Bluejake

Governor's Island Theater

jake — 2009-07-07T17:18:51-05:00

The weekend before last I went out to Governor's Island to check out Creative Times' PLOT09 festival. I got there a couple of hours before the programs started, so I had time to tour the south side of the island, which is still mainly abandoned. Lots of empty barracks, family housing, and industrial buildings. Later on I spent some time at the PLOT exhibits-- some of them made pretty clever use of the northside buildings. Related: another cool piece.

Four Directions

jake — 2009-06-30T22:21:20-05:00

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A few more shots from the various balconies of the Williamsburgh Savings Bank building.

Night at the Williamsburgh Savings Bank

jake — 2009-06-30T22:04:58-05:00

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Over the weekend Mike invited us to a party at his friend's apartment at the WSB. Once inside, we availed ourselves of the opportunity to take another tour of the building-- I think it's even more beautiful at night than it is during the day. Later on, we got out on to the main floor of the bank-- rumor was it was going to be turned into an Apple Store, but last week it was announced that it's going to be used as a wedding space.

From The Rooftops

jake — 2009-06-29T10:19:50-05:00

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Here are a few skyline shots I found on a roll of film I just got back. These were all taken with my Contax T2. Locations: Court and Montague, Clinton and Joralemon, and 17th Street and Union Square West. The weird thing is that I'm actually kind of scared of heights.

Bermuda

jake — 2009-06-26T21:54:24-05:00

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Karen and I just got back from a week in Bermuda. The weather was pretty good and we spent four days on the beach. During the couple of rainy days, we did some sightseeing-- most of these pictures are from St. George and The Dockyard, two of the island's big tourist spots. Don't be fooled by the somber, abandoned, zombie-attack air of these pix-- for the vast majority of the time we were there, I was on the beach sipping a pina colada and blinding people with my whiteness.

A Corner in Bed-Stuy

jake — 2009-06-15T10:25:47-05:00

One more from Bed-Stuy-- I believe that this is on Malcolm X Boulevard. The fog at the right side is sweat. I probably shouldn't bike with my camera pressed up against my back.

The Greater Antioch Temple, Inc.

jake — 2009-06-13T10:25:51-05:00

I've been exploring Bed-Stuy the last couple of months. My eye is really drawn towards the street scenes on the main avenues-- Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey, Nostrand, etc-- the combination of people hanging out in front of old storefronts and street churches. I love that kind of shot.

Ruins of Albee Square

jake — 2009-06-11T10:25:55-05:00

Looks like the Albee Square Mall in Downtown Brooklyn has been fully demolished. I was biking back from Bed-Stuy last night when I passed by the construction site-- it's enormous wedge-shaped piece of property between Fulton and Flatbush Avenue, and it looks like a lunar landscape. I think the lower levels of the mall are still there-- you can see a cavernous hole in the foreground hinting at the basement level. In the background are the new Flatbush Avenue skyscrapers-- the Toren is the one on the right. [Related: shot of the same area from the roof of the Forte nearby.]

High Line Phase 1

jake — 2009-06-09T12:16:31-05:00

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Yesterday I checked out the newly reopened High Line-- about three years after I attended the ground breaking for the park. My first impressions were generally good: they did a great job on the gardening, and many of the public spaces are charming. My major complaint is that they didn't leave enough of the original wild High Line-- the rust and tracks and graffiti. I'm not saying that stuff should have been left just as it was, but there was an opportunity to preserve more of it than they did. Afterwards, I tagged along on a tour of the undeveloped phase 3 section up by the West Side Rail yards-- it was nice to see some of the natural grass and rusty rails again.

Farm Colony

jake — 2009-06-05T18:09:05-05:00

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Over the weekend we biked out to Farm Colony, the most popular set of abandoned buildings in all of Staten Island. The colony is comprised of ten or fifteen buildings, mostly completely stripped and covered inside and out in crappy graffiti. Apart from frequent visits from vandals and urban explorers, they've been abandoned for more than thirty years.