape of Buffalo's Ward by Michael Cook and Andrew Emond.

Michael Cook runs the website The Vanishing Point, which is personally of note for its detailed sections on Storm Drainage and Power Generation. (One of my favorite things that I did at Niagara Falls was the tour of the Sir Adam Beck 2 Generating Station.)
An interview with Cook ran on BLDGBLOG this last summer as well.

It'll be interesting to see what Cook and Emond do with Buffalo's Elevator Alley.

Photo taken from The Vanishing Point's "Falls Street Tunnel" section.

Life in the Approval Matrix?

2008-01-30T06:43:00.000-05:00

Urban exploration photography makes an appearance in New York magazine's Approval Matrix this week. Check out the SE quadrant of the image, or visit the link to see this brief mention. Do you think it's in the correct section?)

Passenger series. Canyon Lake, Arizona; December 20, 2006; 12:49:22 p.m.

2008-01-27T23:52:00.001-05:00

"Abandon"

2008-01-27T09:38:00.000-05:00

"The most beautiful thing in the abandoned hospital was the peeling paint." This sentence starts Rebecca Solnit's "Abandon" essay in her 2005 book A Field Guide to Getting Lost.

In the early 1980's, Solnit spent six months in an abandoned hospital near San Francisco, accompanying her then-boyfriend as he shot a Super 8 film on location. She was a punk rocker then, something that she sometimes refers to in her writings. After her fascination with ruins, she returned to (a more straightforward) nature, and lately she's been more into activism and politics.

The abandoned hospital is just a tool for Solnit to make the small leap to discussing Demeter, Persephone, and Hades; she then takes a bigger leap when discussing the beauty and "abandon" of her deceased friend Marine. Solnit is one of America's preeminent contemporary nature philosophy writers, but to hear Solnit discuss abandoned ruins for just a few pages is nourishing.

"Ruins become the unconscious of a city, its memory, unknown, darkness, lost lands, in this truly bring it to life," she writes. Much later in the essay, she talks about the area of New York City (it seems that she lived in NYC for a while, or at least visits frequently) that is now the sports complex called Chelsea Piers. She briefly looks back to the years when the Chelsea Piers was a "temporary autonomous zone" at which gays cruised and groped each other. Peter Hujar and David Wojnariowicz are mentioned, and the description of the ruins of Chelsea Piers are described so beautifully that I wish I were there. ("Paper from old shipping lines scattered all around like bomb blasts among wrecked pieces of furniture"..."this kind of place, one that was ruinous, bleak, but somehow still imbued wtih a romantic outlaw sense of possibility, of freedom, even the freedom to be idealistic...") Earlier, she described the "new" Chelsea Piers, and says "although it may yet yield to ruin again". Oh, that would be great, but I hope I don't have to wait for the apolocalypse for it to happen.

Solnit seems to be a bit of a hippy, or perhaps I'm confusing the term "hippy" with "idealist." (It should be noted for the record that the word "hippy" has a personal positive connotation in my world.) I was intrigued when I stumbled upon her artistic link to Mark Klett, and it makes me warm inside to know that she's explored ruins as well, although she tends to hint at "the golden age of ruins" having passed. Also, has she wandered into ruins recently, as she has matured 20 years into her life? (I ask this somewhat rhetorically; I think I know the answer, but I'd love to hear what she has to say on the topic.)

"We are now at the beginning of an era whose constructions are far scarier than ruins. In the time of which I write, the new silicon-based life forms were sneaking into every interstice without setting off alarms that all would be utterly changed in a way far more insidious than nuclear war, that they would bring a new wealth that would erase the ruins."

To start the essay with such beauty and end it with such despair is heartbreaking. But Solnit is an idealist. But is she an optimist? I'm hoping that delving further into her work will answer my question.

a link for Martin Luther King Day

2008-01-21T23:24:00.000-05:00

For today's Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, NPR did a piece about Camilo Jose Vergara's documentation of King murals in urban America. The interview and the slide show is available here. I've copied and pasted the text that Vergara wrote about this project, which is also available at the NPR website.

Photographing a Ubiquitous Subject

by Camilo Jose Vergara

NPR.org, January 19, 2008 · In the following essay for NPR.org, Camilo Jose Vergara writes about the images of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. that he has photographed and how they are beginning to disappear in some places.

In America's poorest neighborhoods, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is perhaps the most popular subject of public art, along with the streets, hospitals, schools and housing projects bearing his name. Collectively these have become one of the defining elements of the American ghetto. I believe that they help us understand how people living in poor, segregated urban communities — those about whom Dr. King was most concerned — perceive him and his legacy. They show how inner-city residents use his portrait to feel proud, to sell merchandise, and to develop a sense of security, identity and belonging.

Since 1977, I have been documenting images of Dr. King that regularly appear along the commercial streets and alleys of such cities as New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, Camden, N.J., and Baltimore. Many of the murals portraying this civil rights leader are painted on the outside walls of liquor stores, auto-repair shops, fast food restaurants, mom and pop stores, and public housing projects. The majority are the work of sign painters and amateur artists. All of the statues and many of the murals I photographed are located on streets named after him.

Over time I became interested in learning why these images are so pervasive. I feel that they reflect a significant cultural phenomenon: the rise of Dr. King as a central moral figure in poor neighborhoods, and his elevation to secular sainthood as the savior of dispossessed African Americans. His varied representations, often based on photographs taken from the national media, express poor people's perceptions.

After the South Los Angeles riots of 1992, many Latino shopkeepers had Dr. King's portrait painted on the facades of their stores in the hope of staving off the African-American rioters from robbing or vandalizing their businesses.

Wherever they are located, his portraits are usually respected, thus escaping damage and defacement. Sometimes, however, practical considerations result in electric cords emerging from his face, or a closed-circuit TV camera being attached to his ear, or security gates installed over his portrait.

But few of the sign painters hired for portraits of Dr. King have been particularly adept at getting good likenesses, with the result that he often comes out looking Mexican or even Mexican Indian. And now that Latinos in South Los Angeles have become the majority, new images of Dr. King rarely appear while the old portraits of him have been replaced by religious images and specifically Latino subjects.

The phrase "I have a dream" is often written above or below portraits of King. The dream is about justice, equality, three meals a day, housing, education, jobs and peace in the neighborhood. The many images of him in the inner city are powerful reminders to residents to keep pursuing those goals.

Camilo Jose Vergara has been documenting urban America for more than three decades. His work is included in the Berman Collection at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles and in 2002 he won a Macarthur Genius Grant for his photography. He is the author of several books, including How the Other Half Worships.

Mott Haven section of the South Bronx, 1977. Photo by Camilo Jose Vergara.

'Echoes of Forgotten Places' DVD

2008-01-20T21:27:00.001-05:00

As much as I love looking at urban exploration photo books, I dislike watching urban exploration videos. Or, to put it more succinctly, I anticipate disliking urban exploration videos. Often, the take that I want isn't on the video or DVD (for example, sometimes I'd like for the shot to start with the viewer approaching the building or structure, and the entrance would also be part of the segment as well) and other times, the lack of thoroughness is palpable. I don't experience these shortcomings in still photography related to urban exploration, mostly because I think of the medium as simply showing "snapshots of time".

Echoes of Forgotten Places is an intellectual love letter to urban exploration. The 43-minute DVD has none of the shortcomings listed above, because it doesn't try to recreate the joy of urban exploration firsthand. Rather, it serves as a great introduction of UE, an UE 101, if you will.

There are six chapters, each with a general-sounding title: Forgotten Places, The Record Keepers, Themes and Variations, Places of Work, To Bear Witness, and Endings and Beginnings. Footage of abandoned sites co-mingle with historical black and white film of factory work, modern color film of factory work, and interview segments with urban explorers as viewed on a television screen located in an abandoned site. Many scenes show a person walking around or taking photos as he walks from room to room. There is a lack of exploitation ("Let's talk to the oddballs who like exploring abandoned buildings!"), a rarity in most print articles written on the topic. Even the topic of ethics is addressed directly through interviews with several explorers.

There is a strong message presented, an ode to an industrial time of the past, and a respect for the abandoned sites and slap on society's wrist for not using the sites for current uses respectful of the buildings' history and aesthetics. ("We bury the evidence and build on top of it." "...saddest, most profound places I have ever explored") A historical context is provided but not really expanded upon.

I really appreciated the statement "Being undergound in a place like this tends to focus your attention rather than let your mind wander." This idea is really intriguing and important to me.

Robin Guthrie of Cocteau Twins provides the score, and Leesa Beales plays solo piano. The music is thoughtful and evocative, unlike the horror film music that could accompany the work.

The American-centric 1936 steel industry PR film Steel: A Symphony of Industry is one of the bonus features. (Note that this film is in public domain and can be accessed and viewed here via the Internet Archive.)

The second DVD extra is the "more typical" inclusion of an image gallery, this one including the work of 8 artists from around the world.

Urban explorers might find this video to be too much of a survey to be of much interest, but I highly recommend it for the UE novice or as an overall documentary. International urban explorers might get a kick out of identifying the unidentified places both in the doc and in the image gallery.

Passenger series. Chicago, Illinois; July 7, 2007; 3:02:10 p.m.

2008-01-13T13:53:00.001-05:00

"The Passenger" lyrics from Iggy Pop

2008-01-13T13:31:00.000-05:00

"The Passenger"
from Iggy Pop's Lust for Life album

lyrics: Pop; music, Ricky Gardiner

I am the passenger
And I ride and I ride
I ride through the citys backside
I see the stars come out of the sky
Yeah, theyre bright in a hollow sky
You know it looks so good tonight
I am the passenger
I stay under glass
I look through my window so bright
I see the stars come out tonight
I see the bright and hollow sky
Over the citys a rip in the sky
And everything looks good tonight
Singin la la la la la-la-la la
La la la la la-la-la la
La la la la la-la-la la la-la
Get into the car
Well be the passenger
Well ride through the city tonight
See the citys ripped insides
Well see the bright and hollow sky
Well see the stars that shine so bright
The sky was made for us tonight
Oh the passenger
How how he rides
Oh the passenger
He rides and he rides
He looks through his window
What does he see?
He sees the bright and hollow sky
He see the stars come out tonight
He sees the citys ripped backsides
He sees the winding ocean drive
And everything was made for you and me
All of it was made for you and me
cause it just belongs to you and me
So lets take a ride and see whats mine
Singing...
Oh, the passenger
He rides and he rides
He sees things from under glass
He looks through his windows eye
He sees the things he knows are his
He sees the bright and hollow sky
He sees the city asleep at night
He sees the stars are out tonight
And all of it is yours and mine
And all of it is yours and mine
Oh, lets ride and ride and ride and ride...
Singing...

Lyrics reprinted from lyricsfreak.com.

Shut Down in Vienna

2008-01-08T06:34:00.000-05:00

Last night I had dinner with a friend who is not into urban exploration. She had recently traveled to Austria and found herself at the wrong museum. (She meant to take herself and her companion to another museum.) Her mistake was furtuitous, and the travellers spent over an hour in photographer Christoph Lingg's exhibition Shut Down at the Leopold Museum.

Exhibition shots of Shut Down: Industrial Ruins in Eastern Europe and the Far East can be found here. Shut Down looks like a straightforward photo exhibition, but the last installation shot is a bit confusing out of context. Are those flyers from the sites when they were operable? Is Mr. Lingg's message political? Looking at his website, it seems that his work combines portraiture and photojournalism, so it seems likely that there is a message and that this work is not just an aesthetic study.

I love the quote from Romanian poet Mircea Cărtărescu at the end of Susanne Schaeber's exhibition essay :

My occupation: ruins builder. My mission: ruins architect. My sin: ruins voyeur. Don’t ask me about forgotten places. Gather around me, open my skull and look at my brain: before your very eyes it will crumble like plaster. And its dust will be mixed indistinguishably with the dust of the ruins among which I have lived my entire life, as a lover of a harem of ruins.

My friend apologized for being unable to carry two copies (hers and what would have been mine) of the exhibition publication back to the States; she said it was too heavy. I thought she meant that the book was thick and not that rusty metal plates served as the book's cover!

Photo above by Christoph Lingg and included in Lingg's Shut Down exhibition at the Leopold Museum.

Enjoying the Underworld on DVD

2008-01-07T20:17:00.000-05:00

A blog about abandoned spaces and urban life doesn't necessarily scream product placement. Nonetheless, I had a few items on my holiday wish list this year, and my family gave me some cool gifts, so expect a few informal reviews in the coming weeks.

For example, one gift I received was The History Channel's DVD set Cities of the Underworld: The Complete Season One. The season's 13 episodes are on four DVDs, and so far I've watched two episodes from DVD #2, "City of Caves" and "New York."

Even though all of the locations are wonderful, I'd most like to explore Budapest's caves. (Am I partial to this fantasy because my family is part Hungarian? Yes.) In "City of Caves", geological and geographical talk of tectonic shifts and pressure per square foot leads to an exploration of a natural cave with a good looking male urban explorer ("It's like just a playground," he declares) and a visit to a WWII cave hospital 60 feet below ground, part of the natural cave system but retrofitted several times for varying purposes. A discussion on Budapest's bathing culture leads to an old tunnel below Gellert Square and the (literal) heat of the "Gate of Hell," which appealed to my sweat-loving self.

The "New York" episode is on the same disc, and although the sites have been covered in other media, it's still an interesting watch. I especially liked the point of view that ran throughout the entire episode, stated exactly as such: "New York couldn't have ever developed into the metropolis it is today without the underworld that supports it" and "The world up above couldn't exist without the one down here".

Places visited in the episode are Grand Central Terminal's M42, the Croton Aqueduct, and the World Trade Center's "bathtub", so the structural mix is diverse. As the guide and the host approach track 102, the guide "demands" (for the viewer, no doubt) that the camera be turned off, as the location is top secret. This obvious attempt at suspense worked wonders with me, as my train home from Manhattan often leaves from track 103. As I contemplated whether or not the entrance to M42 was near track 102 (my guess is that it's not), my tongue wagged like a dog with curiousity and interest.

Julia Solis leads the cameras in the Croton Aqueduct segment. (In full disclosure, Urban Landscaped has a professional and personal affiliation with Solis.) I've had the pleasure of walking in a portion of the Old Aqueduct, and the part I was in had albino bats on the walls and lacked the inner "boardwalk" entrance. In other words, it was a bit rougher and more adventurous. (Another disclosure: I was the PR person involved in a Cities of the Underworld Croton Aqueduct segment filmed at my work, located where New York City's main reservoir once was. That segment didn't make the final cut.)

The "bathtub" segment was last, and its facts and diagrams were captivating, particularly in its post-9/11 relevance. An article about the bathtub can be found here; additional information is here.

Cities of the Underground occassionally repeats on The History Channel, although recently it's the "Beneath Vesuvuis" episode that's been on repeat. The episodes I'm most likely to view next from the DVD set are "Scotland's Sin City" and "Freemason Underground". A new season starts airing on January 28 at 9 p.m. with an episode about Jerusalem's "Underground Apocalypse".

Passenger series. On the way home from JFK International Airport, New York City; January 1, 2008; 08:27:47 a.m.

2008-01-01T22:32:00.000-05:00

holiday cheer

2007-12-23T00:44:00.000-05:00

Phil Kline's annual Unsilent Night is quite amazing, and it is an annual holiday tradition in New York City and other worldwide locations. I first experienced it in 2000 or 2001, during SantaCon. Enjoy the video; it is about 9 minutes long and worth watching, regardless of whether or not you've experienced an Unsilent Night firsthand.

As you may or may not know, I have a thing for birds. Seeing a hawk hanging out in Brooklyn would be a real holiday treat, and Brooklyn Hilary documented the momentous occasion, which happened today in Park Slope.

I'll be celebrating the holidays in AZ and CA. One of my new year's resolutions is to post more in 2008. Thanks for reading Urban Landscaped in 2007.

am New York: 'Endangered New York: 10 (more) to save'

2007-12-22T09:26:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, am New York ran a two-page article titled 'Endangered New York: 10 (more) to save'. The sites mentioned were interesting (not quite what I expected), and professionally, one of the sites is one that my employer will have played a large part in demolishing. (I understand and am sympathetic to my employer's organizational decision, but it was good to hear the counterpoint, as little organizational context as it included.) There are several links and image slideshows related to the article; here is the link.

Of course, the images of Admiral's Row in the Brooklyn Navy Yard are immediately viewed as beautiful and worthy of saving (aesthetically and historically), but three other mentioned locations resulted in a more personal introspection --

Modernist architecture

In the article, Peg Breen, president of the The New York Landmarks Conservancy, is quoted as saying "I think modern buildings aren't as easy to love sometimes...some...require a more intellectual understanding." Breen's statement hits the nail on the head.

Cited as examples in the article are The New York Public Library's Donnell Library Center, the Morris B. Sanders House in Turtle Bay, and the George Washington Bridge Bus Station. I find it difficult to aesthetically appreciate Donnell and the Bus Station, but intellectually I appreciate both structures. Is modernist architecture the first movement of architecture that this time period's population views as disposable? Is modernist architecture harder to take care of, therefore it looks more worn? Or is it simply underappreciated, and why? Many people immediately react positively to Art Deco buildings (which I don't personally like). Why is that? Is it the age, or do specific architectural elements identify with individuals interacting with the buildings?

St. Vincent's Hospital

I used to live near St. Vincent's Hospital, and I will never forget watching the Twin Towers burn from my vantage point across the street. I have been operated on at St. Vincent's, and I still routinely travel there for various tests. (Nothing serious; I love up-to-the-minute healthcare!) Nonetheless, St. Vincent's filed for bankruptcy a couple of years ago, so there are now financial/economic and architectural concerns. At a lunch I attended last month with Greenwich Village activisits/preservationists/concerned citizens, St. Vincent's was mentioned several times as being the biggest preservation issue that might affect living conditions in Greenwich Village.

The humble diner

Yes, the New York City diner is disappearing, and it's a shame. (New York magazine wrote about this in 2004, but it bears repeating.) One of the things I noticed when I moved to New York City in early 1996 was the prevalence of NYC diners. It made me happy. After I read this article yesterday, I went to lunch at a diner on Madison and 33rd and ordered sausage and eggs (over easy) with home fries and rye toast. Support your local diner!

Passenger series. Metro-North Harlem line, on the way to North White Plains, New York; December 2, 2007; 10:22:16 a.m.

2007-12-20T22:35:00.001-05:00

holiday book exchange (and I connect with Googie)

2007-12-18T01:13:00.000-05:00

It's the holiday season, and for the last several years, that has included an annual holiday book exchange at my place of employment. To be truthful, I "got out of" the book exchange the first two years I was at the Library, but this year, there was no excuse.

After literally feeling several wrapped books and thinking about my choice for about 60 seconds longer than appropriate (I lingered at that table), I committed to a package from the pile of offerings. I lucked out with a fantastic treasure, Googie Redux: Ultramodern Roadside Architecture by Alan Hess!

Ah, Googie architecture! I've heard the term before but forgot it. Now, after spending a bit of time scanning Hess' book and searching online, "Googie architecture" (aka "doo wop" architecture) is part of my vocabulary.

Googie Redux, originally published in 1985 and re-published in an expanded version in 2004, focuses on the western United States (California, Nevada), but Wildwood, New Jersey is also a well-known Googie town. In the 1970s, my grandparents took my brother and I out to Wildwood every summer. We stayed at The Mariner, which I believe recently closed. Scanning Hess' book and seeing the icy sidewalks outside my window this evening, I'm drawn to the idea of a doo wop long weekend in Wildwood. It'll be interesting to find out about the architectural philosophy behind these expressionist, futurist buildings from the 1940s and 50s.

Since I worked as a waitress at various Denny's locations during college, I've also spent hours in a uniform and apron, behind the counter in Googie buildings. (It wasn't pretty, but it was life.) This last summer, I also photographed various Googie sites in Chicago ghettos.

[Photo by Brian Indrelunas and found on Flickr.]

I lived within a five-minute motorcycle ride from this Googie building for almost 10 years. It wasn't an Arizona State University Information Center back then; it was still a Valley National Bank branch.

More information about the former Valley National Bank building at Apache and Rural:

-- from The Tempe Historical Society's website
-- ModernPhoenix.net went inside the building.
-- Even better, ModernPhoenix.net documents the demolition of the building.

I'm going to make sure I drive by the intersection next week, in remembrance of the building...and also to see what monstrosity is being built there in its place.

'American Ruins' x 3

2007-11-24T21:27:00.000-05:00

I was looking through the latest issue of photo-eye, and I came across an ad for Merrell Publishers. Featured was a photography book by Arthur Drooker titled American Ruins.

As you may remember, photographer Camilo Jose Vergara is one of my favorite photogs, and I recently asked him to autograph my copy of his book American Ruins (first published in 1999).

I also work with Ars Subterranea, and we've screened the work-in-progress film of a couple of our members, Bryan Papciak and Jeff Sias. The film is titled American Ruins, and its website can be found at www.americanruins.com.

One of my friends and collaborators pointed out to me today the first line of the "Book Description" of Drooker's book on Amazon.com: "American Ruins" is the first photography book to document historic ruins throughout the United States." ?!?!?!

It seems like a few people didn't do their research; photographers have been shooting historic ruins in America for many years now. Clarence John Laughlin and his book Haunter of Ruins come immediately to mind, just because now I'm thinking about my favorite photographers. Laughlin is most commonly referred to as a surrealist, but Haunter of Ruins features abandoned and deserted New Orleans buildings, which are pretty darn American. He was most active in the 1940s-60s. I'm sure somebody precedes him as well....

"American Ruins", the name and phrase, is genius and catchy. I understand this. It is not an excuse for it to be the only catchphrase that captures the movement of photographing significant abandoned American buildings.

Mr. Vergara's and Mr. Drooker's works are quite different. Simplistically stated, Vergara's is content driven. His photography is similar to Richard Avedon's (another one of my favorite photogs), in that it is direct and relies on its subject to provide the visual thrills. Drooker's work is romantic, mostly engineered by its use of infrared photography but also by the photos' compositions. I strongly prefer Vergara's style.

I also find it offputting that the main image used on several of American Ruins' (the film) webpages is so similar to Drooker's book cover.

Boo to Merrell, and yes, boo to Drooker as well.

A seldom-viewed Clarence John Laughlin image, interesting particularly in its subject location -
The Head in the Wall [building being demolished, near 2nd and K Streets, N.W., Washington, D.C.]
[Poems of Desolation]
1945
Source: Luminous-lint.com

While I was studying photography as a post-grad student in the early 90's, I traveled to New Orleans a couple of times and visited a photo gallery that had a few Laughlin prints and sold his books. This alone made my visits to New Orleans worthwhile; that's how strongly Laughlin's work affected me.

Passenger series. Westchester County Fire Training Center, Valhalla, New York; November 4, 2007; 09:50:59 a.m.

2007-11-05T00:39:00.000-05:00

Not in my neighborhood?

2007-11-04T05:28:00.000-05:00

I do like to explore abandoned buildings, and my recent trip to Detroit was my first opportunity to explore an abandoned house. Located in the Highland Park neighborhood, the house looked like a single- or two-family home from the front, but once we got inside, the halls and rooms went on forever. Our guess was that it was a six-family apartment building. When looking at it from the side, there were two structures (built at the same time, exactly the same way) with an attachment. (I know that there's an architectural term for this, sorry!)

With the exception of Detroit and other equally-abandoned cities, it seems that finding abandoned homes is a little more difficult than finding an abandoned school, insane asylum, etc. The economic reality of an individual is both less and more fluid than that of a corporation or municipality. For example, it would be a hardship for a working-class individual or family to leave to a house behind; they sell it (even for a low price, I would think). But they would want those funds and probably that closure. (Of course, they could sell it to a developer who does nothing with the property.) On the other hand, an individual dies and families move away.

There's an abandoned house on my block, and I'd love to know the story behind it. My neighborhood is pretty packed with houses; ours was built in 1906/08 and is 5 feet away from the neighboring house on one side and 2 feet away from the other house. Building is happening in my neighborhood, but due to the long-time residents, is a neighborhood in which most of the residences couldn't afford if they were to start from scratch in their homebuying. (ie: Their mean income couldn't afford to buy the property they own.) It's a nice, but old-style neighborhood.

Our house is at the bottom of a hill, near the main street. We rarely see the abandoned house at the top of the hill, except when somebody drives us home or when we rent a car and drive through the neighborhood looking for a parking spot. But it used to upset me that an abandoned house existed in our neighborhood. What about the value of the houses next to the abandoned place? Abandoned houses are great, but not in my neighborhood.

I've chilled on it a little. Live and let live. If I started researching the history of this house (and its owners), I'd probably look like a snoop. (Nonetheless, I might do so.) I find it intriguing that the owner doesn't sell the house for the land value. Where is the owner? I should've started photographing this house when we moved into the neighborhood three years ago...

Somebody's taking caring of this house a little bit, ie: the anti-littering sign and other small changes that I've seen over the years. Who?

When we first moved into the 'hood, I thought the house was locked tight. It isn't, and there are two easy ways to enter. The house isn't very stable, though, so I nixed walking around inside.

Here's a comparison shot of the house and its next-door neighboor. Of course, the shrubbery is overgrown. The sky is visible through the ceiling and roof; you can see a little of that in this photo. Since parking really is at a premium in our neighborhood, a 20-something couple parked their new candy apple-colored car in the driveway, while we were looking around and taking photos, and walked down the hill, presumably to a restaurant.

energy audit

2007-11-03T08:18:00.000-04:00

A couple of weeks ago, we had an energy audit of our house. We've been wanting one since we bought our house three years ago, but it's taken us a while to find somebody that we thought was objective enough to provide us just with the service of the audit.

The Association for Energy Affordability (AEANYC) charges $350 for an energy audit, and they do provide a report afterwards that gives you estimated cost of work. If you move forward with any of their suggestions, they will provide the contractors and also follow-up afterwards to monitor the various numbers.

The AEANYC also has programs for low-income families, to help the homeowner get a maximum amount of money back from the government to compensate for energy efficient changes made to the home and also to finance changes in a low-rate loan. We do not fit in that category, but AEANYC will still help us with rebates that are due to us, should we make changes.

This entry's photo shows the contraption that was placed on our door for a blower door test, which measures how much heating and cooling escape through unseen cracks and gaps in doors, windows, etc. When the blower door fan is turned on, the house gets very cool and drafty. We could even feel drafts when we placed our hands over electrical outlets!

Our house is 100 years old, so we had quite a few drafts. Our house also has no insulation. Ed installed fluorescent bulbs when we moved in, so that was already done. Other changes that were recommended to us in the report (received 2 weeks later) include low flow water devices, a CO detector directly above our stove (our only current one is linked to our fire and alarm system), a digital thermostat, and a new boiler.

AEANYC likes to look at energy audits as processes, not as a series of stand-alone factors. For example, the auditor asked us if temperature control in our basement and attic mattered to us. (It doesn't.)This allows for the creation of "zones" that need to be heated and cooled efficiently and those that are less of a priority.

Making some of these changes will pay themselves off in 10 years, and some will take longer. (Low flow water devices would have a quick payoff for us, for example; they're inexpensive and would save water costs immediately.) Some increase the value of the home, and some don't. (Insulation would increase the value of our home.) Some just would make things a lot more comfortable. ("Heated Area Infiltration Reduction 1" would make cold days more bearable.) These are the factors that we're going to think about when we meet with AEANYC in the next couple of weeks to move forward.

It was nice to get actual numbers behind some of our actualities and where we should be. Getting back to the blower door test (easily the sexiest part of the audit): Our house had a reading of 4800 CFM50, and AEANYC would like to lower that to 2800 CFM50. The current industry standard is 1030.98 CFM50. [The CFM50 is explained here.] (It should be noted that they measured every room in the blower door test, but the report gives us one total number.)

The recommendation we received is for $21,968 in work, which has a simple annual payback of 18.6 years. $10K of this is to replace our 1968 model boiler, which could be more efficient but isn't quite inefficient. (In other words, improvement would be marginal, so this increases the payback period significantly while emptying our wallets quickly.) I don't see a new boiler in our immediate future, but I am fantasizing about insulation and "Heated Area Infiltration Reduction."

Happy Halloween!

2007-10-31T06:34:00.001-04:00

Skeletal pelicans near our front door, and carved pumpkins (spider on left, and cannibal pumpkin on right) from myself and Ed.

Back to regular posting tomorrow!

In time for Halloween: This Old House's 'Spooky Ruins'

2007-10-28T20:05:00.000-04:00

This Old House online has a photo feature on Spooky Ruins, comprised of images from four members of Ars Subterranea. (Disclaimer: I'm involved with Ars Subterranea.) I was entertained by the posted comments; since this is for the This Old House audience, there's lots of talk about renovating the sites. And a fair amount of the posts argue which images are spooky and which are not. The photo feature is also currently linked to the main page of cnn.com.

My favorite is image 16 of 19. Which one is yours?

Image courtesy of Handcranked Productions.

Enter the humans

2007-10-25T21:17:00.000-04:00

I haven't posted yet about my trip to Detroit, although I've been back since Sunday. Today's the first day I'm feeling somewhat normal, and even now it's pretty abnormal, as I've been off the caffeine for a day and a half now and keep wanting to make myself a fresh-brewed glass of iced tea.

There's so much to say about my six days in Detroit; where do I start? There are three big reasons that I went out: to see the abandoned structures of Detroit; to play a game; and to spend time with my friends exploring the abandoned structures and playing a game.

People have been saying that downtown Detroit is slowly being built back up. The biggest, newest thing in the city's history is a casino. I pretty much hate casinos. There are many abandoned schools, houses, factories, and churches, but not many abandoned casinos. (Hey, send me a link so I can gloat! ;))

Nonetheless, even with Detroit slowly rebuilding (A newspaper article that I read during my visit predicted 2022 as the year of The Motor City's recovery), there was plenty to see. There are still lots of abandoned sites, many completely accessible by simply walking through the area that was once the front door. I could've spent several more weeks there and not been bored in the slightest. Detroit was our playground for six days, and I'm thankful for that time.

I do get easily spooked in abandoned sites. One of my friends recently asked me if I felt the presence of ghosts in any of the places that I visited. The answer: No, not really. I'm afraid of the living people that I might meet during my explorations. For example, in one space, a man screamed bloody murder. His heart was being yanked out of his chest, and since we couldn't see him, we could only assume that the yanking was figurative. This happened in a space filled with light, yet it was terrifying to me.

In another instance, I saw figures moving down a hallway, at which three of us were at the end of, installing an artwork. As they got closer, I couldn't stand the suspense any longer and approached them. They had been unaware of our presence and stood completely still as I walked towards them. Everything was cool, but 45 minutes later, a fire blocked our entrance/exit, and I think it was these hooligans that set the fire.

One somewhat early morning found a couple of us exploring the residential neighborhood of Highland Park, one of the most crime-ridden neighborhoods in Detroit. We found a fantastic house to use during our scavenger hunt, only to return a day later and feel completely unsafe with the number of loitering males located immediately next to the site.

So, for me, it is the humans that are scary; not the buildings. Sure, asbestos, lead paint, uneven floors, and holes are all things to be aware of in an abandoned building, but they're not fear-invoking on an immediate level like humans.

Devil's Night is on October 30 in Detroit, and it is a day known for burning buildings. Signs were stapled to many abandoned sites stating "This building is being watched. Stop Halloween arson, call [phone number]". Mischief and the smell of gasoline filled the air, and I wouldn't be surprised if some Detroiters mistakenly thought that our group was comprised of pyromaniacs. Some previously-burned buildings have now become empty mounds of grass and dirt, while others stand on display half-charred. There is a history of burning buildings in urban areas - most notably, the Bronx - and there are many reasons behind the fires. Insurance claims and vandalism tend to top the list. In Detroit, law-abiding citizens in poor areas have burned crack houses down, and structures have been lit so that they are demolished quicker. Sometimes the houses are older wood and brick structures and sometimes they are made of different materials. I'll be thinking of Detroit this Tuesday.

Passenger series. I94, Detroit; October 17, 2007; 5:59:37 p.m.

2007-10-22T08:08:00.001-04:00

bringing le nain rouge

2007-10-16T03:16:00.000-04:00

We'll be in Detroit for the next six days.

(I won't be here, because Slumpy is no longer.)

Open House New York | Sunday, October 7

2007-10-15T18:22:00.000-04:00

I spent the second day of my Open House New York (OHNY) weekend in an area about 1/2 square mile large, maybe even smaller.

First, I worked my volunteer shift from 10-2 at Brooklyn Lyceum. I'd been there last year for a haunted house, which means that my perception of the place was completely different this time: for example, I wasn't getting buried alive or in completely dark, claustrophobic spaces (which is, indeed, what I do sometimes for fun).

The Brooklyn Lyceum is a former bathhouse turned community arts center. The amount of activity that happens at the Lyceum is amazing. During OHNY, about 40 people showed up to rehearse an opera that was going to be performed onsite that Wednesday; dads and sons were showing up to use the batting cage upstairs; and Fiona Apple and Yo La Tengo had performed there the night before as part of The New Yorker Festival.

Owner Eric Richmond gave an incredibly fascinating tour; he has conducted extensive research on the building and the neighborhood's history. I told him a couple of times to put some of these stories down on paper, because they'd make a great book. (Think disease & death, the mafia, and gentrification.) I spent the majority of my time telling people to sign the OHNY guest book and talking to Eric's sister, Laura, who was very nice. The Lyceum is a great example of a private individual restoring a landmark building and turning it into something positive for a "marginal" neighborhood.

After the Lyceum, I headed to the Gowanus Canal to sign up for a self-guided canoe tour with the Gowanus Dredgers. The wait was about two hours long, but another lone OHNY attendee convinced me to to visit sculptor Tom Otterness' studio while I waited. His tours were completely booked, but everybody present at the start time was invited in, so we lucked out. If you're from NYC, you probably recognize his work from the A, C, and E subway stop at 14th Street & 8th Avenue, my neighborhood stop for 8 years when Ed and I lived on 14th Street.

Otterness' work is very playful yet politically challenging. His cartoon-like metal works make the crankiest New Yorkers smile. Beyond a glance, though, his work is anti-establishment. After several questions about his technical process, I asked about the political aspect of his work and how his style helped make the medicine go down, so to speak. He reminded us that the story of Humpty Dumpty worked the same way and that he had contemplated the idea the previous evening while watching a Richard Pryor video. Otterness also said that the MTA has only restricted his work on one occasion, when he created rats wearing police uniforms. One of the rats is permanently on view at Max Fish, a Lower East Side bar that one of his friends runs.

Children and adults can climb into the head of this sculpture and have a moment to themselves.

Otterness with a work that he is giving to his child's public school.

Otterness' studio was full of warm vibes, but it was time to get back to the Gowanus Canal for my canoe tour. News earlier in the week of the Canal having gonorrhea did nothing to dissuade hundreds of people from wanting to paddle in the Canal's waters.

I was by myself, so I was grouped with two others for the trip. Since I had talked about kayaking, I was put into the steering position of the canoe. Although it took me a few minutes to get the hang of it, it was fun being the steerer. (I would not have wanted to sit in the middle, and I'm sure that my forceful paddling would've irritated anybody else in a steering position.)

The last several times I was in a kayak or rowboat (which seems to be happening almost frequently now), I was surrounded by nature. In Newfoundland, there were Bald Headed Eagles above us; and, yes, City Island looks like a national park compared to the Gowanus Canal. But being surrounded by industrial ruins while canoeing was almost just as enjoyable as being surrounded by natural beauty. Too bad our tours were only 15-20 minutes long; I could've stayed out there for a while.

Has it perished? Does it exist?

2007-10-15T08:45:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, His Holiness the Dalai Lama finished three days of teachings at Radio City Music Hall, here in New York City. The teachings were on the Diamond Cutter Sutra & Seventy Verses on Emptiness.

To be blunt, the teachings, which I attended, made me aware of how I need to start practicing again and seriously read the sutras. I vascillated between drowsy and awake, aware and asleep, informed and ignorant. This was the second series of His Holiness' teachings that I've attended and the fourth time I've heard him lecture. When His Holiness talks to the general public, it is very easy to follow, but when he gives teachings, it's pretty dense for my level of knowledge.

There hasn't been a lot of philosophy and theory on this blog lately, and there is a connection between His Holiness' lecture and urban exploration. I hope to have some time to reflect upon the Diamond Cutter Sutra during my travels in the next week, and the below is a good start. At the very least, I will think of these verses and reflect upon abandoned sites:

From the Seventy Verses on Emptiness by Nagarjuna (translated into English by Gareth Sparham):

9.
Permanent is not; impermanent is not; a self is not; not a self [is not]; clean is not; not clean is not; happy is not; suffering is not.

21.
A state of existence would be a permanent state, and if it did not exist, it would be thoroughly annihilated. There would be those two [extremes] if there were things. Hence we do not assert things.

31.
It is not [the mark of what] has not perished, nor [of what] has perished. What has lasted is not lasting and what has not lasted does not last either. The produced and unproduced are not produced.

58.
All are impermanent. Alternatively, impermanence and permanence do not exist. Were things [to have an own-being], they would be impermanent or permanent, but how could that be?

Could somebody please write Mahayana Buddhism and the Art of Urban Exploration? I'd really like to read it.

Passenger series. The Viking Trail, Newfoundland; August 22, 2006; 11:12:20 a.m.

2007-10-10T07:03:00.000-04:00

Happy 8th wedding anniversary to the driver!

Open House New York | Saturday, October 6

2007-10-08T23:49:00.000-04:00

I'm home today recovering from a hectic Open House New York weekend. This year, I feel that I finally took full advantage of the weekend, seeing 7 different sites and volunteering a shift. The most frequent comment that I've been hearing lately about OHNY is that there's too much to see in too little time. This is absolutely true, and it's a game of geography and prioritization. (It was also 85 degrees outside, so heat was also a factor for some attendees.)

I was lucky to get a spot on Ellis Island's South Side tour. On Saturday, I woke at an extremely early hour to get to the Circle Line by 8 a.m. Fog was heavy in my Bronx neighborhood, and it was heavier in lower Manhattan, so heavy that the Coast Guard didn't let the first boat go until 10:15 a.m. (rather than the 8:30 boat that would've allowed the tour attendees to get to Ellis Island for the 9:30 a.m. tour). Since I had a 1:45 p.m. reservation on The High Line, I chose to forgo the later Ellis Island tour to ensure that I could visit the High Line. A new friend on line chose to give up her scheduled Fresh Kills tour to attend the Ellis Island tour. (!) The book will have to do for now...

I decided to go straight to Chelsea and see whatever I could in that neighborhood before the tour. My first stop was the General Theological Seminary on Ninth Ave. at 20th Street. It was a good warm-up spot and made me realize how a lot of Open House New York is (for me) about seeing the City in a different light. The Episcopalian Seminary is an entire city block of tranquility for the over 200 current students. The entrance building is going to be torn down in early 2008, and a higher building will take its place. Most of the OHNY sites that I visited will be changing architecturally in the near future.

Although listed in the OHNY guide, The Desmond Tutu Education Center was not open. It is run by the General Theological Seminary, so signs directed vistors to that site.

Since it was in the neighborhood, the next stop was Anderson Architects on West 25th Street. I could see its roof deck as I walked up 10th Avenue. Besides the gorgeous outdoor space, AA was interesting in that it was accessed via an elevator that opened directly to the street. (There's a gated door to the elevator that is swung open each morning.) The site gave me office envy, not only for the aesthetics of the space (both office and rooftop) but also for the creativity visibly demonstrated at each individual work station and throughout the floor.

Secret organizations are an interest of mine, and I quickly walked to the Grand Lodge of Masons; I've been told several times to visit this site. (NOTE: It is open for public tours Monday through Saturday.)

Although the rooms are grandly decorated, I most enjoyed hearing the Mason tourguides answer questions about the Masons. (My grandfather was a Mason, and I remember going to Mason picnics when I was young.) Many ideals and concepts were repeatedly stated: "The brotherhood of man under the fatherhood of god, whomever you may conceive him to be"; "We are not a social club"; "We cannot talk about religion or politics."

We were told that we would be attending the short tour; the 75-minute long tour was given during the week. An hour later, we had only toured half of the rooms (the tour is 6 floors long, each floor being two stories tall), and we had to leave before seeing "the wow room" in order to make our High Line appointment.

The half hour High Line tour covered what is known as "the upper third", the portion which runs over the West Side Rail Yards and is not secure from demolition (the other 2/3 of the High Line is secure and in construction to become a public park). We walked during the entire tour, and the scenery changed dramatically. I had an opportunity to go on the High Line in (I think) 2001, and I didn't go, so I was very happy to have another chance.

Here's a view of the West Side Rail Yards:

The big picture:

Preparing the lower 2/3 to become a public park:

Photographer Joe Sternfeld's book Walking the High Line documents the site circa 2000/2001. It is going to be reprinted this year with a few different photos, according to the Friends of the High Line volunteer that I spoke with on Saturday.

This was my Open House New York Saturday. The Sunday locations that I visited will be in another post.

Goodbye, summer?

2007-10-05T21:17:00.000-04:00

Summer is my favorite season. I'm from Arizona, and I really love it when it gets hot outside. Sunshine makes me incredibly happy. (Having said that, I'm glad that I live somewhere with the four seasons.) I thought that last weekend would be the last weekend of summer weather, but that remains to be seen, as one newspaper article yesterday referred to our current weather as being typical of mid-July temperatures.

Last Saturday, I rode my bike again to City Island, approximately 10 miles each way. This forces me to exercise, and City Island is well worth the trip. There is nothing profound that I can say about the ride; it was just fun. And the tilapia that I had at The Original Crab Shanty was also good (and about 3 servings' worth).

On Sunday, Ars Subterranea held a low-key event, just a simple potluck on abandoned ships in Brooklyn. We all gathered in a retail store's parking lot, and then Julia led the way to the boats. Rotting wood, large nails, seaweed, crabs, and huge fish and jellyfish -- I saw none of this at City Island, but I wasn't looking, either.

The public who attends Ars Subterranea events (in this case, there was a large waiting list for the event) are really very interesting and enjoyable to hang around with, which is great. There was a metal crossway to an island at the location, and several attendees crossed over. I was a bit nervous -- I didn't want to fall into that water -- but the others were more than nice and supportive about it. (And I got to the other side easily.) There's a strong sense of camaraderie at urban exploration events, more so than in other aspects of my life.

The area with the abandoned boats and submarine (on top of which swans have built a home) is quite large. We went at low tide so that we could enjoy our picnic on the boat remains; during high tide, most of the site is unreachable.

Nathan Kensinger's blog has some romantic images of the event.

Passenger series. Staten Island Ferry (to Staten Island); September 24, 2007; 12:11:24 p.m.

2007-10-04T23:26:00.000-04:00

October's not just a publication.

2007-10-01T23:56:00.000-04:00

Wow, October's here already! I spent this last weekend saying goodbye to the summer, and I'll post about that later this week.

In the meantime...Have you ever gone on a shopping spree and bought several books online, only to forget which ones you bought and then receive them like presents in the mail days later?

That's how I felt upon receiving Chain #11: Public Forms in today's mail.

Below is an excerpt from Akilah Oliver's "The Visible Unseen" (p 201). [The photo is a preview of my seasonal wrap-up and doesn't accompany the writing but is appropo.]

as a form
graffiti is in a constant state of tension
shifting its nomadic position spatially
transiently
it upsets
redistributes
through combat
disassemblage
distortion
the bodies insist on painting themselves in markets they
seemingly have no legitimate right to
in its refusal to disappear it forces a discourse in the public
imagination
we are forced to see what we would rather
not

The Mannahatta Project in this week's New Yorker

2007-09-27T22:24:00.000-04:00

Lots of good reading in this week's New Yorker, including Nick Paumgarten's eight-page article "The Mannahatta Project."

I've done a bit of research on my neighborhood, Woodlawn in the Bronx, but my starting point is in the late 1800s. The street was less crowded; my lot of land was four times as big (it was divided into four lots later on); the neighborhood wasn't as built up. But The Mannahatta Project, spearheaded by Wildlife Conservation Society landscape ecologist Eric Sanderson, takes New York City back to 1609, the year of a New York-based jacht ride by Henry Hudson and crew.

In 1609, everything was nature (and nature was everything). A four-mile beach ran from the Battery to West 33rd Street; lots more hills populated the city, before they were levelled; Manhattan was narrower; and there were 54 "ecological communities" in all.

Sanderson, whose office is at the Bronx Zoo and lives on City Island, is using 3-D pictures and the Muir web to determine what the City looked like before the humans invaded.

The Mannahatta Project aspires to minute verisimilitude, down to the varieties of moss, and will facilitate a kind of naturalist's version of George-Washington-slept-here. Eventually, Sanderson would like to put up plaques around town calling attention to this or that bygone pond or dune, or even to post recreations of 1609 vistas on the city's next generation of bus shelters. A visitor to Times Square, standing alongside the Naked Cowboy on the traffic island at Forty-fifth Street and Broadway, might be encouraged to see a convergence, under what is now the Marriott Marquis, of two freshwater creeks, one flowing out of a marsh beneath the headquarters of the New York Post, and the other from under the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis High School. The creeks were dammed by beavers to create a red-maple swamp, frequented by wood ducks and elk. The idea of all this, of course, is to get us to appreciate the remnants of the natural world, even in this degraded place, and then to work harder to preserve them, here and everywhere else. Still, although Sanderson might not admit it, such visions also have a way of helping us to savor our particular range of degradations. We've made a fine mess.

Harry N. Abrams is going to publish the book, though no publication date is mentioned. One of the more anecdotal portions of the article sees Paumgarten visit Inwood with Sanderson and Mannahatta project helper Markley Boyer. ("This is one of the few parts of Manhattan where you can get around successfully with a 1782 map," says Sanderson.)

The short paragraph about the human response to knowing this type of history was fascinating:

The attempt to strip one layer from the other, and to see where they match up, seems to simulate some as yet undiscovered cerebral nodes devoted to before-and-after visualization. The fantasy of depopulation, whether retroactive or futuristic, appeals to our sense of vanity and self-loathing. It may help explain the success of the book "The World Without Us," in which the author, Alan Weisman, describes what would happen to the earth if humans were no longer around. (In short, it would both bounce back and go to hell, in interesting ways.) It's Mannahatta in reverse. Weisman devotes a few pages to Sanderson's project, surmising that its findings will give us a clue as to what Manhattan would become in our absence. But, of course, the Manhattan of 1609 is lost. The city is far more than a flesh wound.

I think that the human response to most things is completely self-centered, even by the most enlightened people. My first photography criticism professor, Bill Jenkins at Arizona State University, once asked our small class why the nude was the most-photographed subject. "Narcissism" was my immediate response, although I couldn't explain why. Jenkins told me at the next class meeting that he'd thought about my reply and understood. I'm not sure which of these characteristics - narcissim, vanity, self-loathing - are inherent to the group of human beings (ie: a group trait) and which are individual.

The World Without Us is now on my reading list. Looking at the book's website timeline (sparingly done to maintain interest in the book), The World Without Us is about the beginning of decay and the return to nature. The concepts of decay and birth are definitely linked, to what extent I have yet to decide; do they have the same relationship as birth and death?

The article isn't online in its entirety, but The New Yorker's website has an accompanying slide show.

NOTE: Since writing this post, I was informed that that this book will be published in 2009, coinciding with the quadricentennial of the explorations of Henry Hudson and Samuel de Champlain in 1609, as well as the 200th anniversary of Robert Fulton's first steamship voyage along the Hudson River.

Passenger series. Indiana Sand Dunes; July 2, 2007; 11:49 a.m.

2007-09-27T01:29:00.001-04:00

Furnace Press' Call for Submissions

2007-09-25T20:42:00.000-04:00

I've started to do some work with Furnace Press, a small independent press formed by Ars Subterranea (of which I'm a Director) and Place in History. Below is a call for submissions; we will be publishing books about New York State ruins. Please spread the word to anybody you know who may be interested, or send me a link to anywhere where such a call for submissions could be listed.

Call for Submissions:

Furnace Press announces an author competition for its new publication series on urban ruins.
The Decomposition Series will consist of books focusing on noteworthy abandoned sites in New York State. The five books in this series will be 40-60 pages in length with black & white illustrations. The first of these publications will center on the ruins of Sea View, a former tuberculosis hospital in New York.

We're looking for proposals on interesting neglected structures with captivating visuals and intriguing histories. The text can consist of documentation, history, speculation, fiction, and/or personal experience. We're primarily looking for material that engages, arouses interest, and adds to the appreciation of forgotten ruins in New York.

There is no entry fee; the winning author will receive publication and contributor copies. The submission deadline is October 22, 2007.

Support for the Furnace Press Decomposition Series has been generously provided by the New York State Council for the Arts (NYSCA).

About Furnace Press
Furnace Press highlights obscure and neglected architectural subjects – urban decrepitude, industrial ruins, and disjointed neighborhoods – by publishing work that records the history of places facing obliteration, capturing them in transitive states. Co-founded in 2005 by Brooklyn-based arts groups Ars Subterranea and Place in History, Furnace Press publishes traditional paperback books, architectural pamphlets, and handmade books. Recent publications include Long Island City in Context by Paul Parkhill and Katherine Gray and Abandoned Tulsa by Alison Zarrow. Upcoming publications include The Space Between by John Law, short stories about bridge explorations; a handmade book Funeral Play by Julia Solis; and a Decomposition Series of publications focusing on urban decay in New York State. Furnace Press can be found online at www.furnacepress.com.

Ladies and gentlemen, set your schedules!

2007-09-24T00:39:00.000-04:00

Open House New York is quickly approaching. This year, it's Saturday and Sunday, October 6 & 7. I am volunteering again this year, and I'll be at the Brooklyn Lyceum on Sunday from 10-2. (They tried to put me at the Woodlawn Cemetery for a second time, and I asked for a different assignment.)

One of the benefits of volunteering is that you get a button which allows you and a guest to jump the line at locations when you're not on shift, so I'll be running around the City on the Saturday. Volunteers also get a free tee-shirt, and this year there are several designs of shirts. This is the one I'll be wearing.

an intellectual curiousity

2007-09-24T00:01:00.001-04:00

I was asked recently to write a short piece about an intellectual curiousity. This is what I wrote:

In between my undergraduate degrees in Sociology and Business Management, I spent quite a bit of time taking studio photography and photographic history classes. The photos without people were topically of the most interest to me, although I disliked traditional Western landscape photography - photos of mountain ranges and the red rocks of Sedona, for example. My favorite subject was photos of bedrooms, taken without the resident(s). To me, this was an authentic portrait.

Since 1998, I've been interested in abandoned buildings and locations. Any kind of abandoned building: sanitariums, hospitals, courthouses, train stations, even bridges that are off of the beaten path. Peeling paint, rusted ironwork, holes in the floor, and debris-filled rooms have all looked beautiful in a photograph.

Entering abandoned locations is called urban exploration (UE). Wikipedia's definition of UE is "the examination of the normally unseen or off-limits parts of human civilization."

Some urban explorers like the thrill of infiltrating a space in which they aren't allowed to enter, while others enjoy the physical challenge of entering such a site. UE photographers are capturing images of a location way past its prime: mental hospitals twenty years after the last patient left or a subway station that hasn't housed a subway car in fifty years. Is the fascination in the aesthetic, the lack of permission, or is it something else? Probably each UE photographer has a different philosophy. To me, UE photography is portraiture of a location captured during a transitive period with respect to the location's memory and its current state. The space's history is not completely separate from its involvement with people, but is divorced from that activity and stands on its own.

One of my photography teachers received a good amount of grant money to rephotograph photos from the early 1900s. In other words, he went to the same place at the same time of the year, decades later, and took the same picture. Sometimes the image looked the same - same mountaintop, same river, etc. But often there was evidence of man in the second photograph that wasn't present in the first - maybe a telephone wire, a car, or a dwelling.

I was traveling the Viking Trail in Newfoundland last year, and the photos that I enjoyed taking were those of a moose running, as seen through the passenger's window of a car; oil on a hiking trail; and a weathered bench in a forest of burnt trees. To me, today's urban exploration photography is last generation's rephotographing of the Western landscape. The abandoned building is not just an aesthetic perception. The musky smell, wet air, and the layers of muted color among decay are aesthetically appealing on some level, but it is the unspoken intellectual response that fascinates me and what I think about when looking at a photo of an abandoned building or exploring one with friends.

meeting Camilo Jose Vergara

2007-09-23T23:23:00.000-04:00

Camilo Jose Vergara is a Fellow this year at the New York Public Library's Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, and I had the opportunity to meet him a couple of weeks ago at a reception. Vergara's work is truly inspired and inspirational, and I love that he combines sociology (one of my undergraduate degrees is in sociology), photography, and urban exploration. There were lots of things I wanted to say to Mr. Vergara, but he seemed a little bit shy. I did attend with my copy of American Ruins, and I asked him to sign it. When I handed him my copy of his book, he retreated to his office and started flipping through the pages to ascertain which printing of the book I owned. I was elated when he noted that my book was well-used -- oh, the empty lots it's laid in -- and he recommended a few places for my upcoming trip to Detroit. He signed my book "for Gayle a fellow enthusiast of ruins."

Vergara is speaking about his Harlem project (see Invincible Cities link) on Wednesday, October 10 at the Museum of the City of New York. The program is titled Harlem: The Unmaking of a Ghetto. I'll report back afterwards.

Make sure you have your shots!

2007-09-20T23:39:00.000-04:00

I actually have several blog posts I'll be writing once I get a couple of hours of "me" time that doesn't involve watching the new season of Survivor China.

I've spent the last few weeks doing a horrendous amount of bureaucratic life things -- getting new insurance for our house, responding to tax audits, scheduling an appointment for an energy audit, taking possession of old 401Ks from former employers...the really fun stuff.

It's also doctor's appointment time-of-the-year, and I really like that. I'm in good health (knock on wood), but I meet with all of my doctors on a regular basis, get a lot of tests done, etc. This week, I visited my opthamologist and my general physician.

My GP asked if I wanted a tetanus shot. "You can wait until 2009 if you want," he said, "or you can get it now." In May, I had a small amount of rust fall in my eye, and I have an exciting trip to downtown Detroit planned for next month, so I decided to go for it. Now it feels like a large, hard marble was implanted in my right bicep.

I got my last tetanus shot in October 1999, the week I got married. In a last-minute anxiety attack in NYC, I broke a glass and got a small chard in my foot. When I got to Arizona two days before my wedding, I went to see a doctor, who told me that it was going to be more painful to have the chard surgically removed than to temporarily live with it. (My question: "What should I do? I have to wear three-inch heels in a few days!") Luckily, our wedding suite, which we stayed in the night before our wedding, had a jacuzzi. I got in and massaged my foot; eventually, the small chard came out, and I walked down the aisle the next day with no problem at all.

You never know when you'll need your tetanus shot!

starting the blog

2007-09-16T14:05:00.001-04:00

I've been wanting to start this blog for a while now, over a year, but I was distracted by my life, MySpace, and by the urban landscape around me.

Urban Landscaped will encompass a lot of what is my life.

According to Mirriam-Webster online (www.m-w.com), "urban" is "of, relating to, characteristic of, or constituting a city". Definition 2b of "landscape" (my husband says that I often use the most obscure definition of a word) is "a portion of territory that can be viewed at one time from one place".

I'll probably spend a notable amount of space taking about artists whose works excite me. One of my favorite photographers is Frederick Sommer. I own a couple of posters from his exhibitions, including the one featured in this post, which is framed and in the guest bedroom of my house. I like Sommers' image (the top one) much, much better than Adams'. Sommers work is so reality-based, no BS from that guy. And Sommers' reality is indeed achingly beautiful.

A couple of weeks ago, Ed and I rode our bikes out to City Island for a Labor Day get-together. One of the party attendees said that she had written extensively about Sommers' work in college. There are some topics that are good party talk and some that aren't. It took all my effort to not initiate an hour-long talk about Frederick Sommer, and I went swimming instead.