Nick Carr

Just a quick announcement to say that all three Scout Stories issues are now back in stock! The latest "Hidden NY" is $12/free US shipping. And you can save $4 by getting all three Scout Stories issues in a bundle: Hidden NY / Desert / Show Business.

Once, I was scouting an abandoned hospital building for a movie. I started to go into a large common room, and my guide said, "Oh, don't go in there." I asked why and he said, "because that floor is severely water damaged, and you'll fall through into the basement."

You'd NEVER have known from looking at it - it looked like every other room we'd gone through. And I realized that if I had been exploring alone, I'd absolutely have wound up in a pile of rubble in the basement, with a broken leg or spine or worse.

One of the most hauntingly beautiful properties I've ever scouted is this abandoned chapel, located just north of NYC...

It was like something out of a Lovecraftian horror movie: the cracked dome ceiling, the streaks of green mold, the pews in disarray, the broken tiles, even an old organ on the balcony...

Yet miraculously, the stained glass windows looked as though they'd just been installed that morning:

This was the last thing I was expecting to see when I reached out to tour the old abandoned building on Western Highway, which I kept driving past as I was scouting houses in the Tappan area.

Built in 1909, this was once the German Masonic Home of Tappan, a residence for older "Masons, their widows, and orphans" who needed a place to live. After closing in 1983, it then became a dorm for the nearby Dominican College.

In my research, I learned that students traded ghost stories about a pair of suicides that once occurred here. In 1933, John Ellich, 74, and Marie Kiefer, 64, both residents, had fallen in love despite strict rules against such behavior. A year later, they secretly eloped in NYC.

Unfortunately, their secret was discovered, and they were informed by the board of directors that they were to be separated, with one of them being moved to the Masonic Home of Utica.

On September 3rd, 1933, the superintendent found Ellich and Kiefer dead in Kiefer's room, lying side by side. Ellich still held an automatic pistol, and suicide notes were found on the dresser. There had been a massive storm that night, and the shot was mistaken for thunder.

You can see the full tour here, with newly added full-size pics that weren't in my original post: https://nickcarr.com/

Unfortunately, things don't appear to have improved much since I took these photos over a decade ago. Perhaps someday something will be done to save it; till then, it will live on in ghost stories.

When I first moved to LA from NYC to continue my scouting career, I assumed it would be the major differences that would be hardest to get used to. But in fact, it’s the elements that are sort of similar, yet VERY different, that still hit me as weird. One example: Patriotic Hall...

Every time I see it, I’m instantly transported back to the rows of 8-10 story historic midtown buildings I used to scout back in Manhattan, like around the General Society of Mechanics...

There’s just, ah, one minor difference: someone forgot the rest of the block.

As long as I live, I don’t think I’ll ever get used to seeing it sitting by its lonesome, as though a venerable midtown building finally got tired of the weather and decided to retire in to sunny climate of Southern California.

That said, the building is gorgeous, serves an important purpose for veterans, and has been featured in countless film productions over the years, including as an East Coast stand-in.

And honestly, walking up to the door triggers a strange deja vu that I’m always happy to feel.

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See this post in full here: https://nickcarr.com/new-york-in-los-angeles/

No power, lights out...

World is silent except for your footsteps...

Step into what was once a child's bedroom...

AND THEN TWO BIRDS LEAP UP SQUAWKING CRAZILY AND FLAIL OUT THE BROKEN WINDOWS.

And only another full floor or two of rooms to cover before I'm finished...

(in fact, the unexpected horror movie jump scare is one of my favorite encounters to have while scouting - just so long as I don't wind up dead immediately after it. 😀)

Once upon a time back in my NYC days, I held a contest on April Fools asking readers to guess where I went on vacation from a series of pictures. The answer: the American Museum of History!

My hope was that in having people come to the slow realization that what they're were seeing might not be real, they'd experience these dioramas in a way that allowed them to appreciate their exquisite beauty from a new perspective.

The AMNH is the museum I miss most since my move to LA. There was nothing like going to the museum on a slow day and wandering the dioramas alone, probably one of the most transportive experiences in NYC.

My absolute favorite were the wolves hunting at night - just pure magic.

To be clear, LA's Natural History Museum is a marvel in its own right. But I think it's the vastness of the AMNH that sets it apart in allowing visitors to truly feel the scope of the world we live in.

In transferring old pictures to my website, I found a huge folder of full-size pics I'd taken for the contest, far beyond what I originally posted - so I've uploaded them all to my site, nickcarr.com, for anyone who would like to see further examples of this singular art.

Hope you enjoy, and as always, be sure to follow if you'd like to read more from a movie location scout!

Finally, check out the last picture here to see a one-of-a-kind diorama from LA's museum, depicting our local backyard environment here in the LA area. Keep those pets indoors!

Contest time! Guess where I went on my big vacation, and every correct reply will be entered for a chance to win the first 3 issues of my zine, Scout Stories. Deadline is tomorrow at noon pacific. Good luck!

I looked over the faces, amused to see the expressions of seriousness or boredom, goofball smiles, closed eyes, the kid who didn't follow instructions and wound up blurry... And so cute that they had dragged out two little potted plants to gussy up the corners of the photo.

If not for the clothes, it could easily be a picture of a modern kindergarten.

And then it hit me that everyone in this photo had gone on to live entire lives that likely ended just around the time I was born.

An obvious thought, of course, but it turned my focus away from the quirks of the photo, and instead, to the sense of a future yet to be lived. And it made me realize how much of that would be defined by the place they called home: The Astral.

Stretching a full city block on Franklin Street, Astral Apartments was built in 1885/86 by Charles Pratt (namesake to Pratt Institute) to house his oil refinery workers in a safe and healthy environment, a very progressive idea in a time when thousands suffered in tenements.

Among other perks, Pratt provided his tenants with a library / lecture hall. I assumed it had long ago been gutted, but during my scout, I was able to find remnants, including its central fireplace...

And I noticed a quote engraved above it: "Waste neither time nor money."

A fascinating choice by Pratt, the sort of thought that means absolutely nothing when you're the age in that class photo - and everything when all is said and done.

You can see the full tour of the building here, with newly uploaded, full-size photos I've never posted before:

More posts here: https://nickcarr.com/blog/

In Los Feliz, there's a place called the Harvard House Motel, and I like to think that at least once in its 79-year existence, someone booked a room believing it to have some association with the university, if only in grandeur.

It was only as I got closer that I realized that something was very wrong with the situation...

Here's what happened:

Had an odd memory come to me of having once scouted an historic mansion in Long Island with palm trees lining the drive...but palm trees? Could that be right? So I dug thru my files...and there they were, at the old Woolworth Estate!

Only turns out, I'd been tricked...

These had in fact been planted for the HBO miniseries Mildred Pierce (and now appear to be gone).

Not the first nor last time I'd be fooled by my own industry...

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This plus a full archive of past posts can be found here!

If you're looking for something to do this July 4th weekend AND enjoy visiting environmental disaster sites, why not take a hike to beautiful Nuclear Lake?? Because yes, this is real, and yes, it got this name for exactly the reason you'd expect...

Full post here:

Well damn. I had NO idea that yesterday's post about a decommissioned nuclear power plant would be so popular, so I just fully overhauled the original article with high res versions of the old pics, and added in dozens more I forgot I had on file.

Enjoy!

This is the control room, and if you look closely, you'll see a dark stripe in the carpet running the perimeter of the room. This was referred to as the "velvet rope," and absolutely NO ONE was allowed to cross it without authorization. It was under constant observation from an adjacent office, and I was told that if someone did set foot inside without permission, things got VERY serious VERY quickly.

This is one of the computer stations, and to me, it's such a gorgeous encapsulation of its period of technology, the sort of aesthetic that shows like Lost will bend over backwards to recreate.

As I was scouting, I noticed the day calendar had last been torn off about when the plant closed for good...

Then we went into the nuclear reactor, and the whole damn thing was just so spooky.

Looking back, I think it came from an overwhelming feeling of utter insignificance in the face of the sheer power this colossus was designed to produce.

The scale was just so out of proportion to every day reality, the sort of place where a weight of "46000 LBS" is just casually noted on the side of a part.

Peering into where the core would've been, all I could think is that I'd never want the job where you have to climb down that ladder on the left while this thing was in operation.

If you're interested in seeing more, you can find my full tour here!

https://nickcarr.com/scouting-a-decommissioned-nuclear-power-plant/