Nevele Grand Hotel in the Catskills catches fire again
Another fire guts the abandoned Nevele Grand Hotel.
This morning, a portion of the iconic and historic Nevele Hotel caught fire in a two-alarm blaze. The past few years have been hard on this abandoned property with at least one other major blaze happening last year.
Located in what is known as the Borscht Belt, a collection of Jewish resorts located in upstate NY, The Nevele Grand Hotel was once a popular destination for family retreats but since the early 2000s has seen steep decline and abandonment. While the Nevele property is heavily guarded at times, it has more or less been open to the elements and crafty individuals can easily find a way in if they don’t mind hiking through a bit of forest on the backside (that’s how I’ve seen it up close).
There’s no word yet on how extensive the fire damage is this morning, but with heavy neglect already prominent on the structure I wouldn’t be surprised if a large part of it collapsed. I’ll update when news comes out.
Here are some photos from just a few years ago.
Virtual production with Steve Giralt
Steve Giralt shows off how virtual productions are done.
I’ve been running into these types of virtual productions and virtual screens at work more and more lately. The nerdy part of me is always so interested in how these are done, often staying around as they demo the production or set it up, and seeing just how much tech is behind it all.
Photographer Steve Giralt’s quick intro video below is on the smaller scale of what I’ve seen but it seems to still have all the parts of a larger production that I’ve been on, including camera tracking, master clock sync, and Unreal real-time rendering rather than just a static image displayed on the LED screen. The biggest difference his setup seems to have that adds a level of complexity to his specific needs is the BOLT camera robot (similar to what I’ve seen in MKBHD’s video work).
All of this tech comes together in a perfect blend of cost-savings realistic detail for recreating a location in-studio. Even though my heart still longs for and prefers the joys and challenges of a location shoot, I can’t ignore the future of how my work will change as these virtual productions become cheaper and easier to manage and maintain.
The abandoned Abercrombie Castle in Upstate NY
A walk-around of the Abercrombie Mansion near Ossining, NY.
Abercrombie Castle 2024
A few weeks back I took a trip up to Ossining, NY to visit the Ossining Weir and on the way back I stopped by the long-abandoned property known as the Abercrombie Castle (or Abercrombie Mansion).
As you might have guessed, the property takes its name from David Abercrombie, one half of the duo that would lend its name to the brand we know as Abercrombie & Fitch. Records show that the home was built and completed in 1927 and occupied by David Abercrombie and his family until his death in 1937. He had named it Elda, after the names of his children. The structure and land changed hands several times before going completely abandoned despite efforts to turn it back into a home and retreat in the mountains.
A quick walk around the property still shows the incredible stone work laid to build this structure. Most of the wood has fallen but unsurprisingly, the structure still is intact, protected by thick forest on all sides.
In 2022, a large part of the property was burned and today, it has sat decaying and open to the elements.
No trespassing signs at the Abercrombie Castle
On my visit, it was clear that the property had been locked up a bit tighter with large no trespassing signs littered throughout and solar-powered video cameras installed along the exterior of the building. Be aware that if you walk on the property today, you will set off automatic alarms (although in my observations, they don’t really do anything except give an audible warnings), but if you know where to look, you can avoid them pretty easily.
Some more photos
The last days of Georgia Square Mall
The last days of the Georgia Square Mall in Athens, GA before it goes under redevelopment.
Georgia Square Mall December 2024
Nestled in the city of Athens, about an hour outside of Atlanta, GA, sits the Georgia Square Mall, a typical American mall design of yesteryear with more parking square footage than actual store space.
Today, the mall is on its last legs, the result of decades of changing American consumer habits and the declining culture of American mega-malls. The mall is but a shell of its former self (see the video below of a promo for the mall just over 10 years ago).
In December of 2024, I visited this mall to see what was left of it before it gets partially torn down and turned into a large mixed-used development with new commercial space, 1200 apartments, and a new senior living center.
Like many built just like it, the Georgia Square Mall was anchored by major department store tenants like JC Penny, Belk, and Sears. The Sears and JC Penny have since closed but the Belk remains open, although quite empty.
Inside, the mall is an eerily quiet ghost town. Most of the shop gates are closed and the ones that remained open are generic stores that sell an unidentifiable selection of clothes and shoes. The food selection is abysmal with virtually all stalls closed except for 2 it seems. The familiar center-aisle stalls are empty as well and the usual delights of the mall experience, like candy machines, photo booths, and massage chairs, are all sitting unused but lit up as if waiting for a familiar friend.
Curiously, the interior of the mall seems to continue to serve as a location for the Athens-Clark County Police Precinct and
Check out some more photos from my visit below.
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Check out some more photos from my visit below. ~
Congestion Relief Pricing: An anecdotal take
Some observations from the first week of Congestion Relief Pricing.
Times Square on Wednesday, January 8, 2025, around 3PM
It has been a long time coming, but after an 11th-hour reversal last year by NY Governor Kathy Hochul, Congestion Relief Pricing finally became official in NYC on midnight January 5, 2025. It has been just under a week and several business days of this program, which charges a toll for drivers entering Manhattan below 60th St, and so far I’ve already seen some improvements to city life.
So far, I’ve noticed a significant decrease in the noise level in the Midtown area. Not just less honking, but just less white noise from car engines. It’s insane how different it feels. I’ve always believed the phrase Cities aren’t noisy, cars are noisy and this seems to be proof of that.
On Tuesday this past week, I traveled in a Lyft from 30th St to 155th St with some gear and both me and my driver noticed that there was no traffic on the West Side Highway during rush hour. I’ve taken this exact same route before at roughly the same time (rush hour) and have always known that the ride would take roughly 45 minutes. Typically, the West Side Highway is jammed with traffic, especially leading up to around 45th st just after the bend in the road near the Intrepid (don’t ask me why this is, it just is). My trip on Tuesday took all of 16 minutes — that’s nearly a half hour cut from my travel time. My driver was ecstatic about it.
On Wednesday, I was biking around the city and also noticed how empty Times Square was in the middle of the day. I traveled through around 3PM and there was no bumper to bumper traffic blocking any of the streets. I continued towards Penn Station and noticed the same thing; there were mostly car service and TLC vehicles in this area of Midtown during the middle of the afternoon.
Later that same evening, 6th Avenue which is normally filled with heavy traffic at rush hour, was more or less moving along swiftly. No congestion blocking any intersections. More observations to come…
Coming to terms with the old Doobybrain
Making my website disappear — on purpose.
I used to think the internet was forever. That everything you wrote, submitted, posted, and interacted with online was somehow transformed into a data set that lasted for eternity, beyond my own death.
A part of me still thinks that, but I’ve witnessed huge chunks of the internet that I knew as a kid disappearing forever. There are a few reasons I can think of quickly: site owners passing away, site ownership being bought/sold, life changes contributing to a site’s slow demise… You get the idea. Life happens and eventually, unless there’s a lot of money involved behind the scenes, little guys like me eventually lose a bit of steam.
An ominous email
January 4, 2025 - the day I said bye to an old friend
Doobybrain was started in 2002, in the earliest days of my internet use, when communication was simple and people checked email maybe just once or twice a day. AIM was the chat tool of my peers (texting wasn’t a regular thing) and a blog was just a recently coined internet term that really meant this kid spends a lot of time at the computer.
Early Doobybrain.com days
Doobybrain was, at first, a static HTML page, humbly edited nearly every day by me in Macromedia Dreamweaver. I would add bits of my internet findings to this HTML page until it seemed arbitrarily long for scrolling, and then I would manually make another HTML page linking to the previous one (and so on and so forth). It was laborious but it was fun and eventually, my site grew enough that I converted over to WordPress.
The WordPress age last a long time from what I recall. It was the first real transformation of my site into a blog that handled linking and ads without much input needed from me. It was WordPress that allowed me to grow the site even more and get it in front of hundreds of thousands of readers. It changed my life in a way (I moved to California because of it, which is kind of another story for another day).
But with WordPress came the first phase of letting go of Doobybrain. All of those HTML pages I made didn’t transfer over to the new site at the time. Those HTML pages were saved forever on a 3.5” floppy disk that I lost a long time ago (I do wish I had those archives). And so a small part of me just accepted it even though the early data-hoarder in me didn’t like it.
Eventually, WordPress became a bit of a chore and I switched the site over to Squarespace where yet again, the WordPress archives didn’t really survive online. I have those archives, but they are forever locked away in the WordPress format that is only available in incomplete pieces on The Internet Archive. I did not like having to start-over because of the change in site hosting/format.
What I’ve Learned
This site currently is still on Squarespace, but I have started fresh. The previous Doobybrain-on-Squarespace was not my favorite to be honest which is why it became so easy to neglect. It seemed monotonous, voice-less, and more quick to post without any thought whatsoever. I think of it as my version of Twitter even though I was simultaneously posting on Twitter at the time. I just didn’t know where the website Doobybrain fit in anymore and it really made me sad.
And so it took me over a year to realize I just had to let it go in order for me to begin writing again. All the worries of “breaking the internet” due to hyperlinks going to 404 pages just…had to be. It was the life-cycle of the internet that I had begun to experience more and more so why be so precious about preserving my own digital fingerprints? Like all life, the internet has a death as well and maybe I’m coming to terms with an old version of myself going away forever, unable to be indexed, searched, or read by anybody ever again.
Hidden Atlanta: The abandoned Tucker-North Dekalb Line
An abandoned trench in Atlanta once served as a possible extension of the MARTA Blue Line.
The Tucker-North Dekalb Line
Tucked away behind some overgrowth adjacent to West Howard Avenue in Atlanta, GA is an unfinished spur line known as the Tucker-North Dekalb Line. I had the pleasure of checking this location off my to-go list lately after hearing about it from the video below several years ago.
The spur line consists of a partially built tunnel between the East Lake and Edgewood stations along MARTA’s Blue Line. Once in the area, the land gently slopes downward toward East Lake station and then underneath it for a few feet in an enclosed tunnel. As you can imagine, the area isn’t very protected and has been covered top-to-bottom in graffiti.
There have been some talks in recent years of expanding MARTA to use this line again but nothing concrete ever happens from it. For now, it’s a peaceful spot hidden from street view with MARTA running above you and light vehicle traffic nearby.
Hidden Gem of Atlanta: The Noguchi Playground at Piedmont Park
Isamu Noguchi’s only playground for kids can be seen in Atlanta.
Noguchi Playground in Atlanta
Hidden just behind the entrance of Atlanta’s Piedmont Park, is a wonderful playground designed by Japanese artist Isamu Noguchi.
The Noguchi Playground is his only intact and installed playground despite designing several playgrounds in his lifetime. His design is instantly iconic, with large colorful shapes and sharp angles that might otherwise today be labeled as hazardous to kids. Installed and dedicated in 1976, the playground saw a period of neglect before being refurbished in 1996.
Today, it has some weathering and could maybe use a new coat of paint, but it is in great working order. On my visit, there were kids making use of the fun play-things and slides. The High Museum in Atlanta continues to contribute support to this design mainstay.
