The Post-Industrial Shores of Staten Island

On Tuesday May 18th, I was invited by the New York City Parks and Recreation Department to present a slideshow and lecture on "The Post-Industrial Shores of Staten Island." This presentation was co-sponsored by the Council on the Arts and Humanities for Staten Island (COAHSI).

I presented photographs from industrial sites around Staten Island, including an abandoned chewing gum factory, a partially demolished color works, rotting train stations, empty hospitals and boat graveyards. These photographs were described in the Staten Island Advance as documenting "places that even the forgotten have forgotten," while Gothamist wrote of the presentation "photographer Nathan Kensinger does not take pictures of sunsets or skylines. His photos capture the gritty, abandoned, post-industrial parts of NYC you'd never otherwise see, or perhaps never thought you'd want to."

This presentation was also reviewed by the Staten Island Advance, which wrote "Brooklyn photographer Nathan Kensinger has a knack for capturing once-popular pieces of the past... [he] has braved harsh conditions – poison ivy, cracked floors and the possibility of being caught trespassing – to record stills of the decrepit Smith Infirmary in Tompkinsville, the now garbage-free Freshkills Park in Travis, and the graveyard of forgotten boats just off Rossville’s shoreline."

This presentation was part of "Freshkills Park Talks" - a lecture series related to the Freshkills Park project in Staten Island, which I photographed in 2009. I gave a previous lecture for the Parks Department, titled "Picturing New York City's Post-Industrial Waterfront." For more information, please visit the Freshkills Park website.