Finally! It only took me nearly the entire summer to find a layout and get some new work to go online with but it’s all paid off. The new site is out and it only took 12 retina burning hours in front of my computer. There will be minor tweaks in the next few days but this is the main plan. Enjoy and feel free to let me know if there’s anything you think I can improve. I’m always open to all criticism and suggestions!
www.ericruggiero.com
The Riverside Church in the City of New York is an interdenominational (American Baptist and United Church of Christ), interracial, international congregation in New York City, famous not only for its elaborate Gothic architecture—which includes the world’s largest tuned carillon bell—but also as a center for the promotion of progressive causes. It is located in Harlem between Riverside Drive and Claremont Avenue and between 120th Street and 122nd Street.
The tallest church in the United States and the 26th tallest in the world, it was described by The New York Times in 2008 as “a stronghold of activism and political debate throughout its 75-year history … influential on the nation’s religious and political landscapes.”[1] The church received New York City Landmark status in 2000.
Riverside Church is New York’s last great eclectic skyscraper. Even though it was completed well into the modernist era, it hearkens back to an earlier period when architects attempted to disguise their tall buildings under layers of historicist detail. Though modeled after the thirteenth-century French Gothic cathedral of Chartres and sheathed in ornately carved Indiana limestone, Riverside Church is in fact a 30-story office building. In its massing of a 10-story nave and a 392-foot-tall tower, Riverside more resembles the platform and tower of the Woolworth Building than it does Chartres. Here, Gothic historicism thus comes full circle, with a church modeled after an office building that was modeled after secular Gothic design. Because of its steel-frame construction combined with faithful copies of limestone sculpture, Riverside is the ultimate syncretic image of the skyscraper as stadtkröne, or medieval crown of the city.
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As an “explorer” one notices things about his environment that most others don’t. This could be a dilapidated building off the side of the road, a barely noticeable sewer/drain outfall or a number of other observations. When I moved into Harlem a couple years ago, two things immediately came to mind. One was that I now lived next door to the well known West Side Amtrak (Freedom) Tunnel. The second being that Riverside Church was now covered in scaffolding for renovations. Anyone familiar with my friends and I knows the first thought in our heads when we see something new, “I can totally climb that…”
It took a while to get around to it. Every time I’d ask another guy in the crew to come with, I got the same response. “It’s probably gonna be open to the public once they finish working on it, so why bother?”. Of course my thinking was “Well what’s the fun in doing something your allowed to be?”. Still it looked like I was alone on this one.
So I find myself sitting in my apartment on 137th one night. Finding nothing interesting on tv, I jumped on my bike to go scope out the church again. I had drove by with some other friends a few times. Only being able to find one possible way onto the construction shed. Using a corner where the shed met the stone building. I’d be able to work my way up by spanning the stone and scaffolding pipes, jamming my fingers in where the blue construction wood met the stone. Like a crack climb on a rock. Even though it’s not a tall climb, it’s risky and in plain view of Riverside Dr. A favorite route for cops and Columbia U patrol in the area. There had to be another way.
The nice thing about being on foot or bike, is you can take your time and make multiple passes. Looking for mistakes in security measures. The front of the building seemed like a dangerous move, but the back was a much different story. The workers had left the fence from the sidewalk unlocked, which made it easy for me to slip in and find a dark spot to consider my next move. They had also conveniently left an extension ladder up. Giving me easy access to a second story roof area…
From here there’s only one thing keeping me from the top. I decided to wait out some people I noticed milling about in an attached building. Knowing this is a ritzy area, I knew someone wouldn’t hesitate to call me in had I been seen. I made it this far and didn’t wanna blow it now. Once it looked clear I made my way up.
This turned into a bit more of a mission than anticipated. During the hike up I would stop at each construction platform and make sure I hadn’t been noticed. Judging by the view from the ground, it was possible to see me had someone been looking hard enough.
I hadn’t really seen any NYPD around tonight, just these Columbia U safety officers. About 4 or 5 of them. Normally, on the ground these guys wouldn’t bother me in the slightest. Though considering I would be trapped 30 something stories up I decided to keep a close watch. I see them making the usual rounds as I make my way up. All looks normal for most of my ascent.
Eventually one decides to park right in front of my exit point. There’s no way I can get down the steps without being seen now. Decide to wait him out. No luck. The only action I see is one rent-a-pig sitting there while the others circle around, occasionally stopping to chat with the stationary car. Do they know I’m up here? Probably not. Would’ve seen some real cops by now. I’m sure anyone with a menial job like this would love to get any action they can though. Still I can’t descend, I’m in plain view of them. (Note the two white cars double parked near the intersection at the lower right of the photo below)
At this point it’s about 4am. The sun will be coming up soon and I’m supposed to be at work by 7am. So I decide my safest way out is around the front. A bit more fun to climb than the stairs in the back too. Free climbing down the scaffolding is the only option out here. Somewhat treacherous when your 30 stories up and you actually have to sit and slide off the stone of the building and hope you can catch the scaffolding. I start my descent and stop about half way down for one last shot. This last one is overlooking Grant’s Tomb with the George Washington Bridge in the background.
This is the Coney Island Parachute Jump. A 262 ft tall amusement ride built for the 1939 New York World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows Park, Queens. It was then moved to it’s current site, which at the time was Steeplechase Park amusement park in 1941. It is the only portion of Steeplechase Park still standing today. The ride ceased operations in 1968. The ride was based on functional parachutes which were held open by metal rings throughout the ascent and descent. Twelve cantilevered steel arms sprout from the top of the tower, each of which supported a parachute attached to a lift rope and a set of surrounding guide cables. Riders were belted into a two-person canvas seat hanging below the closed chute, then hoisted to the top, where a release mechanism would drop them, the descent slowed only by the parachute.
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So what happens when crazy prolific motherfuckers from out of town (er, out of country) come to visit NYC? You GET SHIT DONE. This was just another one of those nights. Two nights actually. Good scouting and planning always makes for even better exploiting. Though it turned out to be bad scouting as you’ll find out later. In any case this was a location on the list of shit to do, except most of the locals here had already hit it years ago. Nobody knew if it was still possible nor did most of us want to schlep out to Coney Island to find out. That’s where my buddy (or should I say mate?) Snappel and I come in.
Up until now I hadn’t much motivation to go check this thing out. Tell me I can eat some Nathan’s, get drunk and climb shit though, that’s all I needed to hear. So we finally set out to see what we were up against. Our successors had told us that when they climbed it there was a work ladder leading up into the hatch for the platform, and from there a permanent caged ladder to the top. With that in mind, we got our hopes up, hopped on the subway, put down some Nathan’s and headed on over.
Upon arrival we noticed we were in for a challenge. No ladder in sight, although the hatch was but with no easy way to get to it. Two heavy metal doors and no pretty way to open them. So without much of a second thought, there goes Snapple. Free climbing right up into the underside of this structure. Close but not close enough. We’d need some help to get to those doors. Snappel suggests to come back tomorrow with a harness and slings and anchor to the frame so we could work with both hands free. Agreed.
We return the following night with everything we could possibly need to ensure we make it happen. Harness, slings, biners, rope, even the full SRT kit. Fuck it, why be left standing there thinking “damn, if I had only brought that one piece with me…”. After stuffing another Super Cheeseburger from Nathans into my face we were all set. Snappel first decides to try tying into the rope, climb up, set an anchor, and have me tie him off at the bottom like a belay. Not good enough, he needs my help to get those doors open. So we both go up with our own slings to anchor ourselves to the frame. Usually doors like this are on some sort of spring or lever that takes the weight once you get the door open a bit. Apparently these were broken, we needed our own way to keep them open.
After numerous tries to swing these heavy doors upwards enough to wedge something in the frame to keep them open…success! Snappel climbs down to get the rest of the gear as I make my way up into the hatch. Now here’s the fun part…once I finally make it through the hatch and I’m safely on the platform above I hear a voice. “Hey Eric!” “Yeah?” “Umm, your gonna hate me but you can climb up right over here”. You’ve got to be kidding me. After 2 nights of trying and thinking how did we miss that?!? We were so focused on those doors and didn’t even bother to check for another way. Whatever, our way was a HELL of a lot more fun and interesting. Either way, we’re in. Now let’s get to the fucking top dammit!
There’s something real interesting about the view at night from up here. Being right on the water causes this strange scene. You look one way, and there’s nothing but city lights for as far as you can see. Turn around and you can’t see a single light for the life of you. Nothing but complete pitch darkness. Not something you get to see everyday living in NYC. One of those surreal moments when you stop and realize how much more is out there.
So every now and then I get a little more than a day’s work when I show up to a job site. One of the great things about having construction as a day job is occasionally getting paid to explore your surroundings. I’ve been on quite a few new high-rise jobs and always make use of the easy roof access but this was one of the best. Planted right smack in the middle of the Garment District is the brand new Eventi Hotel. This space was a parking garage just a few years ago and is now home to a 60 story mixed use hotel/condo.
Funny thing about fresh out of the ground mixed use buildings though, they have seperate elevator banks for the hotel and condo areas. Which may mean one of them isn’t up and running yet. Unfortunately in my case it was the high rise elevators. Now, there is an exterior hoist for all the workers to get to the upper floors. Of course, this wasn’t running after hours so that left one option…
There’s a beautiful thing about the location of this building. Other than the Empire State Building, it’s just about the only high rise around. Meaning you can see pretty much…well, EVERYTHING.
View looking down 6th Ave
View of Empire State Building at night
Well this is my first blog post. No, not my first post of the week, month or even year. The first one ever. Call me out of date or behind the times or whatever you want but I’m just damn lazy sometimes.
When I first heard the term blog years ago I thought it sounded pretty silly. Just another one of those social networking internet terms. I thought to myself, “why would I have any interest in reading about some guy on the web” or writing about my own life for that matter? It sounded like something used by people with nothing better to do, so other people with nothing better to do could read about how this person has nothing better to do. Seemed like a sad excuse for people who wished they were writers to call themselves a writer.
I was sitting in Central Park one day and overheard this hipster girl talking on her phone. From what I gather she was talking to a guy she met recently. The dialog from the guy is assumed but it went something like this -
Guy – “So what do you do?”
Girl – “Well, I’m a writer”
Guy – “Yeah? What do you write?”
Girl – “Oh…for a blog”
Guy – “What blog is it?”
Girl – “Well…my own”
From the sound of it she wasn’t very confident that her blog was anything of value. Kind of pathetic when the only substance you have to your life is writing for your own blog. And thus began my hatred of blogs.
So at this point even I’m wondering why I finally gave in and started a blog if I hate them so much. Well in the past few years I’ve noticed a change. Blogs went from being mostly people writing about their cats/ kids or posting useless artsy pictures of some collage they made from things cut from magazines, to useful business/networking tools.
I made a decision to use this spring and summer to really get things on track and start doing more with my photography. I’ve noticed all of my friends have blogs and use them quite succesfully in self promotion. Part of my decision this year was to use every option and tool available to me. One of which would be this blog. I am also building a brand new photo site to work side by side with this blog.
So where does that leave us now? It leaves you with the decision to check back regularly or subscribe to my feed and follow me like you know you want to. For now there will be a lot of updates coming as I have plenty of older photos and exploits to write about. Once I get the big stuff taken care of there will be periodic updates as I get myself into more trouble and find some old gems hidden on my hard drives somewhere.
And by the way…I still fucking hate blogs.
