Note: Originally posted on February 4, 2004.

Considering New York is, by moniker, “The City That Never Sleeps,” one should be hasty to question, “Well, if the city never sleeps, then what exactly does it do during the evening hours?” The answer varies, but the true nugget of wisdom found here is that, overall, the city does not sit still. It’s a kid with ADHD in a frosted gingerbread bedroom. New York is a constantly refreshing urban scape, recycling storefronts and restaurants as quickly as leases can be signed. Property value is high, which — unlike cities in the Rust Belt of Midwestern America — means the chance of abandonment is slim to none. I am indeed sad to report that there is no true adventure on Fifth Avenue, friends.

Regardless, simple Internet research yielded the information that adventure in New York was possible, and, also, in the tradition of killing two birds with one stone (as they say), we learned that Staten Island was good for something aside from dumping trash-upon after all.

Maat had been told by a co-worker of the existence of a ship graveyard — ships sinking, literally, in the Arthur Kill on the west-side of Staten Island. After browsing the Terraserver for satellite imagery of the suspected locale, Maat devised the necessary scheme for transportation, and we found ourselves at work, of course, and giddy as schoolgirls: schoolgirls who really like the thought of climbing atop rusted, sinking ships (you know, the majority of them).

More research led to the realization that Staten Island is a veritable gold mine of adventure — and that after visiting the ship graveyard, we’d be foolish to not atleast take-in another site. We decided to visit the Seaview Women’s Ward, an abandoned hospital that co-exists alongside a functioning one. Again, bus routes were calculated, Terraserver queried, Compact Flash cards emptied, and pockets stuffed with cookies, a $20 bill, my license, and the quintessential Metrocard.

I met Maat at the Whitehall Ferry Terminal in Manhattan at 9:23am. We conversed briefly and soon after boarded, alongside hundreds of others, the Staten Island Ferry. Finding seats out-of-the-way from the gossip of the housewife, the machismo glare of the husband, and the incessant screaming of their unruly children, we picked pieces of bread off our egg and cheese breakfast sandwiches (”Made with pride in Brooklyn by Alan Alda”) to throw to the stowaway pigeons. Thirty minutes later, we followed the herd through the St. George terminal and onward to the S74 bus. And then we stood for a while.

The ship graveyard is visible from the bus — and despite hitting the “Request Stop” strip very quickly after seeing it, we still managed to procure a five hundred-yard walk from the bus driver’s choice stopping point. Combing through eight-foot reeds toward the water, the shallow expanses of which were frozen solid, we made our way to a stream that was shallow yet still unfrozen. Maat jumped upon a miniature iceberg — very miniature, indeed — and to the other side. I, on the other hand, backtracked through the reeds, along the road, and through a backyard. Different formula, same result. A side note: on our way back, the tide had dropped so considerably that our shallow stream was now completely dry; we found the miniature iceberg resting its weary frame with no water running beneath it whatsoever.

Climbing on rusted ships in the middle of winter is more frightening than you would imagine. While the water was shallow, falling in means getting wet, getting hypothermia — perhaps being impaled by a particularly sharp underwater-dwelling piece of steel. Tip-toeing across the plank laid between decrepit dock and decrepit barge, we then headed-out to the very end, a considerable length. The center panels of the boat had given way and afforded a view of the water, frozen, below. As soon as we reached the end, we were met with another plank, this one much more rickety than the other, and an open pool of frozen water enclosed by another barge. Maat climbed down nearly a foot above the water atop what appeared to be the hull of a sunken ship and onward along the edge of the other barge. I sat there, Adventure Points spent — moments for reflection on how cold my fucking feet were getting in their Chuck Taylor housing.

We communicated on cell phone as Maat climbed further and further out, reaching a mid-1800’s prison ship made completely of wood (and featuring, most prominently, a prison cell with shackles lining the walls) and more. I climbed back over the wood plank, cursing its name the entire three-second duration, and photographed the other side of the graveyard, climbing on another set of docks just beyond a set of trees. In the distance was the industrial wasteland of the New Jersey shore. It was beautiful.

Catching the bus under an overpass relatively close to where we had been dropped off, we took it to a point that seemed logical and got off to walk to our next bus. Staten Island, home of the nation’s biggest (now inactive) landfill, is the choice destination for anyone who hates the sight of sidewalks!

We caught our next bus after walking a stretch (and purchasing coffee, donuts, and cookies) and twenty minutes later found ourselves passing through hospital guard posts and into the cul-de-sac of Seaview Hospital. Not reacting quickly enough — and not realizing that the bus only made one stop within the facility — we were soon whisked back through the guard posts and, in a fit of desperation, requesting to be dropped off on the side of the road. Our mind drifted from the Women’s Ward, however, and our eyes did the same — simultaneously, actually — to the rooftops of buildings hidden in the woods across the street. Looking both ways, we hopped through a gap in the fence and ran down the path to be greeted by one, two, three, perhaps ten decent-sized buildings, two-to-three stories each. I twisted my coffee cup into a spot in the snow for safekeeping.

If you were poor in the early 1900’s in New York, you’ve might’ve gotten shipped here — a massive, self-sustaining, “sweep the poor under the rug” effort called the New York Farm Colony. Exploring the general lot of buildings yielded a lot of interesting things — a crematorium, impressive steel fire doors, and the evidence that atleast one of the buildings had been used extensively for paintballing. Another, this one toward the back of the lot, had fallen victim to what was later reported to be arson — the roof and two floors’ worth of materials collapsed to the basement, immediately down the hallway from open elevator shafts and the aforementioned crematorium.

Moments before my last battery died, I captured a few photos within the most promising of rooms in the basement of a ward. In the middle of what appeared to be a work room, directly adjacent to another littered with weathered clothing and shoes, was a piano that had been tipped over and busted-open. Further exploration of this floor led us to an almost entirely darkened room for storage of residents’ original possessions; the windows boarded up to allow only cracks of light in, which made for dramatic lighting to say the least.

Walking back up the path, I picked my now-cold coffee out of the snowbank, and dumped it out.

“What did you do that for? That’s iced coffee.”

We looked both ways, again, and hopped out of the gap in the fence to stand at the bus stop in a nonchalant fashion.