Category Archives: collection

Mar18

‘trash has given us an appetite for art.’- pauline kael

Posted on by
Standard

A New York garbage depot holds a secret collection of weird and wonderful refuse.

The Treasures in the Trash Collection

On the second floor of a nondescript warehouse owned by New York City’s Sanitation Department in East Harlem is a treasure trove—filled with other people’s trash.

Titanic. The Exhibition

– DMV

Titanic. The Exhibition

Most of the building is used as a depot for garbage trucks, but there’s a secret collection that takes over an entire floor. The space is populated by a mind-bogglingly wide array of items: a bestiary of Tamagotchis, Furbies; dozens of Pez dispensers; female weight lifting trophies; 8-track tapes; plates, paintings, sporting equipment and much more.

The Treasures in the Trash collection, was created entirely out of objects found by Nelson Molina, a now-retired sanitation worker, who began by decorating his locker. Collected over 30 years, it is a visual explosion, organized by type, color, and size. Atlas Obscura had the chance to visit the collection with the New York Adventure Club, take some photos, and revel in the vast creative possibilities of trash. Unfortunately, this isn’t a collection that keeps regular hours; drop-ins are not allowed. For more information on the occasional organized tours, email tours@dsny.nyc.gov. Sanitation workers are welcome anytime.

“uncommon thinkers reuse what common thinkers refuse.”

-j.r.d. tata

 

 

—

source credits: atlas obscura, dylan thuras, new york adventure club

collection location: 343 East 99th St., New York, New York, 10029 usa

 

 

Jul27

ponyhenge.

Posted on by
Standard

No one really knows how these old hobby horses got here, but the herd keeps growing.

 ON A SMALL SLICE OF wide-open pasture in the town of Lincoln, Massachusetts, broken-down rocking horses, plastic ponies, metal ponies, and other assorted horse toys have been holding court. As if by magic, ponies have been proliferating along this winding country road, resulting in the peculiar “Ponyhenge.”

The horses started arriving anonymously sometime in 2010, with the placement of a lone hobby horse along picturesque Old Sudbury Road, about 15 miles west of Boston. How and why the rusty little fellow appeared is a mystery, even to Lincolnites who’ve been around a while. One story has the first horse hanging around after a kid’s short-lived lemonade stand, another that he was left over from a Christmas display.

Whatever the real story might be, after the first one appeared things started to get strange. More horses—hobby horses, rocking horses, and horse figurines—began appearing at the site. They are periodically rearranged, sometimes in a circle, sometimes in rows like race horses. Other times they are simply scattered and knocked around, as if they’ve come back from a long night of carousing.

The herd has been growing faster of late, with twice as many horses put out to pasture as there were a couple of years ago. Oddly, no one takes them away—the arrangement only morphs and grows, much to the delight of the family that owns the land. As the owner told the Boston Globe in 2015, “There was something lovely about it being anonymous, and now every time we go away, another one appears.”

While it’s on privately owned land, Ponyhenge is open to anyone who wants to visit.

—

“they swayed about upon a rocking horse. and thought it pegasus.”

-john keats

 

—

credits: atlas obscura, soaringraven