On the Long Island City-side of the Queensboro Bridge — far from the skinny vanilla soy latte and Brother Jimmys-loving basic bitches of the Upper East Side — lies 5 Pointz, an iconic abandoned warehouse that was like the MoMA of urban street art. Gritty and distinctly reminiscent of New York City’s pre-gentrification urban decay of yesteryear, 5 Pointz attracted graffiti artists from around the world. You non-New Yorkers might recall it as the backdrop of the dramatic last scene in Now You See Me, along with dozens of other movies that took place in Gotham.
Sadly, artists couldn’t get the spot on the National Register of Historic Places and now it’s getting knocked down to make way for a $400 million residential and retail development. Just what New York needs: More retail spaces for Shake Shack and million-dollar glass condos for out-of-towners to buy and never actually reside in.
To say goodbye, our friends at ANIMAL New York flew a drone over the warehouse before they pave paradise and put up a parking lot: