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RKO Keith’s Theater. Photo courtesy of After The Final Curtain
We’ve brought you abandoned places to see on Staten Island, and now we take you to the Borough of Queens, offering a whole list of exciting and abandoned territories to explore. While development of areas like Long Island City have prompted the city to demolish gems like 5 Pointz, there’s still plenty of places left for those interested. Here are 11 abandoned places to discover in Queens.
The C.N. West Chemical Factory at Queens Plaza made a large variety of cleaning products. Founded in the late 1800s, C.N. West was eventually renamed West Disinfectant, and moved out of New York City in the late 1970s. The factory became an outlet mall called “QP’s Marketplace” in the 1980s, an artists cooperative studio called ‘The Space’ in the 2000s, and in its last years of existence (2013), an abandoned space which became a bespoke illegal graffiti gallery. One very little known fact is that one of C.N. West’s principal owners was a victim of the Titanic sinking in 1912.
Constructed for the 1964 New York World’s Fair the New York State Pavilion was the single largest plaza at the event. It housed everything from open-air concerts to scenic views of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. It was, for a brief period, the talk of the town. Eventually, however, the fair ended and the public’s excitement for the building faded. It soon fell into disrepair. Despite the vendors’ signed contract to tear down all buildings within 90 days of the fair’s closing, the monolith remained because it was simply “too expensive to demolish”.
Although various attempts at repairing the structure have been made, including a new “American Cheese Yellow” paint job, none have really stuck and the building has remained faded and deteriorating. That doesn’t mean that it hasn’t had a life after the fair. You may remember the pavilion being a plot point in the first Men in Black movie, the location of Tony Stark’s “Stark Expo” in Iron Man 2, or from any number of films, music videos, and television shows.
In 1877, the Long Island Rail Road opened a train line to the scenic Rockaway Beach. The line was successful for nearly a hundred years until the company that owned it went bankrupt in 1962. From that day on the rail line was left completely abandoned. Nature soon took over the structure and covered it with a layer of thick vines and weeds making it a relic of its former self and obscuring the tracks from New Yorkers’ thoughts and sight.
In 2011 however, a group of activists developed a plan for the old rail line. Seeing the success of the High Line they decided to embrace the nature that had taken over the tracks and make it into the QueensWay, a park for joggers, bikers, and tourists. Although the park has not yet been completed, the organization has collected a great deal of grant money and hope to have the project up and running soon.
Photo courtesy of After The Final Curtain
In its prime, the RKO Keith’s Theater, formerly known as the Keith Albee Theatre, was home to some of the biggest celebrities in the world. Performers like the Marx Brothers, Judy Garland, and Bob Hope entertained countless fans in this theater’s ballroom. The theater was a grand affair, built in the Spanish Baroque Revival style, and contained a dark blue painted ceiling filled with light bulb stars and project clouds.
Eventually, however, all this luxury ended and the theater was closed and then illegally gutted by Thomas Huang, the new owner. Huang had destroyed many of the rooms and even dumped 10,000 gallons of waste oil in the theater’s basement leading him to receive a $5,000 fine, a five-year probation, and a court order to restore the theater which he ignored. Since then the theater has changed hands several times, until it recently was bought by Xianyuan Real Estate who plan on building condos around the building and efforts to preserve the theater’s grand foyer and lobby.
Fort Totten’s history stretches all the way back before the formation of the United States. Originally the inhabited of Matinecock Indians, the area was eventually settled by colonizers who dubbed the area Willet’s Point, during the American Revolution.
In 1864, the area was renamed for General Joseph Totten and fortifications began to make it a Civil War stronghold that would protect New York against the southern military. However, with the South’s increasing military ability, the fort soon became obsolete and was transformed into a makeshift military hospital. After the war, the military used the fort for a variety of different purposes until eventually abandoning it in 1974.
In 1987, the fort and the ten acres surrounding it were gifted to the New York Park Department. Much of the area is used as a public space, featuring pools, sports complexes, and baseball fields, however, the NYPD and FDNY use the fort for training centers and it remains the base of operations for the Bayside Historical Society. Despite all the modern activity many of the old Civil War buildings still remain and are just waiting for an eager explorer to check them out.
Although part of the Creedmoor Psychiatric Center remain operational, a relic of its occasionally nasty past remains. Building 25 was once a center for the mentally ill, a part of the Brooklyn State Hospital and one of the hundreds of Farm Colonies that were meant to house and rehabilitate patients. Rehabilitation was hardly what occurred, however. There are stories of abuse and neglect surrounding all of Building 25 and, in 1984, a patient was struck in the throat by a staff member and died, leading the shutdown of the facility.
The building now lies vacant, a crumbling reminder of the facility that it used to house. The floors are still covered in toys and the walls, and the murals that cover them are peeling away. Perhaps strangest of all, however, is the pigeon infestation that has lead Creedmoor to have one of the largest guano accumulations in the United States.
Hunters Point Waterfront used to be a post-industrial area of Long Island City before ultimately being abandoned. Now, like several other locations on this list, the area has been turned into a park for the residents of New York. Today it contains sprawling greens, playgrounds, and a breathtaking view of the Manhattan skyline, but that doesn’t mean that its past is invisible.
Not too long ago we at Untapped Cities explored the uncurated parts of Hunters Point Waterfront. What we found was an area of the city that seemed almost untouched by development, a part of the city that seemed wild. The wild won’t last long however as developers are planning on making it a development of condos. So if you want to experience some of the only wilderness left in the city you might want to get down to Hunters Point quick.
Deep in Ozone Park lies one of the largest burial grounds in New York, Bayside Cemetery. Covering 12 acres and housing over 35,000 burials, this Jewish cemetery dates all the way back to 1865. Used primarily as a burial place for cholera victims, Bayside has often found itself in disrepair, some even report claiming exposed human remains used to peak out of unmaintained graves. Still active today, the grounds have been restored and serve as the final resting place for Civil War vets and passengers of the Titanic but perhaps what the belt is best known for is the grave of Harry Houdini.
About 15 minutes away lies the Machpelah Cemetery. Abandoned in the late 1980s, the area has become a decrepit shell of its former self. Graves have succumbed to vandalism and the nearby offices have long since deteriorated. The only grave that remains pristine is that of Houdini’s. Some say there is a secret compartment somewhere in Houdinis tomb that when opened will reveal dark secrets, others say his spirit still haunts the area. Regardless of the truth, many Halloween nights, on the anniversary of the man’s death, mourners can be seen performing seances in hopes of speaking to his wandering soul.
Photo by Aaron Asis
Built in 1917, Fort Tilden has a history in almost all of America’s greatest wars. It served as a munition house during World War I, a force for defense in World War II, and even as a storage facility for nuclear weapons during the Cold War. Now, however, the fort has been left to nature which has quickly taken it over.
Officially gifted to the National Park Service in the 1970s, the fort now remains a shell of its former self. Thick layers of green cover almost every inch of the base but this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The silos and amphitheaters have been used for art installations, performances, and even a Hurricane Sandy benefit. This place that was once a piece war is now a part of nature and relief for the people of New York.
Closed in the 1980s the Bank of Manhattan used to reside in Long Island City’s Clock Tower. Now it sits, an abandoned shell, perfect for any urban explorer. Originally built in 1924, the bank was the very first skyscraper in Long Island City and was meant to make the new promenade the “Time Square of Queens.” For years the bank was highly trafficked before its eventual closing.
Perhaps most interesting are the vaults that remain in the old bank. Massive metal doors that look like something out of a heist movie sit untouched and open. Most recently, the bank has been used as an exhibition space for No Longer Empty who opened the architectural wonder up to the people.
In Jacob Riis Park there lies a massive, abandoned Art Deco bathhouse. The building’s spectacular ornate arches were first built in 1932 containing four smaller buildings. The bathhouse was once a major source of entertainment for the people of Queens. Once it closed, however, it fell into disrepair and all attempts to rejuvenate the old building have failed.
Since the ’90s, there have been incredible pushes to make the bathhouse the hub it used to be. The people of Queens envisioned a sprawling art deco utopia with cafes and shops. There has even been a $20 million asbestos removal effort and yet the building still remains closed and unoccupied. The final blow may have come during Hurricane Irene when sand and wind battered the building and sent into even further down the path of destruction. Nevertheless, there is still something beautiful about the structure, haunting, but beautiful.
While 5 Pointz sadly no longer stands, we thought it important to include this graffiti Mecca on our list given its important place in the world of street art.
In 2014, the demolition of 5 Pointz, while expected, still prompted shock as the end of a creative era in the city came to an end. Animal New York had reported the morning of the demolition that “While curators and artists have moved on to other locations in the city, it’s difficult not to see this moment as a symbol of what New York City (its planners and developers at least) aspire for it to be. But in the world of street art in America, a permanent building for aerosol art is probably too much to ask.”
The whitewashing of the building was probably more shocking than this physical destruction, which we were all mentally prepared was coming. But we’re already feeling nostalgic. Maybe one day New York developers will become as enlightened as those in Brazil (or even their peers in New York City), and start commissioning street artists to beautify their buildings!
Next, check out Track the Rapidly Changing Face of Long Island City’s Architecture Along the #7 Subway Line and see 20 Abandoned Places in NYC: Asylums, Hospitals, Power Plants, Islands, Forts.
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