Empire State Plaza

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Sometimes you just get the urge to get out there and photograph something without having a particular subject in mind. It was a frigid Saturday morning and I was sick of sitting inside, so I grabbed my shoulder bag and stuffed my Mamiya C22 and 65/80/180 mm lenses inside with a roll of T-Max from my film fridge. I didn’t have a destination in mind but I knew I needed to photograph something. After doing a bit of digging online, I settled on Empire State Plaza up in Albany NY. It’s a few hours’ drive for me but the trip reminded me of Ohio where an hour’s drive minimum separated you from the next biggest town. There wasn’t snow on the ground when I left, but about an hour north flurries dashed across my windshield. I was lucky because by the time I reached Albany the snow had subsided and I was in the clear to shoot.

Empire State Plaza is the home of various NY state government agencies and is reminiscent of Rockefeller Plaza in New York. The capital building, pictured above, is quite beautiful. I lucked out by grabbing an ISO 400 film because it was freezing and hand holding the camera was tricky given just how much my hands were shaking. I ended up lapping the plaza to finish off the roll of film, though I had one more exposure left by the time I was finished. I want to make a return trip in the summer months but there’s many interesting buildings in the plaza: a bowl-shaped auditorium, a small plaza cafe, matching “Agency Buildings” which loom over the concourse, a seasonal skating rink, and the NY State Archives opposite the capitol building.

I didn’t do much research ahead of time since this was a spur of the moment trip. I had no idea the ice rink or cafe would be there, but I was thankful for the large hot chocolate I bought to warm up my hands. I tried to focus on the architecture and chasing the available light which was fleeting due to the storm front passing through. Satisfied with the pictures I took and with one shot left on the roll, I ended up dropping by the Martin Van Buren NHP on my way back downstate. The house was closed, and I’ll need to make a return trip when it opens for the season, but I thought the house really stood out amongst the snowy backdrop. I was quite happy with the negatives once I developed them and for an impromptu trip, I couldn’t ask for more.

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Van Slyke Castle

A short but very steep hike into the hills of New Jersey lands you at the site of Van Slyke Castle, or at least what’s left of it. The castle started life as the retreat of a wealthy NYC stockbroker who began construction on the property around the turn of the 20th century. After his untimely death in 1911, the expansive estate was left to his wife Ruth. She married Warren Van Slyke, an attorney, who gave the property its current namesake. The couple continued to use the castle as a vacation home until Mr. Van Slyke’s death, at which point Mrs. Van Slyke moved in permanently until her death in 1940.

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The castle sat vacant after the death of both Mr. & Mrs. Van Slyke as a buyer for the property was not readily available. In 1949 another couple bought the property but put it back on the market one year later. Purchased in 1950 then abandoned, the house sat empty among the Ramapo Mountains until vandals broke in and burned it to the ground. The castle ruins and land were acquired by the state of New Jersey and turned into Ramapo Mountain State Park, leaving them open for all to explore.

The castle’s exterior is still clearly visible, as are the pool, water tower, and out building. A cast iron furnace rusts in what was once the basement. The pool, located a short distance from the castle ruins, is still accessible by a set of stairs that lead down into it. You can even see remains of the blue paint which once coated the concrete surfaces. These photos were from my third and most recent trip to the castle. If you live in NJ and enjoy hiking, this is definitely a location worth checking out.

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Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania

The Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania is a great place to visit but it sure is in an odd spot. The massive exhibition hall seems to appear out of the blue as you drive down sleepy back roads, cutting through miles of Pennsylvania Dutch farmland. To give you an idea of how rural this place is, the local Subway has hitching posts and I passed 10 horse & buggies on the drive in. The first question in my mind was how a railroad museum of this scale ended up in Strasburg PA, so I did a little research.

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The history of the museum dates back to the Pennsylvania Railroad’s exhibition at the 1939-40 New York World’s Fair. After the fair was over, the railroad decided to put the locomotives and equipment they displayed into a collection for preservation. The collection grew and after the railroad folded, most of the stored equipment the PRR had accumulated was turned over to the current museum in 1975. One very obvious reminder of the collection’s history is the statue of Alexander Cassatt, 7th president of the PRR, which stands just inside the entrance to the museum. The statue once stood in New York Penn Station. Andrew Cassatt had led the construction of New York Penn Station during his time as president, though he didn’t live long enough to see the station completed. Once the station was torn down to build Madison Square Garden (still mad about that…) the statue was moved to its current spot in the museum.

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The museum has a large collection covering steam and diesel locomotives, passenger cars, specialty railroad equipment, and much more. The exhibition hall contains everything that’s been restored by the shop next door while the yard outback holds the unrestored equipment. I’d suggest covering the yard before the sun sets then returning inside for the restored equipment. Some of my personal favorites inside the museum are a restored PRR Class GG1 engine, a traveling classroom for brakemen built into a coach car, and a Pullman dining car set up for a dinner service. The outside yard holds multiple steam engines, some old Amtrak equipment, and a turntable donated by Reading Lines. The museum is actively raising funds to restore the turntable and construct a roundhouse for the engines sitting outside. I’ll be looking forward to a return visit to the museum in Winter 2019 for the annual Trains & Troops event.

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Art Color Printing Company

I wasn’t around when the Art Color Printing Company was in its heyday but I did grow up in the shadow of what was left behind. The factory building sprawls out along the present day NJ Transit right-of-way which is situated in downtown Dunellen. At peak production, the factory printed 10,000,000 copies of popular magazines per month. The company was once the biggest employer in Dunellen and the present day library and station parking lot were built on the old employee lots. The landmark water tower, disused since the factory closed in 1968, still has the faint outline of the previous owner’s name stenciled on its side.

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This was one of those locations close to my house that I always planned to shoot but never got around to. I can think of quite a few places in Athens OH where I went to college that I simply ran out of time to visit before graduation. Having flown back this past weekend to visit I was reminded of all those photos that just never happened because I was always chasing better light, better skies, etc. I try to photograph places with some history behind them where there’s story to tell. Photography has a unique ability to freeze time in a single frame, and the Art Color Printing Company building’s impending demolition was enough to convince me to actually get out and expose some film before everything disappeared in a cloud of dust. A real-estate developer is demolishing the old factory to make way for new new apartment complexes but I wanted to capture the areas I remembered it.