Inside Brooklyn’s Mysterious, Abandoned Jumping Jack Power Plant

In an undisclosed location within Brooklyn lies the Jumping Jack Power Plant. Little is known about this towering abandoned building, which has over time become dilapidated and is now covered in layers of rust and dirt. Will Ellis of Abandoned NYC ventured through the abandoned power plant and shared his findings.

The building’s first graffiti-ridden floor appears to have been a former chop shop, with a battered car now covered in spray paint residing there. This first floor also boasts many rickety staircases not suitable for climbing, but a rare passable staircase leads to the building’s main floor.

A corroded staircase. Photo courtesy of Will Ellis, Abandoned NYC.

Once you reach the main floor, the view opens up to a four-story gallery of machinery. The steel pipes and beams, after what is most likely to be a century’s worth of aging, have turned to various shades of orange. It is within this area of the building that Jumping Jack gets its name: a configuration of steel beams stretching the four stories of the gallery create what looks to be a figure doing a jumping jack. The actual purpose of the Jumping Jack man remains a mystery.

A flooded section of the lower level. Photo courtesy of Will Ellis, Abandoned NYC.

The heavy amount of graffiti found in this abandoned power plant proves that it is not so abandoned after all— the spot is actually a fairly popular destination for explorers looking for mysterious, abandoned places such as this.

Not quite an “empty shell.”  Photo courtesy of Will Ellis, Abandoned NYC.

Very little information is known about the Jumping Jack Power Plant but, according to Ellis, paper records found inside the building indicate that the last time the power plant was in operation was in 1963. Ellis believes that the building was open to trespassers for a number of years before being sealed up in the ’80s or ’90s, preserving an image of a “grittier New York.”

A gutted car in the ground floor chop shop. Photo courtesy of Will Ellis, Abandoned NYC.

A boiler submerged in a 10-ft pile of coal. Photo courtesy of Will Ellis, Abandoned NYC.

While readers might be wondering where this abandoned spot is and how they can get there, the precise location of Brooklyn’s Jumping Jack Power Plant has kept a closely guarded secret by all those explorers who have been able to locate it. To head Will Ellis’ warning, “‘Undiscovered’ or not, this place is still pretty under the radar, and I’d like to keep it that way for now.”

Learn more from Will Ellis about the mysterious power plant here.

Next, check out 10 Abandoned Hospitals and Asylums Around NYC and Inside NYC’s Abandoned Paramount Theater on Staten Island.