Since 1996 the sprawling campus of Kings Park has been left to the elements....gown over with ivy and vines....filled with signs of teenage hooliganism and fake shock Satanism...it stand monolithic and sadly majestic against a wintery Long Island sky....There are clearlyghosts here in whatever sense of the word your willing to accept...the echoes of screams and the peeling paint tell tales beyond words and even the ravages of time cannot wash that away.....
{ready for an Adventure: photo by Bryan Sansivero http://www.bryansansivero.com/}
I've always been drawn to abandoned and forgotten spaces...the sadness and the feelings they evoke...the silent stories they tell with their peeling wallpaper...chipping paint and lives discarded...I haven't really done much exploring but hopefully that will change...I have a friend Bryan who's a photographer and a Urban Explorer if you will.... looking for abandoned spaces to explore and to photograph...to document the simple frailty of things....SO he took me on my maiden voyage into the sprawling landscape of Kings Park
Building 93 is a 13 story behemoth of a building that eats up the landscape and towers oppessingly in the empty field it stands on....with many buildings surrounding its definitely the most impressive and iconic and really holds an innate sadness in its appearance as well as being somewhat oppressive and frightening....
{Brave Old Worlds: Bryan Sansivero http://www.bryansansivero.com/}
Secret entryways...peeled back fences...broken windows and doorways are tempting entrances into dark gaping maws filled with spilled file cabinets and 40's....used condoms and mummified birds....footsteps echo and change and you easily get turned around in the all encompassing darkness of twisting hallways....cabinets are still filled with samples and cubbies are labeled with names in tiled shower rooms....the furtur you go the more you see the more you get turned around wishing you would have brought another light or breadcrumbs to find your way back...keeping your steps light and staying away from windows so the security patrol doesn't see you....
Graffitti marks territories and releases hormone fueled rumors and badly drawn penis'..... it warns of certain girls sexual proclivities and also challenges you to stare into a row of mirrors chanting "BLOODY MARY!!!".....faux Satanists rail against establishments and video game characters become perverted sex maniacs......
The houses were the most interesting to me...domestic bliss interrupted by some sort of natural apocalypse....gown over and filled with skittering feel...ceilings crash into floors crash into ceilings crash into basements ...dust is not even a comprehensive enough word to describe the debris and flotsam the fills these houses to the brim....TV's and couches stand as they were and corners hold so many secrets as do closets and a basement i wouldn't even go down into because the darkness was so inky and black i could feel it sticking to my face like the hand of a hungry lover.....
textures make my fingers tingle and i caress every surface like sweet sweet flesh...i feel every crack and flaky peel and dream of what once was....vines reach through and plan eventual domination....signs of inhabitants are everywhere but only of the four footed quality.....Grey Gardens has nothing on this level of decaying grandeur.....
a rather apropos piece of artwork...... Door INDEED!!!!
....and as the day turned to dusk and the light slowly ran away and the air turned from crisp to frigid...we scurried out of hiding places back into the vast grounds that are Kings Park....with a knowledge that not only would i be back...but in a way a part of me now will always be there....
XOXO
Beautifully written piece. Photos are wonderful and haunting.
ReplyDelete