Monthly Archives: February 2013

Office Space

The last stop on my Albany adventure for this year, this warehouse in Menands seems to have been a casualty of the recession. While it was originally a national leader in magazine printing (Williams Press, contractor for the northeast printings of Condé Nast magazines), a decline in the print business forced Williams to close in 1999. The next tenant, judging by what still remains, must have been a moving/storage facility for Manhattan offices, containing neatly stacked regiments of furniture from the likes of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, undoubtedly hidden away, perhaps on pawn, until the recession thawed, but left…

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Scrap Pile Hospital

This was one of the few places in the Albany area I'd researched, and the only one any local explorers would help me out finding. As you might expect, it sucked. Genesee hospital was torn to shit, but this one, Seton Hospital, took it to an entirely new level. Anything of any value was missing, anything that could be smashed was, and most surfaces that would hold paint, were covered in graffiti. Making matters worse, it was a cold, rainy, February morning, an unphotogenic day for a downright ugly hospital, and I was dragging around a pounding hangover from round…

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Fallen Giants

By the time I was thoroughly fed up with my fool's errand in Albany looking for people to explore with (and had the first few of many drinks on Lark street), I decided I may as well at least explore something before the weekend got any worse. Out by myself (which never happens) and in absolutely no mood to get caught, I went back to the one place I knew I could get into, AlTech Steel, for some night photos. Even when it was still alive I'd have to imagine this place was incredibly drab. Industrial wasteland hardly does it…

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Lost In Capital City

Another awful Saturday with(out) awful people. I'd been planning a trip to see Hudson River psychiatric center in Poughkeepsie for the last few months, and thought I found a group of people to go with. Then starting Friday night, one after another backed out, the last two while I was already on the train east, and I tried spamming any possible explorers I knew, begging and bribing anyone to go with me. Of course no one did, and at least 6 new people blocked me on facebook. By the time I got to Albany I realized it was beyond hopeless…

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Cabinet Position

I usually try to stay away from going back to the same place over and over again, but when a new one appears and it's this easy to get to, it inevitably happens... in the past two weeks I've been in this damn hospital four times. Ordinarily every time I explore gets its own page, but that would just get too repetitious, so here goes... TRIP 1 - January 31 I didn't think I'd even bother to go that night, one of my friends was taking his pledge class into the creepy old hospital. Now, these places don't get haunted…

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Groundhog Day (Again)

The subway seems like it always was and always will be here. It's been abandoned for 55 years now, and while a piece here and there gets filled in sometimes, it's unlikely to ever see another train, or really any reuse other than the de facto graffiti gallery it's become. Every year since 1994, the Concrete Discussion Group has come here on or near Groundhog day to explore the tunnel and eat Dinosaur Barbeque. This year was the 20th, and, I'm starting to think, last time we celebrate the eventual end of winter and start of another exploring season. There…

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