Nathan Kensinger Photography

South Brooklyn Marine Terminal

November 30th, 2009 -

Sunset Park is Brooklyn's last stronghold of waterfront industry. Stretched out along approximately 50 blocks, its industrial zone houses numerous small businesses and four major industrial complexes - Industry City, the Brooklyn Army Terminal, Bush Terminal and the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal. According to the Southwest Brooklyn Industrial Development Corp, "over 20,000 people are employed by Sunset Park's manufacturing and industrial sectors."

Today, the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal is being redeveloped by its operator, the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC). This 88 acre industrial complex has been underutilized for several years, with empty warehouses, abandoned offices and rotting locker rooms. Some of these spaces are now being demolished as part of the NYCEDC's Sunset Park Vision Plan. This plan, which also encompasses the $36 million park at Bush Terminal, promises to "strengthen the area as a center for industrial growth" with $40 million earmarked for "creating rail infrastructure and a new public berth" and a "$48 million investment to rehabilitate docks" at the terminal. After these improvements are complete, the terminal will be home to the Axis Group - an "auto-processing company" and Sims Recycling - "a modern recycling center."

Hopefully the NYEDC Vision Plan will help retain Sunset Park's working waterfront for many decades to come.

Warehouse Demolition

Bulkhead Repairs

No Berthing

Restricted Area

Terminal Diagonals

Anne Frank (2008)

Green Tree

Inside Out

Warehouse Interior

Pull Box

"Our Number 1 Pollution: Communism"

"Life is Always Special"

Fresh Kills

November 11th, 2009 -

The Fresh Kills Landfill was once the largest landfill in the world. Situated on the west coast of Staten Island, it could "be seen with the naked eye from space" and was "taller then the Statue of Liberty" according to a study from Brooklyn College, while Wikipedia claims it may have been "the largest man-made structure on Earth." The landfill opened in 1948, according to The Department of Parks & Recreation, and grew by "29,000 tons of trash per day" at its peak, swelling to "approximately 150 million tons of solid waste" before closing down in 2001. Its 2,200 acres are now part of an extremely ambitious 30-year-plan to turn this dump into "the largest park developed in New York City in over 100 years."

Despite this epic history, Fresh Kills is now a rather quiet and serene site. Its landscape has more in common with a western prairie then with Staten Island's heavily forested hills. Low scrub brush, a few scattered trees and winding dirt roads look out on Fresh Kills itself, which is a peaceful freshwater stream meandering between man-made hills. Deer and osprey have made this their home.

Unlike the breached landfill of Dead Horse Bay, there is no garbage visible at the Fresh Kills site. Most of its trash mounds have been capped. However, as the eye becomes accustomed to the vast, seemingly empty landscape, it begins to pick out anomalous details. A complex system of passive vents, gas extraction wells and flare stations dot the hills. Designed to harvest or burn off the noxious gasses building up beneath the landfill's shell, they are a constant reminder of the area's hidden toxicity. If not for these reminders of the man-made origins of this unnatural wasteland, Fresh Kills would be a beautiful estuary.

No section of Fresh Kills Park will be open to the public before 2010, although occasional bus tours are sometimes offered by the parks department.

Fresh Kills Mound

Vanishing Dirt Roads

Vibrant Bushes

Osprey and Passive Vent

Methane Extraction Well

Manhattan Views

Flare Station Horizon

Flare Station Platform

Glowing Harvest

Fresh Kills

Nautical Elements

Safety Block

Cross and Ivy

Kingsbridge: Substation No. 3

October 28th 2009 -

If the Harlem River is "New York's forgotten waterfront" then Substation No. 3 is one of the most forsaken places in New York City. Situated on the Bronx shores of the Harlem River, few references can be found to its history, its architect or its purpose. Unlike the well documented Substation No. 10 in Inwood, Substation No. 3 is not even mentioned in the exhaustive Harlem River study written by Columbia's historic preservation program. Just one historic reference to its existence can be found online: an unpublished photograph in the NY Public Library archives, culled from a 1926 collection titled "The Pageant of America - Volume 4: The March of Commerce ."

Substation No. 3, also known as the Kingsbridge Substation, is a simple structure. Two stories in height, it is constructed from utilitarian red brick. Inside, two large skylights loom over an open hall. Exposed to the elements, the substation's interior is in relatively poor shape compared to Substation No. 10. Heavy equipment is collapsing into the basement.

Perhaps the most striking thing about this anonymous structure are the numerous objects found inside that indicate a family recently called it home. Luggage, blankets, medication and a toothbrush are tidily arranged around the substation alongside the belongings of several children: stuffed animals, a baseball glove, story books. Like the haunting Victim Services center in Staten Island, these objects hint at a bleak, unwritten history.

Open Skylights

Substation Interior

Layers of Industry

Skater and Toothbrush

Smiling Elephant

Boa and Bunny

"It's All About ME!"

Chopin and Champagne

Flammable Material

To the Basement

The Lower Depths

Arches

Imminent Collapse

Pretty, Vacant: A Slideshow of Abandoned New York

"Pretty, Vacant: A Slideshow of Abandoned New York"

I was recently invited by the Open City Dialogue lecture series to present a selection of my photographs of abandoned New York. In a presentation titled "Pretty, Vacant: A Slideshow of Abandoned New York," I traced the evolution of my photography of New York City, beginning with the San Francisco Navy Yard, which has long been a source of inspiration. The presention explored Red Hook and Brooklyn's industrial waterfront, before expanding out into a variety of sites around Manhattan, Staten Island, the Bronx and Queens.

The lecture was previewed by Time Out New York, which described the photographs as "eye-opening (and sublimely beautiful)." The lecture was also a pick of The NY Times, which wrote "photographer Nathan Kensinger is an inveterate trespasser, climbing around the city’s abandoned buildings and decaying waterfronts to chronicle them. His work... uncovers some of the last unseen parts of New York." In a related article, Flavor Pill wrote that these photos "evoke nostalgia for a New York that most of us never witnessed."

Please note: the slideshow above is a slightly condensed version of the original presentation, and does not include narration.

2009 Red Hook Film Festival

The 3rd annual Red Hook Film Festival took place on October 3rd and 4th, 2009. The festival screened 5 blocks of short films in a Civil War era warehouse on the waterfront of Red Hook, Brooklyn. As an advisor to this year's festival, I was happy to see that they included several films about industry and abandoned spaces, which are two defining aspects of the Red Hook landscape.

On Saturday, the festival opened with "Lavendar Lake" - a portrait of Brooklyn's polluted, industrial Gowanus Canal. Following that was a screening block titled "Abandonment Issues" which includes films set inside abandoned power plants, insane asylums, sewers and factories. On Sunday, the festival presented an "Urban Industry" screening block, with films about rooftop farms, industrial Williamsburg, squatters in the Lower East Side, and a documentary about the Atlantic Yards development titled "Brooklyn Boondoggle."

For more information, visit the festival's website and myspace.

Secret Parties

September 23, 2009 -

The summer of 2009 saw New York's real estate market in crisis. In late May, the NY Post reported that a "squatter explosion" was taking over "foreclosed homes and abandoned construction sites." In July, the New York Times reported that 368 construction projects were stalled around the city - enough to "evoke unnerving images of New York’s abundant vacant lots in the 1970s." And then the Daily News reported that "heroin-addict hobos from around the country" had flooded into New York and were "living in stalled luxury condo projects," prompting one Brooklyn resident to say "it's like St. Marks in the '70s... it's the bad old days all over again."

Besides this wave of squatters, the real estate crisis also spurred a creative response, as several semi-clandestine events were organized throughout the summer of 2009. Set in vacant lots, on boats in polluted canals, inside empty industrial buildings, and around half-empty luxury condo buildings, these events allowed unfettered access to unique parts of the New York landscape. Their locations ranged from DJs spinning on the unsold observation decks of the Williamsburg Savings Bank, to parties inside the massive "urban pirate" ferryboat moored on the Newtown Creek, to swimming in dumpsters in a vacant lot next to the polluted Gowanus Canal. The following photos capture moments from some of this summer's so-called "secret" parties.

"Americans Retreat to Their Inner Line"

"Urban Pirate" Boats

Maze of Industry

Inside the Dome at Night

Dumpster Diving

Captain's Quarters

Down the Aisle

Silenced Halls of Commerce

Dumpster Lights

On the Newtown Creek

Last Night of the Dumpster Pools

The Bronx Swamp

August 31st, 2009 -

The Bronx Swamp is an abandoned, flooded railroad line below the streets of Mott Haven. Its waters are a bright and unnatural green, the color of antifreeze. It is home to birds, rats, raccoons and mosquitoes, and has been used as a dumping ground for years. One local told the Daily New Yorker that "dead animals and a human body" were found in the swamp, while the Mott Haven Herald reports that the "foul odor" rising from the swamp's "plastic bags, broken beer bottles, planks of decaying wood, and abandoned basketballs" has forced residents to consider moving out of the neighborhood. The city acknowledges the Bronx Swamp is a health risk - the Department of Health & Mental Hygiene regularly sprays it with larvacide to curb the spread of mosquitoes potentially infected with the West Nile Virus.

The railroad line underneath the waters of the Bronx Swamp was "formally abandoned" in 2004 by the CSX Corporation, according to the NY Daily News, but - as one resident stated in The Epoch Times - "I've lived here for 17 years and the water's been there just as long." Today, the swamp is scheduled for a major cleanup. It is currently being drained of "more than 150,000 gallons of stagnant water," according to the NY Times. After draining, bulldozers will remove its assorted debris. However, the city has been unable to locate the current owners of the Bronx Swamp and so, as the NY Times states, "the fate of the land remains unclear."