photography

Urban exploration isn’t a new thing.

In cities or areas with a lot of run-down and abandoned areas, it makes for some amazing photography. Unfortunately, many of these places are often trashed by vandals. That can make some good photos as well, but it’s unfortunate as some of these places without the vandalism would be awesome for photos.

Often, too, these urban exploration places are not open to the public, so it takes some sneaking around to do it. There are obvious reasons why municipalities don’t want people tromping around these areas as if something happened, someone is going to be liable for it.

Some places that I’ve seen photos of include old, abandoned theaters, schools, hospitals, mills, factories and houses. They are all different. That’s one of the benefits of being in a city as these places are a little more easy to come by (though you could also confront homeless people or drug situations, as I’ve read about as well).

One of the coolest spots I’ve ever been to do something like this was a geocache in Rochester that included a mile-long hike in an old subway tunnel. At the end of the tunnel (another half mile or so beyond the cache) was one of the most amazing areas of graffiti I’ve ever seen.

Either way, there aren’t many of these places in my area. So when the opportunity presents itself, it’s hard to pass up.

Recently, a couple of us went on a bike ride to snag a geocache. I’ve been on this trail before, but never thought much of the abandoned house that sits right off the trail. This time, we decided to check things out. Being careful (and not seeing any signs noting private or no trespassing), we checked things out a little. I had my camera, so that was my main thought. Some of the outside shots were just as cool, to me, as the inside shots.

The image at the top of this post is one of my favorites of the day. I actually set it up and all (and blanked out some of the address), but I like the story with the image. I did some research on several things that we found, including the person the letter was addressed to and another letter from the Fraternal Order of the Eagles.

Once uncovering things like this, it needs some research.

According to its website, the Fraternal Order of the Eagles was founded in 1898 and is a non-profit organization “uniting fraternally in the spirit of liberty, truth, justice, and equality, to make human life more desirable by lessening its ills and promoting peace, prosperity, gladness and hope.”

Its website also boasts an international membership of more than 850,000 people and has more than 1,400 local Aeries (I assume that means chapters), though the Oneonta (No. 1260) one no longer exists. The women’s auxiliaries have more than 250,000 members. Overall, the organization seems to be a strong one.

Its website notes that the organization founded Mother’s Day and served as a driving force in founding the Social Security program. Further, as with many organizations, it has had a lot of noteworthy members over the years, including former presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Warren Harding, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. Some others noted on the group’s website include Bob Hope, Hordie Howe, Tony Stewart and Billy Ray Cyrus.

I don’t know what happened to the Oneonta chapter of the group as I haven’t been able to find anything researching it online. However, the FOE website shows that there are four Aeries within 50 miles — Binghamton, Cobleskill, Utica and Canajoharie. According to the New York FOE website, there are 32 Aeries in the state.

The letter to members that we uncovered is about a ball being held in 1965 and that the local chapter needed to pick up its drive for new members to reach a yearly quota. Maybe that’s what was the undoing of the Oneonta group? Who knows. But either way, it’s very cool. The letter, too, was written with a typewriter (I know, many people might wonder… what’s a typewriter?), which really makes it cool.

There was also a letter, from a daughter. It was hard to read as the handwriting was in cursive and very interesting. It was a basic letter explaining to her father what was going on in life. It’s something we’d probably do via e-mail in the current time, but there was once a time when handwritten letters were the way to go for communication. I miss that a bit as getting letters from people was a really cool thing.

But the letter wasn’t what was truly interesting — it was the person to whom the letter was addressed. After all, this letter arrived in Oneonta in 1968. Could I find out anything on this person?

You have to love the Internet.

According to an obituary, he died at the age of 90 in 2000. An area resident for his entire life, he worked on the railroad and was a World War II veteran, serving in the Navy. He was also an outdoorsman and was noted as a gardener.

His services were held at a local Catholic church and donations were to be made in his name to the building fund for a new school for the local Catholic school. That’s the part and connection that was interesting to me. See, that school — which has had the building for a few years now — announced it will be closing at the end of this school year because of declining enrollment.

And the Eagles club — well, I may never find out why its local chapter ceased to exist. It just seems like it could be an interesting connection with this person, if both had ended because of enrollment. It’s the small things like that which makes doing research fun. Just trying to make connections.

I hope one day to be able to do more urban exploration. I’ve seen in photo groups that sometimes, people in cities get together to go find and take photos of urban exploration spots. I’ll have to keep an eye out on it and see what I can come up with as I’d love to explore a little with some photographers and really dig into some urban exploration. Especially if I can find some things like above to do some research on and find out some interesting things.

We’ll see how it goes.

But, back to the day at hand. I took a bunch of photos and below are several of my favorites. Enjoy!

If you would like to see the full set of photos I took that day, visit the set on my Flickr stream.

On the net:

Fraternal Order of the Eagles: http://www.foe.com/

New York Fraternal Order of the Eagles: http://www.nyaerie.org/

Urban Exploration on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_exploration

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com.