David Vega-Barachowitz

The urban explorer visits Brooklyn to discover an unlikely combination: beef patties and victorian mansions. Click on the link to read the corresponding article, Country Club Living in the Land of Golden Krust.

On a Saturday afternoon in late March, I took to the streets of Brooklyn to find that most wondrous and irresistible of fried delicacies: the Jamaican beef patty.

The Urban Explorer takes a trip to Fort Wadsworth, an abandoned U.S. military installation on Staten Island. Click on the following link to read the corresponding article.

Unstably tethered to the southeastern edge of Brooklyn, Staten Island welcomes no one, and no one welcomes Staten Island.

View the slideshow to take a visual tour of the Calvary Cemetery, one of the oldest and largest cemeteries in the country. Read the corresponding article by clicking here.

The quiet streets of Blissville, Queens cannot be found on maps of New York City. Located in a borough synonymous with change and diversity, where storefront awnings parade every language, flag, and color down the eclectic Roosevelt Avenue, Blissville is an oasis of gray. Though its name conjures the ethereal heavens, downtown Blissville rises along the twin hills of the Calvary Cemetery like the ruins of an ancient Roman city in miniature.

Urban Explorer and Columbia student, David Vega-Barachowitz, visits Roosevelt Island. Watch the slideshow to see photos and read captions about the sights. Click on the following link to view the corresponding article Hanging Out with the Gangs of New York on Roosevelt Island.

At 60th Street and Second Avenue, the aerial tramway platform to Roosevelt Island stands like a full scale K’NEX model haphazardly placed in a city of steel and stone. Its beams of radiant orange, red, blue, and yellow are alien to the surrounding cityscape.

Riding downtown along the elevated 1 line from 242nd Street, one looks out on a city of train yards, graffiti, and auto shops. Here, past Washington Heights in a part of New York that seems to lack a label, the confluence of rivers, roads, and railways creates a daunting and chaotic spectacle.