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This was a school I found completely by accident whilst looking on Google Maps along a rural route I was taking through upstate New York. I showed it to our very own EsseXplorer who is somewhat of an expert when it comes to schools in the New York or New Jersey areas and he said he had never seen it before, so it was swiftly marked on the map as something to check out whilst on the way past.
There isn't much in the way of information about the school, like a lot of rural and semi-rural smaller schools out there. It was built in 1934 and is a very handsome building with some art-deco flourishes to the exterior. One surprising feature of this rural school is that it has a decent-sized auditorium-gymnasium combo which takes up the entire left wing of the building. Near the auditorium is the entrance hallway and offices, and on the other side split over two floors are the classrooms, with an upstairs library located over the entrance hall. To the outside sits a long single storey building which was once the school bus maintenance garage and additional classroom space, there looked to be a pre-school or nursery housed in there due to the presence of cartoon murals on the walls. There is also a very dilapidated older house on the edge of the property which may well have once been used by the school as additional space, however it was so sketchy I never even tried to go inside, especially as I was on my own. It closed a considerable amount of time ago, I'd say at least fifteen to twenty years but perhaps even longer, after the usual story of the local rural schools being consolidated into one new larger district school.
The explore was simple, I was dropped off next to it and I found my way inside more easily and quickly than I expected, after letting my ride know I'd gotten in I had about an hour wandering around before the agreed meeting time outside. What I find so great about finding random stuff like this is that you never know what to expect stepping inside - here I was both very pleased and also a little sad, as the decay internally is wonderful but there was a disappointing amount of tagging in some rooms from the local kids. I also very swiftly found out that the floor of the auditorium was made of some form of crackers as it broke, split and crumbled to dust beneath my feet before I quickly retreated to the safety of the doorway. Luckily the rest of the flooring in the building was concrete, albeit concrete mostly covered in a carpet of fallen ceiling tiles.
Starting in the auditorium, the only 'safe' spots were the doorway and a small area along one edge allowing access to the stage.
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This science lab was an unexpected find, half the room was still furnished with the half behind me being stripped and tagged, somehow this part had avoided it.
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After closure it appears a lot of the desks were stacked up in this one room, which seems to be a practice done at a lot of closed schools.
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Heading outside and across to the school bus maintenance building, which I was expecting nothing from but was actually one of the best parts.
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And to round it off, a shot of the extremely sketchy house I did not fancy dying in.
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Thanks for looking 
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EPIC as the usual!!
Kabbalah is an undramatic tradition that requires great patience and stability. One of the reasons for this tempo is that everyone has to mature his potential gradually and thoroughly at his natural pace. In this way his life's work unfolds at the right moment in his own and the cosmos's time.
Z.B.S. Halevi -- Kabbalah | |
Delightfully wet and mossy school! Love the shadows in these shots.
I'm surprised to learn the shared auditorium/gym is unusual, as many school at least near me have such a feature, though it's more often combined with a cafeteria instead of a gym. Glad you were quick when it made its displeasure known!
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Great set and writeup, as always.
God that decay is beautiful
D.I.C.K "You'll find us in your manhole" | |
Any and all shots that display nature trying to reclaim it’s lost land are amazing. Even the subtle amount of growth in some shots looks beautiful.
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Thanks all, I did really enjoy it - one of my favourite solo finds in the States.
Posted by DescentOnARope
Delightfully wet and mossy school! Love the shadows in these shots.
I'm surprised to learn the shared auditorium/gym is unusual, as many school at least near me have such a feature, though it's more often combined with a cafeteria instead of a gym. Glad you were quick when it made its displeasure known!
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I meant more that in a school this size, for a relatively small community, to have a functional auditorium of that size was unusual
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"School's open." Sure is lol
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