About a month late in posting these photographs, but as always, I have been a busy, busy, person.  This adventure has to be one of my favorites, and unfortunately to whoever reads this I will not disclose the location exactly.  Maybe if you pick up the latest issue of Weird N.J., you might find out more.  I should mention that I went to this place before it was published in Weird N.J.

I mentioned before there are countless ways of getting to my job.  This was pathway number three.  When I first saw the location, I knew I had to get inside.  First off, I saw the train.  For as long as I could remember, I have had an obsession with trains.  Second, it is abandoned.  Train plus abandoned equals abandoned train.  Got that?  Yet, this abandoned train is so much more!  It is also an abandoned restaurant?!

Now I don’t know much about the history, and I won’t say the name of the restaurant, I think my photos give it away, but I heard things from fellow work associates.  At one time this restaurant was a great place, but with the flooding, since it is by a river, the owners just packed up and went.  Don’t quote me, but from what I gathered this place might have been abandoned since 2006.

Since the first sight of this establishment I had ideas of what it would look like inside.  My ideas were farfetched.  Something like everything is still there and in place.  Well when my friend and I went to the back of the train, my ideas weren’t that far off.  I should say the back door was wide open for easy access, and once inside it looked as if time had stopped.  Everything from the piano to the packets of sugar was still there.  The problem with places like these is that I get too excited I don’t know how to photograph.  I get overwhelmed!

After I calmed down I took so many photographs, even my friend got into them.  We started to walk around and found some rooms in bad shape, but others were just fine.  The bar was in excellent condition with even the glasses there.  My friend and I had to do a pose.  Walking out of the bar, we found the front door, wide open!  This place is easy to get into, but you can’t see that because it is hidden from outside.

The kitchen still had all the blenders, utensils, bowls, etc, it was amazing.  Wish I had a lightening kit to show the ballroom though.  Something like this you only get to see rarely and I took it all in and captured it.  However, I want it to stay that way.  I don’t want to disclose the location for a few reasons.  First thing, I don’t want someone going in and stealing the stuff.  I know the piano and the register seem great to own, but don’t take it.  It is not right and those items make that place.  Second I don’t want kids or even adults to go in and destroy the place.  If you find the location, please don’t destroy something like this.  Whenever I go into these types of places, I try to leave no footprints behind.  Let’s be mature about these things.

After a good two hours, my friend and I left, leaving the past alone.  I know I will be back; this place is just too good to only visit once.  Also I hope to have a better lens when I visit again.  When I will be back, I don’t know.  It will be this year though and maybe you too, dear reader, will have already visited yourself.