Happy Halloween !!
Back around mid 2013 I became totally enamored with New York City graffiti. Good friend Tim Jones, an accomplished large format photographer himself and I stumbled upon some graffiti in Brooklyn one Sunday afternoon. We were so moved by the B&W opportunities we Googled other graffiti locations in or around NYC. Much to our surprise there was a 5 story 200,000 sq. ft. warehouse less than 7 miles away in Long Island City known as 5PtZ. The name 5Ptz signifies the coming together of the 5 NYC boroughs to provide graffiti artists a venue to share reoccurring “outdoor aerosol outdoor art”. 5PtZ, aka the Institute of Higher Burning became a world-wide attraction for graffiti artists, album cover backdrops and the general public.
Seen in the cell phone pix of my camera setup of the Halloween image was a model photo-shoot taking place. Kinda funny, the digital photographer was no more interested in my large film camera as I was in what he was doing. One of Tim’s 8×10″ contact prints looking up the 5 story building appears below.
5PtZ became so popular that it was listed on Tripadvisor and daily bus tours became a destination for the casual NYC tourist. We would always arrive at dawn for a Sunday morning of shooting, by 11am the place was swarming with “cell phone” photogs. An interesting side note, the face seen in the lower right side of my image was made by a famous aerosol artist who traveled from France to share his talents at 5PtZ, clearly a different style, yet worthy of his long distance travel.
In over 50 “stories” I’ve written, I was surprised to find I’ve only written one other story before about a very creative time for me. I made over 40 negatives in the span of 6 months during numerous trips to NYC. On the 3rd or 4th visit with Tim, we had large cameras set up on the access streets when we encountered a man who always seemed to show up midmorning to “check things out”. 
Turns out, Jonathan Cohen, aka MeresOne had struck a deal with the owner of the building Jerry Wolkoff 12 years earlier. Cohen oversaw the artists, aka “taggers” who wanted to share their vision and talents. Cohen reserved certain areas for long-standing murals to remain and other areas that could be freely painted over. Aerosol artists from all over the world would seek to include their vision @ 5PtZ!! One day I approached Cohen and explained what we were doing and he saw no problem with our mission.
I became enough of a regular on Sundays amongst scores of digital photographers that I developed a relationship with MeresOne where we would talk about art and the unusual places it can be found. I began to have reservations about whether I was plagiarizing other artist’s work, so I brought some of my own imagery down on another visit to seek out MeresOne’s opinion. He immediately told me how much he loved the bright colors being turned into grey tones and also how I incorporated features of the physical building into the composition, he suggested I’d created my own artform of and about 5PtZ. With Cohen’s endorsement, building a portfolio of images of 5PtZ became a passion, I selected many large-scale areas merging various graffiti scenes by different artists into the physical features of the warehouse.
One of my most favorite memories of my time at 5Ptz happened one early afternoon when I had my camera setup as seen here waiting for people to pass. 
I saw out of the corner of my eye a photographer with a pro level tripod and a good size digital camera hanging off his shoulder. He kept looking my way, I hoped he did not make his way over to my large wooden camera set up in the middle of the street to chat me up. I have little knowledge of digital cameras and even less patience for those who stand in a spot for a few seconds, take a picture and suddenly call themselves photographers merely because they have the latest equipment !! By this time of day, there are photographers everywhere, as one might imagine 99% are digital / cell phone shooters and yours truly (1%). Sure enough, he makes his way over to me, my Deardorff is set up exactly in the middle of the street with a much larger crowd of people. I am in a waiting mode for various things to happen. He says “nice camera, what size, how old” and so forth. I’m not too chatty as I know I am out of my element with the equipment he has. Finally, he says, “don’t you think digital quality has equaled if not surpassed your film”? He continues, “do you know how many MegaPixels this Nikon has”? “No idea” I tell him, he says “36 Mega Pixels, you realize how much resolving power that is”? In an instant, I tell him “it’s has nothing to do with resolving power, it has everything to do with how film accepts light and can render to a much greater degree roundness and shape”. A blank look on his face, finally he says “I’ve never heard it explained that way.”
Just then, as if the Analog Gods were watching over this entire exchange, hot afternoon by now and out of nowhere comes a tiny little man, easily 75 – 85 yrs old and dressed in a winter sport jacket. I watched as he approached my camera with wonderment in his eyes, without a word he comes around to the front of my camera, obviously knowing exactly where to look for the nameplate and says “I knew it was Deardorff !! He continues, “I worked my whole life for Look magazine and we had 8×10 Deardorffs all over the studio, what a treat it is to still see one in use.” The digital guy close by and listening, never uttered another word as he just kinda of vanished!
As it turned out, I began taking days off from work in the hopes of greatly reduced crowds. Friday November 15th would essentially be the last time I made a creative photograph there. Sadly, 5PtZ would come to a shocking end on the following Tuesday as the owner of the building conspired with police and a painting contractor to “whitewash” the building in the wee hours of the morning. As a final resolution to the incredible art made at 5PtZ, and the angst endured by the taggers a judge awarded a $ 6.7 million dollar settlement February 2018 to approximately twenty taggers whose work was destroyed by the developer and his ill advised whitewashing. See this Judge awards 5PtZ artists. As a closing thought, I’ve watched these artists take a project from concept to completion, they are in every sense of the word, Artists of immense talent!!
Before November 19, and after November, 19, 2013
Great write up to a wonderful story!
Tim
Thanks Tim !!
Great story, Steve!
Thanks very much !!
Talk about timing. I guess you were lucky to capture the last moments that the building has those images on there. In black-and-white it does have a whole different feeling than in color. Glad you see things differently than people who do all the digital an iPhone photography. I must say you are really a true artist I have pieces of your work that prove it OK thanks have a good day bye
Very interesting story behind the camera! Thanks
Very interesting story behind the camera! Thanks