Additionally, on July 9th, 2008, The Architects Newspaper featured a review of my photography exhibition Twilight on the Waterfront: Brooklyn's Vanishing Industrial Heritage. The article - titled "Vanishing Acts" - was written by Anne Guiney and can be seen below.
July 29th, 2008 -
The Colonna Marble company was one of the last small industrial businesses on the East River in Queens. Its waterfront lot overlooked upper Manhattan and Roosevelt Island from steep 60 foot high cliffs. Though there are many marble companies near the Greek neighborhood of Astoria, these photos show the demise of a rare piece of the East River industrial waterfront, now reduced to empty offices, ruined warehouses and a haven for wild cats.
June 25th, 2008 -
The Kent Avenue Powerhouse - also known as the BRT Powerhouse - is now being demolished. Despite a general public outcry, including a petition and a blog and articles in the NY Times, Gothamist, Curbed, Brownstoner, The Brooklyn Paper, and in many other media outlets, work has proceeded at a rapid pace. The southern third of the complex, where a huge and ornate hall was located, has already been destroyed. These photos document the state of demolition in that section and show what remains in the two other sections of the building - the northern hall, full of equipment, and a second large hall located in the middle of the complex.
These photos were taken on June 21st, 2008. A recent set of photos from May 2008 by the LTV Squad shows what the southern hall looked like before it was destroyed. It is clearly evident that Con Edison has already demolished a major portion of the building, and will soon demolish the rest.
The Kent Avenue Powerhouse was built during 1905 and 1906 to power streetcars and trains. It was sold to Con Edison in 1950 and remained in operation until 1999. In 2008, it was labeled as a candidate for the National Register of Historic Places by the New York State Historic Preservation Office. For more history on the plant, please read the Williamsburg Power Station chapter from Thomas Edward Murray's book "Electrical Power Plants" and visit one of the first and best stories on the demolition at I'm Not Sayin, I'm Just Sayin.
Update: This complex was completely demolished by July 2009.
Northern Hall
Northern Hall Basement
Basement Furnace
Central Hall
Central Hall and Balcony
Abandoned Offices
Demolition
Basement and Demolition
4th Floor Balcony
Southern Hall Demolition
Destruction of the Southern Third
Southern Wall
Rooftop View
Sunset, Shroud and Navy Yard
In the summer of 2008, the Brooklyn Museum exhibited one of my photographs of Brooklyn's industrial waterfront at their exhibit Click! The exhibit was just down the street from my solo show at the Brooklyn Library, "Twilight on the Waterfront".
The theme of Click! was "the changing face of Brooklyn." My contribution was a photograph of the Todd Shipyard Drydock in Red Hook, which was destroyed by a new Ikea furniture store. Also included in the exhibit were my frequent photography collaborators Sam Horine and Nate Dorr with their photos of the Red Hook waterfront, which can be seen here and here. Additionally, my friends and fellow photographers Ian Ference, Clara Daly, Tracy Collins, Elizabeth Weinberg and Sonja Shield each had photos in the exhibit that took a unique look at Brooklyn's changing industrial waterfront neighborhoods.
Click! proved to be a controversial show and provoked interesting reactions from the New York Times and the Washington Post. A book including all of the exhibited photographs can be purchased here.
From June 18 through August 30th, 2008, the Brooklyn Public Library featured an exhibition of my photographs titled "Twilight on the Waterfront: Brooklyn's Vanishing Industrial Heritage." This exhibit documented off-limits industrial sites along Brooklyn's waterfront, shedding light on what Brooklyn has lost to development over the last five years. The exhibit was drawn from my long-term photography project about Brooklyn's industrial waterfront and was displayed at the Central Library at Grand Army Plaza, in the Grand Lobby. The official library page for the show can be seen here.
"Twilight on the Waterfront" was featured in a New York Times article and slideshow and was described in a Gothamist review as "an impressive body of work" which "vividly documents the accidental beauty of decaying buildings." The Architects Newspaper stated in its review "the Brooklyn waterfront is strangely easy to overlook since the Manhattan skyline tends to dominate the view. But as Kensinger's photographs show, its texture and variety reward a closer look..."
The exhibit was also featured on Brownstoner, which has described these photographs as "urban guerrilla" photography and "well worth checking out." Finally, the Brooklyn Eagle wrote in their review "after... years of documentary filmmaking, Park Slope resident Nathan Kensinger has, with admirable success, added still photography to his repertoire."
Ironically, this exhibit opened the same day as the new Red Hook Ikea, and featured photos from the Todd Shipyard and the Revere Sugar Refinery, two historic structures destroyed during Ikea's construction. Brooklyn's entire industrial waterfront was recently listed as one of America's "11 most endangered" historic places by the National Trust For Historic Preservation.
Collapsed Interior
Swim/Nadar
Police Station
Square Windows
Graffiti Room
Boiler Room
Bomber
Nose Gunner
Hangar
April 30th, 2008 -
The Brooklyn Army Terminal was built in 1919 and designed by architect Cass Gilbert. At completion, it was 5 million square feet in size and covered 97 acres of Sunset Park waterfront. It was used during WWII to ship out over 3 million troops, including Elvis. Today it is owned by New York City and used by over 70 tenants. Like Bush Terminal and the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal to the north and the Bay Ridge freight tracks directly south, the Brooklyn Army Terminal is managed by the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC), a corporation responsible for much of the recent redevelopment of New York City's waterfront.
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For more photo essays from Brooklyn's Sunset Park please visit Bush Terminal (2007), the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal (2009), Empire Electric (2009), S & S Machinery (2010) and the 68th Police Precinct (2011).
