Broken Buildings in New Jersey

 It's been a over a week since I went up to PA and NJ with Emily, Eric and Richard, to explore some sites that Eric had discovered. It was a fabulous day, a long one, and I got home late. I had bounced out of bed early on Sunday, planning to visit a sunflower farm, but my legs gave way, and a bout of extreme dizziness had me sitting on the bed again. Within 30 minutes, I was covered with blankets, shivering, and beginning a week of bed rest with my first, and only, I hope, experience with COVID. Obviously, the processing of photos was not considered for a moment, nor was anything else that used a few calories of energy. I felt completely drained, was exhausted, and had no interest in anything, except sleep and short bouts of English TV police dramas. Even 11 days later, I still feel tired and struggle to concentrate on anything for too long, but I wanted to get the urbexing trip documented, so it will be relatively short, and may contain grammatical errors.

We started early in the morning from DC and drove and drove, stopping briefly for breakfast and bottles of water; it was gearing up to be a hot day. Up in NJ, we stopped at an old house, hidden by vines and large trees. It had a fabulous old organ in front of a bay window, a tragedy that it has been left to rot by the previous owners, and will eventually be crushed, as the old wooden beams, struggling to hold up the house, will eventually give up their task, and cave in. I would like to witness that, as I imagine it may be quite musical. Upstairs, was a landing with an open window and walls filled with bird cages and nesting boxes. This was very odd to see, and we spent a while, discussing why they were there. I found another wall of wonderful old wallpaper.

 

 

I always look for beautiful vintage windows and curtains to photograph and today didn't disappoint.

Our next stop was an abandoned Egyptian restaurant. There were another 3 people there, about our age, and also photographing the place.

The building wasn't old, and the decor inside wasn't that impressive, plaster pillars and walls covered in Egyptian hieroglyphs and a couple of sarcophagi. The one laying down in the foyer was pretty cool, its cracked facade managing to look almost authentic if I closed one eye. We couldn't hang around for long, since Eric had noticed there were cameras on the scene. We had also spotted a lot of new cables being laid, so hopefully, the building is being brought back to life. 

Eric also found an old roadside 50's motel sign, which I loved. And on we went, this time, stopping at a 50's style diner, almost hidden by shrubbery.

We had a quick scout inside, lamenting the loss of an authentic vintage diner. Everyone loves a good breakfast, and we wondered aloud how this business had not succeeded, until we realized its demise had been a fire, and was likely just not worth resurrecting afterwards, due to too much damage. A shame.

Our last stop of the day was further south in DE, a sprawling industrial complex, with some of the old buildings erected in the late 1800's. It looked like it had been a pipe manufacturing plant of some kind. We found empty warehouses, rooms with large machinery left behind, a warehouse with shelving, metal wheels, electrical components, spare parts, and even an old lab area.

Eric had not been here since last year, but he noted that already more vandalism had taken place since his last visit. In fact, while we were scouting around one large building, we found evidence, and later heard the voices, of copper scrappers. They had left a large bag filled with their booty, ready to go, and were in the process of collecting more, and evidently not concerned about who heard them. Either that, or they didn't care. We kept quiet and put space between them and us, as we kept photographing.

We left after a couple of hours, and driving south, decided to stop at a tavern for dinner. It was excellent food and beer, and nice to be able to wash up after our day of grubbiness. It was a long drive back to DC, and then another 1.5 hours for me, which was fine. I had a Stephen King audio book to listen to, and a bottle of Diet Mountain Dew to keep me awake. The drive would be fine. But apparently, the next morning would not....