The Flickr Vintagerocklandcounty Image Generatr

This is one building in a large complex of abandoned structures from the early 1900s which once served as an insane asylum. Over time, overcrowding and underfunding by the state turned this place into a complete hellhole for the patients being held involuntarily. The entire complex was closed in 1996 and nature has been taking over since then.

That's Chestnut Street in the center. The place looks vastly more civilized these days. Long gone are the abandoned tracks, array of crooked poles and acres of weedy, overgrown railroad right-of-way land in front of and behind this view. A large condo development named Chestnut Manor now occupies the space.

Taken with my late, great 1985 Nikon FG SLR.

That little parking lot in the background swamps by the Hudson River is still there off Gair Street, completely surrounded by reeds, and continues to flood whenever it rains. It used to be one of the paper plant's employee lots. Today it's an overflow lot for tourists now that Piermont has been utterly gentrified.

When I moved to Rockland County in late 1983, Nyack was the first town that I explored. Unlike today where it looks like a miniature version of Greenwich Village, vast swaths of it were still in a raw post-industrial condition, especially along the Hudson River shoreline. There were even remnants of abandoned railroad tracks slicing through parts of town.

I was fascinated by the reed-covered rusting hulks of cars, trucks, refrigerators, mattress box-springs and all the other junk people just left to rot by the Hudson River.

This view shows an abandoned trash strewn greenhouse being taken over by nature and a round leaky cement diesel fuel tank behind it. Old books in my collection contain black and white images of the Nyack shoreline being filled with small factories, marine fuel tanks and boat supply buildings in the 1920s. By the 1980s, some of the remnants could still be found.

Since the plant was built in 1902 until its demise in 1982, this enormous flywheel was spun by large rubber belts to generate power for the factory. At first it was powered by steam boilers which were fueled by coal brought in by Erie Railroad trains. Sometime in the early 1950s, the company modernized by switching to burning oil according to the records I could find.

When the power house building holding the generator was demolished in 1989, legend has it that the wrecking ball just bounced off the flywheel. After consulting with contractors working on the project, a decision was made to leave it in place. To this day, the flywheel remains in a park bearing its name as a reminder of Piermont’s lengthy industrial past.

I still recall the sense of quiet watching the gently lapping waves as the sunset slowly cast a deepening orange glow on the river.

Built in 1902, this massive industrial plant was Piermont's largest employer until finally closing in 1982. I discovered it around 1984 and decided to take lots of photos in case all this was going to disappear, which eventually it did.

I'm not sure why, but during the phased demolition of the enormous decrepit paper plant, the developers decided that painting the wall of the last remaining factory in yellow would be more esthetically pleasing than leaving the original brick until the building's final destruction.

From 1902 until 1982, this was a smoky, grubby and industrial blue collar town where virtually everybody was employed by the Robert Gair paper plant. It consisted of a massive series of factory buildings between Piermont Avenue (shown above) and the Hudson River to the left. The Erie Railroad tracks brought in raw materials as well as transporting out the finished paper products.

The mills closed in 1982 and without another industry to replace it, the buildings were eventually torn down to be replaced by luxurious multimillion dollar condos, expensive art galleries, high-end stores and world-class restaurants.

On summer weekends, Piermont is inundated by tourists from Manhattan and New Jersey. Its not unusual to see more than a few Ferraris and Jaguars rolling through downtown and parking near one of the many high-end shops.

I feel lucky to have experienced both the old and new incarnations of this town. They're about as different as you can get. (In truth, I kind of miss the way it used to be - unpretentious and fascinatingly photographable).

Here's how the same street view appears now...

www.google.com/maps/@41.0397524,-73.9161017,3a,75y,196.46...

I love this bucolic look before heavy industry came to the Village of Piermont. The neighborhood in the foreground was a Dutch settlement from the early 1800s called "Bogertown".

The neighborhood is still there (as is the Gingerbread house with two spikes on the roof), located just before the entrance to what is now the Piermont Pier linear park going out halfway into the Hudson River. The schooner in the background plying the Hudson River waters looks to be a fine and elegant ship.

Here's an aerial photo from Facebook that shows how the area appears today...
www.facebook.com/VillageofPiermont/photos/a.1589908780778...