Well, it seems like there’s a small piece of Detroit within New York City limits.
Photographer Lynn Guarino has photographed the remaining bungalows in Far Rockaway which have been left abandoned and in a state of decay because of changing demographics in the area. The bungalows were reportedly built in the 1940’s to be the vacation houses of upper-class families, but when New York City started building low-income housing in the area, people split and never looked back. Now, many of these houses are left to rot with no prospective buyers lined up.
The photos are shown in an animated GIF (yeah, WTF seriously…), but you get a sense of what’s going on after several loops or so.
I first came across this building back in the winter of 2005 when I made regular trips into Jersey City to the Chan residence. I haven’t seen it in person in a few years, but I remember when I came across it, it seemed to be quite an eyesore because it was in such decay while the buildings around it were so rapidly being developed.
Still, the image of the place stuck with me and just recently I became fascinated with the place again. As far as I know, it still stands and not much work has been done to it (however, the Jersey City Landmarks Conservancy is trying to get it restored and reused).
Anyway, I’m probably going to do a go-see later this week (maybe tomorrow) to find out if there’s any way for me to sneak inside. If I remember correctly, the surrounding area is pretty dead and I’m going to have to gauge how busy it might be on the weekends. Crossing my fingers for this one…
Gordon said I should watch this video called Detroit Wildlife of one person’s depiction of Detroit City as a wonderful transforming landscape rather than a decaying former metropolis. The video is a teaser for what looks to be a larger production and it certainly makes me want to find out more about Detroit (or even visit the city if I can in the future).
In Detroit Wildlife, the city is seen as an empty and haunting place filled with feral animals, homeless people, and abandoned buildings everywhere you look. It really reminded me of the movie I Am Legend where New York City starts being taken over by shrubbery and nature as human existence is gone. In a sense, the current state of Detroit is an urban explorers dream and part of the reason why I now want to visit the place before it falls any further into deprecation.
As I watched this documentary, I began to realize how something so tragic as the dead man frozen in ice could have happened in a place like Detroit. It doesn’t justify the act of leaving a body there for a month, but it does shine some light on the potential causes of why something like this would happen in Detroit.
The Detroit News has a very sad and disturbing story of urban decay and indifference that will shock you. The image above is actually of a dead body frozen and forgotten in a block of ice inside the well of a cargo elevator at the Roosevelt Warehouse. [via]
The Roosevelt Warehouse is a former Detroit Public School book repository that’s been controversial in the past for literally letting many books and supplies rot and waste away while many of Detroit’s school children had no money for supplies.
The image above is an all-encompassing look at just how terrible conditions have gotten in Detroit where even a human body will be left unreported and unattended to for about a month! From the article, it seems as if there’s a general lack of care for the city and its citizens and this formula of indifference certainly spells disaster for what used to be one of the major metropolitan cities in America.
But seriously, it is that one picture above that would move me to action. How can a city and its people get to such a point that even a fellow man is considered indistinguishable from the rubbish around him?
