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An intrepid duo of photographers snuck into the abandoned grain factory in Red Hook last week and came away with some amazing shots. The adventure is chronicled here; getting into the building itself was one of the challenges:

It turns out that the building is completely sealed from the outside by large concrete boulders. The only way in was to cut one of the locks or to somehow move one of the boulders with our strength. Since we neither had the strength nor the bolt cutters on us, we had to find another way in. We walked around the entire building before finally getting in through a fallen down section of the building sitting over the water. Simon and I had to literally hold on to the crumbling building and hoist ourselves up to the other side. It wasn’t exactly hard, but it wasn’t easy either. In the end, the important thing was that we were in and that’s all that mattered to me.

The photo series is available at hermanyung.com. You can also see some large-format photos that Jake Dobkin took of the Grain Terminal a couple of years ago on his photoblog Bluejake.com.
Red Hook Grain Factory [Herman Yung]
Pictures from the Red Hook Grain Factory [Dooby Brain]


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  1. http://www.opacity.us/

    Bxgrl listed this site, which was the one I had shown her.

    I love some of the shots all of these guys take, but they take great risks, and since there is usually only one or two of them, standing close to each other while exploring, they take the very obvious chance of both plunging to their deaths, say, oh, every other shot, especially when not on the ground floor, and not being found for months, if ever. I suppose that’s part of the thrill, and I sound like their mothers, but what they are doing is illegal and dangerous. I love taking pictures of abandoned buildings, but permission and great care needs to be taken. If that is acquired, really amazing photos have been taken.

  2. parked slope, this is called ‘urban exploration’, the infiltration and study of off limits, under-used, and abandoned spaces. google the term and you will find a whole class of people that do this, in NYC as well.