02 March 2010

Fallout Shelters of New York City

I have a rather weird side hobby; when I walk around New York City, I keep my eyes trained just above head level and I scan both sides of the street. I look for signs of a particular nature: fallout shelter signs. As you no doubt have noticed, the image in the header of this blog is of a fallout shelter sign. I even have a large mounted against the exposed brick wall in my apartment. Why the fascination? To understand my hobby, you should know that the signs were all created and mounted in the early 1960's, so they represent a very paranoid time in our history. They are anachronisms.

So far, I have collected pictures of 88 different signs. That number is sure to go up this summer when the weather is warm enough to walk more than a couple blocks for no good reason. Here is a gallery of the pictures I have taken. They are all done with my iPhone. I do take higher quality pictures with a digital camera (as you can see above), but I am saving those for more impressive applications.

                                                                                                                                                                               

My goal this year is to reach 200 and to actually visit the inside of a former fallout shelter. (Bonus assignment: parse the EXIF data from each of these photos and plot them all out on a map.)


EDIT: 3/20/2011 -- Added 51 new shelters!

Hi guys, I'm back a year later with more shelters. I did not meet my goal of 200 because I didn't go looking for them as much as I wanted. However, they have been trickling in as my adventures have taken me around the city. I also have not yet been granted access to explore a shelter, but I have been told by a few building staffers that they are now used as just extra storage.

So what else has happened in the last year? A number of students and journalists have found this blog post and have e-mailed me to ask permission to use my photos in their papers/articles. That's pretty exciting. Someone even took the time to map out the above 88 shelters using the EXIF data in each one.

What's in store for the next year? More shelter searching. I also have a number of photos taken with a slightly better camera. I will be combing through those pics to see if any can be made into an artistic presentation, like as in the header image of this blog. Stay tuned and keep writing to me about this stuff. I love hearing about it.

                                                                                                     
Posted by Andrew Gonsalves at 10:08 PM
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8 nibbles:

  1. I love this collage of yours! And I'm just as impressed by the fact that you haven't given up or lost interest on your side project. I think it's good to have something to focus on especially when it comes to photography- it gives you a reason to bust out the camera every now and then.

    I must admit, now you have me trying to find those signs myself! Thanks for giving this New Yorker a reason to slow down, take my eyes off the ground and look at her surroundings.
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  2. wow that's actually a pretty cool hobby. i like it! and i love the word anachronism.
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  3. Stumbled over from 20sb.

    The collage is really awesome.

    Everytime I think fallout shelter, I think of Blast From the Past.
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  4. I am doing the same thing in yonkers.

    You should check out conelrad. com.

    There is a wonderful (if you can call it that), history of this ubiquitous symbol of our lives.

    Also, check out the civil defense museum page. There are actually some shelters in Dallas stocked with the 2 week supply of food and essentials...since 1961!

    Good work.
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  5. This is awesome! I'm doing a film in NYC and would need some of these. Are there any of them that you are allowed to go in and see the actual shelter?
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  6. Of particular interest to you would be the "Unterwelten" of Berlin (http://berliner-unterwelten.de/tour-3.15.1.html -- you would have to travel to Europe, though). They have an intact fallout bunker through which they offer tours.
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  7. Hey Man, great pics! You gonna plot 'em out on a map? I'd love to find out where some of these are!
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  8. I think it is a wise hobby. I have been looking for an online map of fallout shelters. I know that many schools double as fallout sheltersbut I am not sur if you have to register or be affilate with the school. Perhaps you can list where the pics are located. Thank you ifor posting these great pics!!!
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