Atlantic Yards Part Three: The Electric Car Shop

The Electric Car Shop

May 22, 2007 -

Underneath Atlantic Avenue is an abandoned "Electric Car Shop." Used to repair Long Island Railroad trains, it sits in the footprint of the Atlantic Yards development site, inside the Vanderbilt Railyards. Empty lunch rooms, abandoned offices, ransacked archives, all with the lights still on. The train yard and nearby tunnels are still in use by the Long Island Railroad, but this shop seems to have been empty for years.

Other photos from the railyard have been posted on this blog here and here. More photographs of this space were also taken by Nate Dorr. For more information on this controversial construction project, visit these resources:

• No Land Grab
• Develop, Don't Destroy Brooklyn
• The Atlantic Yards Report
• The Atlantic Yards official site

In the Trench

Eat Me

Graffiti:"Typical LIRR Supervisor"

Abandoned Lunch Room

New Bulletins

Shopping Cart in the Trench

a

Rail

The Long Shop

Red Windows

View from a Window: Wards Bakery

Red Hook Container Terminal

Manhattan/Containers

May 12, 2007 -

The Red Hook container terminal is Brooklyn's last active shipping container port. It has been threatened with closure numerous times, to make way for waterfront development. The port is run by American Stevedoring and The Port Authority. In May 2007, Robert Guskind at The Gowanus Lounge wrote about "the city's plan to close the Red Hook container port and redevelop the waterfront for a variety of uses," quoting a New York Sun article which stated "the city's plan for the piers... is part of the administration's larger efforts to open up area waterfronts to the public, as the city creates a network of new esplanades, water taxis, and developments along the water's edge."

Two Cranes

Number 2

Under the Crane

Blue, White, Red

The Atlantic Yards, Part Two

April 25, 2007 -

This second set of photographs from the Atlantic Yards development site moves deeper into the Long Island Railway tunnels underneath Atlantic Avenue. This train yard, its tunnels, an abandoned train repair shop and large parts of the surrounding neighborhood may soon be covered by a massive new development. Additional photos from the Vanderbilt Railyards can be seen here, and in this set of photos from the abandoned Electric Car Shop.

Train Approaching

Tunnel Floor

Tracks

Exit

The Atlantic Yards

Two Windows

April 8th, 2007 -

These photographs are from inside the Atlantic Yards site in Brooklyn. This train yard, its tunnels, a train repair shop and large parts of the surrounding neighborhood may soon be covered by a massive new development. Though demolition has begun on surrounding buildings, the proposed project is still being protested by neighborhood groups such as Develop, Don't Destroy Brooklyn, while the official site of this development is here.

The Train Yard

Decayed Wall

At the Tunnel Entrance

View from the Yards

Ikea Rising

Ikea Rising

March 13, 2007 -

These photographs are part of a long-term project documenting the rapid transformation of Red Hook, Brooklyn. Once a lively industrial waterfront neighborhood, Red Hook has been swept up by a development boom which is parceling off Brooklyn's waterfront. The last vestiges of Red Hook's industrial heritage are currently being torn down, including the Todd Shipyard on Beard Street, which is the site of a new Ikea furniture store. For more photographs from this series, view the Revere Sugar Refinery, the Todd Shipyard and the Red Hook Grain Terminal, and read my award winning 2006 essay about Beard Street, Red Hook.

Underneath Ikea

Halleck and Otsego

Rocky - Wild Dog


Grain Terminal View


Ikea Rising

Brooklyn's Industrial Waterfront

In 2007, the National Trust for Historic Preservation placed Brooklyn's entire industrial waterfront at the top of their list of "America's 11 Most Endangered Places."

I have been documenting Brooklyn's industrial waterfront since 2003 in an ongoing series of photographs which cover the entire waterfront, from the Newtown Creek in the north down to Dead Horse Bay in the south. These photographs include views inside industrial landmarks that have been recently demolished, including the Kent Avenue Powerhouse, the Revere Sugar Refinery, and sections of the Greenpoint Terminal Market, as well as more humble structures like the Hamilton Avenue Marine Transfer Station and the North District 1 Sanitation Garage. They document historic structures that have been slated for demolition and development, including Admiral's Row, the Domino Sugar Refinery, and the Central Power Station of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company (aka The Batcave). These photographs also provide a glimpse into the few remaining active industrial areas along the waterfront, including the Brooklyn Navy Yard and the Brooklyn Army Terminal.

Individual photographs from this series have twice won awards from the Brooklyn Library - in 2006 and 2007 - and are a part of their permanent archive. In 2008, the Brooklyn Library exhibited a selection of photographs from this series in a solo show titled Twilight on the Waterfront: Brooklyn's Vanishing Industrial Heritage, while the Brooklyn Museum included a selection in Click! - an exhibit about the changing face of Brooklyn. In 2009, the UnionDocs Gallery exhibited a selection of these photographs in a solo show titled Abandoned Brooklyn. In 2010, the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts exhibited a selection of these photographs in a show titled The Gentrification of Brooklyn. Photographs from this series have been published in the New York Times newspaper and were featured in two photo essays I wrote for the NY Times website, in The Local and the NY Region sections.

For more information on this series, please contact me at thegowanus[at]yahoo[dot]com