Pouch Camp

April 28, 2011 -

There are many strange things in the Blood Root Valley. There is the half-abandoned tuberculosis hospital. There is a 260-foot mountain made by Robert Moses. And there is Pouch Camp, a hidden 143-acre oasis with a 68-year-old lake, mountain ponds, rustic cabins and 55 lean-tos. For over 60 years, Pouch Camp has been a secret haven for New York City's boy scouts. Each year, thousands of scouts learn to swim and camp within the boundaries this vast idyllic refuge. Located in the heart of Staten Island, Pouch Camp is so large it even has its own private island, which is difficult to reconcile with the fact that the camp is situated inside the most populous city in the United States. Located just 10 miles from Wall Street, Pouch Camp has somehow remained largely anonymous. "Few New Yorkers know of it," according to the NY Times, and it is instead "a habitat for deer, owls, snakes, turtles and herons."

In the off season, William H. Pouch Scout Camp is peaceful and largely deserted. Winding trails snake through hills dotted with ponds. Lean-tos sit quietly in the woods, waiting for summer. Small streams flow down from the hills into Ohrbach Lake, the man-made lake at the heart of Pouch Camp. Its beaches are closed, the boats stowed, and park rangers are busy replanting trees and cleaning roads around its edges in preparation for another busy summer season. Aside from the scouts, Pouch Camp also hosts a day camp each summer for boys and girls from around New York City, with fishing, swimming, boating, rock climbing and archery.

Ohrbach Lake

Docked

However, a "black cloud" hangs over the preparations for this summer, and "the future of the property is very much uncertain," according the most recent news from the Staten Island Advance. Back in November 2009, "citing financial stress," the Greater New York Councils of Boy Scouts announced that they planned to market and sell Pouch Camp (PDF document). The boyscouts had been "hit hard by the recession," according to the NY Times, and had lost $5 million in donations. Almost immediately, thousands of Pouch Camp supporters organized in response, according to the Staten Island Advance, amidst fears that the property would be sold to developers. Members of the community have marched on City Hall, organized a website (www.savepouch.com) and have a 6,000+ member facebook group (Save the William H. Pouch Scout Camp). Despite their efforts, the camp may still be closed down and sold off.

For many of Pouch Camp's supporters, the heart of the issue is not just supporting the camp's activities, but trying to preserve a vital link in Staten Island's Greenbelt, a 2,800 acre wilderness that is "New York City’s largest remaining forest preserve," according to the Greenbelt Conservancy. "Even if you don't have any first-hand caring about the Scout program or the habitat for critters there, the economic benefit throughout the world, the country and the region is proven," the president of the Greenbelt Conservancy told the Staten Island Advance. "Something like this just makes your home livable."

Down in the Valley

Scout Skills

Black Oak Lean-Tos

Yellow Pine Cabin

Dark Shadows

Pouch Amphitheater

Not For Sale

P.O.P

Hill Pond Lean-tos

On The Trail

Fire

Scout Knot

Ropes Course

Bazooka

Lumberjack Director

Island Bridge

On Lee A. Ellison Island

South of the Border

The New York City Farm Colony

April 20, 2011 -

The New York City Farm Colony is one of the most popular ruins on Staten Island. Although closed to the public and completely surrounded by chain link fences, this 70 acre site has many visitors throughout the year. On weekends, couples can be seen strolling along its abandoned streets. Paintball enthusiasts have built an elaborate homemade obstacle course on its grounds, including sniper roosts in the trees. Graffiti artists have entered into every building and covered nearly every surface with thousands of tags. Inside some buildings, visitors have even built makeshift bedrooms.

These visitors, alongside decades of city neglect, have left the buildings on the Farm Colony campus wide open to the elements. About a dozen structures still stand on the campus, ranging from a huge four story dining hall to a single small greenhouse. All of these structures are gutted shells, their interiors covered in dirt and full grown trees. The oldest structures in the Farm Colony - Dormitory 1 & 2 - date back to 1904 and are collapsing under the weight of decay, their roofs entirely missing.

Staten Island has not been kind to its many abandoned hospital buildings. A landmarked 1842 building rots at Bayley-Seton Hospital. The endangered 1889 Smith Infirmary has never been landmarked and is slowly falling to pieces. The ruins of the 1899 Seaside Hospital, which was demolished in 1964 by Robert Moses, are being washed away by the tides on New Dorp Beach. And directly across the street from the Farm Colony, many of the historic buildings on the Seaview Hospital campus have been left to decay in dense overgrowth.

Dormitory 1 & 2 (1904)

Open Interior

Surprisingly, both the Farm Colony and Seaview are a part of Staten Island's first official historic district - the 320-acre "New York City Farm Colony - Seaview Hospital Historic District" - which was designated in 1985 by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. The commission's designation appears to have saved the Farm Colony buildings from outright demolition, but has done little else to preserve them, other than to create a detailed report on their history (PDF). This report traces the origins of the Farm Colony back to the Richmond County Poor Farm, an 1829 "institution for the able-bodied indigent." The poor farm was renamed the New York City Farm Colony at the turn of the century, and continued to house impoverished "inmates" who were expected to "pay for their board twofold by their labor, working on the farm raising vegetables, not only for themselves, but for other unfortunates."

Although the farm was shut down in 1925, the Farm Colony campus continued on as a home for indigents with "the following cases of dependency: senility, destitution, paralysis, crippled, epileptic, blind, dumb, deaf, deaf and dumb, and cancer." At its peak, this institution housed 1,700 men and women, and was "a haven for old people," including well-known Staten Island photographer Alice Austen, who died in poverty in 1952 at "the local poor house, the Staten Island Farm Colony," according to one biography.

The Farm Colony complex was closed in 1975 and its patients transferred across the street to Seaview Hospital, which continues to provide "long term care" to "vulnerable populations." The buildings of the Farm Colony were sealed, but by 1991 the campus was "developing into a tangled jungle" with "occasional vandalism," according to the NY Times and by 1999, the Preservation League of New York State reported that the Farm Colony was facing "demolition by neglect" and that its "buildings remain open to the elements and the city has no plans for their future reuse."

Several plans to redevelop the campus have failed to materialize. In 2005, the Municipal Art Society reported on a study that had established "stabilization plans, and conceptual reuse" for the buildings, and in 2010, the Staten Island Advance reported the Farm Colony had been mentioned as a possible site for a college campus. Nothing has come from these reports, and despite their acknowledged historic value, these buildings seem fated to be destroyed by the elements, much like Admirals Row. When considered alongside other abandoned New York City landmarks, including the 68th Police Precinct and Bayley-Seton's Victim Services building, the Farm Colony's derelict state questions the purpose and the mission of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission.

Dormitory D (1931)

Dormitory Interior

Dormitory Cubicles

Dormitory Bed and Urinals

Dining Hall, Kitchen, Service and Bakery Building (1914)

Upper Floor

Dining Hall

Suck Me Hallway

Zone Portal

Laundry and Industrial Building (1914)

Laundry and Industrial Building Interior

Dark Interior

Open Doors

Obscured Ruins

Down the Road: Modern New York Street Photography

On Sunday April 3rd 2011, I curated an event titled "Down the Road: Modern New York Street Photography" at UnionDocs, the documentary collaborative in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. At the event, I presented a history of New York street photography, and moderated a discussion with three photographers - Jake Dobkin, Clayton Patterson and Matt Weber - who presented their own work and discussed modern street photography. More information on the event can be seen at the UnionDocs website.

The following is from my description of the event:

"New York City has a long history of street photography, tracing back to the 1800′s and early practitioners like Jacob Riis and Alfred Stieglitz. While rooted in Parisian traditions, New York street photography developed by its own rules. “New York was, in contrast to Paris, a tough graceless town,” according to Bystander: A History of Street Photography. “It demanded another kind of imagery." By the 1940′s, the work of street photographers like Weegee and Helen Levitt led to the “so-called ‘hard boiled’ strain of photography – cynical, gritty, raw – of post-war American photographers such as Robert Frank, William Klein, Garry Winogrand,” according to Street Photography: From Atget to Cartier-Bresson.

Faced with the challenge of capturing “The Greatest City in the World,” New York’s street photographers often labored obsessively, building massive bodies of work, while struggling to be published. Entire photo archives sometimes remained unseen, as in the case of Angelo Rizzuto, who died unknown in 1967 and left 60,000 unpublished images to the Library of Congress, which were only compiled into a retrospective book – Angel’s World – in 2006.

Today, however, the wide availability of digital cameras and computers has resulted in an explosion of new photographers roaming the streets of New York, who publish their work on photo blogs and photo networking websites like Flickr. Emerging street photographers no longer need to work in obscurity, and can immediately present new work to a large audience online or self-publish a book with a few clicks of the mouse. But it takes more than a camera and a computer to be a successful contemporary street photographer. This conversation with several practicing New York street photographers will discuss the current state of street photography, and consider what may lie ahead, down the road. – Nathan Kensinger, curator"

The Archives

March 17, 2011 -

This month marks the 4th anniversary of this website. Almost 100 photo essays have been published here since March 2007, including nearly 1000 photographs. These photo essays range across all five boroughs of New York City, telling the stories of dozens of neglected neighborhoods and endangered buildings. With a 100th photo essay approaching, several new pages have been created to help faciliate viewing this body of work, including a new Archives page, which lists each photo essay from 2007 to 2011. Other recently created pages include an Exhibits page, presenting a list of past exhibits, lectures and presentations, and a Press page, providing an overview of the interviews, reviews and publications that have featured these photographs. Each photo essay is also categorized by borough, year and subject in the sidebar to the right. Any other creative ideas for ways to organize this growing archive would be greatly appreciated!

New Dorp Bungalows

February 28, 2011 -

The waterfront of New Dorp, on Staten Island's east shore, has been permanently scarred by eminent domain and city neglect. Once, this was a popular summer resort area known as the "Poor Man's Bermuda," according to the Village Voice, and the neighborhood's two beaches - New Dorp Beach & Cedar Grove Beach - were lined with summer bungalows, grand hotels and piers. Today, both beaches are part of the NYC Department of Parks & Recreation's 315-acre Great Kills Park, and are quiet and deserted in the winter. Their shoreline bungalows are now vacant or were demolished decades ago.

Although both of New Dorp's beaches are owned by the Parks Department, they are a study in contrasts. The sands of New Dorp Beach are filthy, covered in debris and washed up bottles, and scattered with decades-old hospital ruins. Just above the beach, the former resort area has become a haven for homeless camps, teenage drinking and public sex, according to New Dorp residents. Cedar Grove Beach, on the other hand, was recently considered so pristine "you could eat off the sand," according to one local. Until this winter, the beach was regularly raked and cleaned by the Cedar Grove Beach Club, a century-old community of summer bungalow residents who rented their beachfront cottages from the city. In October 2010, the Parks Department - despite their abject failure to maintain New Dorp Beach - evicted the Cedar Grove Beach residents and fenced off their bungalows. They are now planning to demolish these historic homes.

Cedar Grove Beach Bungalows

New Dorp Beach Ruins

New Dorp's shoreline has a long history of human occupation. "Like all of Staten Island, the area of New Dorp was populated by American Indians going back over 10,000 years," according to Wikipedia. Local residents claim to have found arrowheads and spearheads from this era on the local beaches. In 1671, New Dorp Beach became "the home of the second permanent European settlement in Staten Island," according to the Parks Department, but it wasn't until the late 1800's that the beach area became heavily developed. "After the Civil War, the area began to prosper as a resort, as campgrounds and seasonal bungalows began to develop along the gridded side streets along Cedar Grove Avenue. Along the waterfront, wooden piers and hotels popped up," according to Wikipedia. Many small bungalows still remain standing inland, crowded onto these narrow one way streets.

New Dorp Bungalow #1

New Dorp Bungalow #2

The neighborhood's grand hotels included The New Dorp Beach Hotel, "which contained about 100 rooms," according to the NY Times. Built in the late 1800's by Edward Hett - "the inventor of the multi color printing press," according to the NY Times - it burned to the ground in 1902. Soon after, a 1909 fire destroyed parts of a hotel complex owned by Felix Bohm, according to the NY Times. "The beach was crowded with visitors who saw a very spectacular show, free of charge. A high wind was blowing and the flames soon extended to the dancing pavilion, bathing pavilion and a bowling alley, all of which were destroyed." Artifacts from this era still wash up on New Dorp Beach, and many residents have become amateur beach combers. One local described having over 150 antique bottles in her nearby bungalow, and told of finding beer steins, coins and jewelry from the hotel era.

New Dorp Beach

New Dorp Beach Bottle

The bungalow-lined streets of New Dorp once "extended all the way to the beach," according to the Staten Island Advance. But, like bungalow communities throughout New York City, New Dorp's beachfront bungalows were threatened with extinction by Robert Moses. In the area adjacent to New Dorp Beach, "the city demolished the beach-side properties in 1962, citing eminent domain, to facilitate Robert Moses' plan to build a shoreline drive, part of his vision of parkways throughout the city," according to the Staten Island Advance. "That plan was abandoned in the 1970s, leaving the woods empty and the community in a bit of a backwater." Few artifacts remain inside this former bungalow area, which is now part of Great Kills Park. Crumbled sidewalks are buried under the dirt and old fire hydrants are overgrown with ivy.

Demapped Bungalow Street

Hydrant and Ivy

Younger residents of New Dorp Beach, who grew up after these bungalows were demolished, remember that "the woods were a myriad of paths that they knew like the back of their hand, dotted with tree forts and BMX ramps and later a haven for underage drinking," according to the Staten Island Advance. There are now several homeless camps hidden in this wilderness. Tents, fire pits and shanties are built deep in the park's woods. Baby lotion and blankets are found next to paths. One area, recently burned, is now a cratered wasteland covered in melted car parts. Further south, the ruins of Seaside Hospital, also know as the Staten Island Area Station Hospital, tumble out of the woods and onto the beach in "an apocalyptic scene," according to the Staten Island Advance. Like the New Dorp Beach bungalows, "the facility was demolished in 1964 to make way for the proposed parkway."

At the Fire Pit

Campsite

Tent

Just to the south of this blighted parkland, the residents of the Cedar Grove Beach bungalow community grew up in a vastly different environment. Somehow, their bungalow's were seized by eminent domain but spared from demolition. "Cedar Grove, one of dozens of beach colonies that dotted the shoreline during the borough's heyday as a resort community, was condemned and acquired by the city in 1958" for Robert Moses' planned parkway, according to The Staten Island Advance. "When the parkway failed to materialize, the city agreed to lease back the land with the understanding it could take it back whenever it wanted." In the ensuing decades, generations of families have been raised in these seasonal bungalows. "Many of them in this century-old resort trace their relatives back five generations," according to the NY Times.

More than one New Dorp resident described visiting the Cedar Grove Beach community as being like going back in time. "Where New Dorp [Beach] appears to have been abandoned, Cedar Grove is immaculate. The residents sift the sand regularly with a beachcomber the club bought for $80,000. There's not a speck of trash to be seen," the Village Voice reported last fall. "When you step through that gate, it's like it's 1930 all over again," one resident told the Voice. The Cedar Grove Beach Club maintained the beach and the grounds around the bungalows, and "paid the city about $140,000 a year" in rent, according to the NY Times. Access to the beach was open to the public.

Cedar Grove Beach Trio

Cedar Grove Beach Bungalow

John Murphy, who was raised in a Cedar Grove Beach bungalow, recalls a close knit community that worked hard to maintain their properties. His parents bought their bungalow in the 1950's, and when it was seized by the government, they rented it back from the city. Up until this October, John lived in his family bungalow almost year round, spending winters in a warmer climate. Although the roof leaked "like a sieve," he patched it every year, and when a nor'easter dumped so much sand on his front porch that you "could walk up onto the roof," he rented a bulldozer to clear the property. Other community residents recall pitching in to help rebuild their clubhouse one summer, "after it was destroyed by vandals," according to the Village Voice.

In October 2010, the NYC Department of Parks & Recreation evicted the Cedar Grove Beach community, claiming it wanted "improved access" to the beach. John Murphy says he was the last to leave the bungalows. The fence was already up around his childhood home, and he left his American flag flying on the flagpole. Like many of the residents of Cedar Grove Beach, he is not sure what he will do now, but hopes that the city will have a change of heart. All along the fenced off bungalows, belongings have been left behind, as though there may somehow be another summer season. Barbecues, beach toys, hammocks and boats line the empty sands.

Cedar Grove Beach Remains

Cedar Grove Beach Chairs

Despite the current budget crisis in New York City, the NYC Department of Parks & Recreation does not appear to be wavering from their plan to demolish the Cedar Grove Beach bungalows. According to a Parks Department document from February 10, 2011, "the proposed action involves the rehabilitation of Cedar Grove Beach, with the main goal being to provide improved access to this area for the general public... The project is divided into two phases: Phase one includes demolition of a majority of the structures on site... Phase two involves construction of a new playground and new bike path." No mention is made of improving on the already demolished ruins of nearby New Dorp Beach.

Many have questioned the wisdom of evicting paying tenants in the middle of a fiscal crisis. “It’s illogical for the city, at a time of severe budget pressures, layoffs and cuts, to kick out a community that provides revenue to the city,” U.S. Representative Michael McMahon told the Staten Island Advance. According to The New York Observer, "It will cost millions of dollars in capital money to tear down the houses and reopen the stretch next year, which is and has always been publicly accessible. At the same time, beaches across the city, including some just up the shore, have been closed due to lack of funds." Budget constraints may have already snarled the Park Department's plans: "The transformation of Cedar Grove Beach into a public park... may still be three years away.... the latest documents show completion is now expected by 2014," The Staten Island Advance reported on February 26th.

In the meantime, at least one empty bungalow has been rented out by the city as a filming location for the HBO series "Boardwalk Empire," according to a NY1 report from February 19th, much to the dismay of former residents. "'I think it's a little hypocritical,' said former Cedar Grove resident John Murphy. 'They said they're going to open it up to the public, and obviously they're not doing that. But private concerns can actually use it, and I think that's very wrong.'" Residents have organized a facebook page (Save Cedar Grove Beach Club) and a website (savecedargrovebeach.com) to contine their struggle to save these historic structures. For now, the Cedar Grove Beach bungalows are locked away, patrolled by a full time security guard, and awaiting their fate.

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For more photo essays from New York City's endangered bungalow communities, please visit Brighton Beach Bungalows (2010), Hammels Wye (2010), The North Edgemere Shore (2010) and Far Rockaway: Abandoned Bungalows (2009).

Cedar Grove Beach: Authorized Personnel

Cedar Grove Beach: No Trespassing

New Dorp Beach Apocalypse: Seaside Hospital Ruins

New Dorp Beach Fire

Cedar Grove Beach Chair Bungalow

New Dorp Chair

Cedar Grove Beach: Locked Out

New Dorp Beach: RIP