Personal narrative by Blue, 2023
I used to live nearby, in the slummiest apartments I’ve ever lived in. We even had squirrels eat their way inside our apartment, they’d run around at night for months. I used to hang out with my friends at cement land often. We’d take pictures, goof around, climb all the structures, just have an overall good time. We even camped in there once or twice, when we didn’t have a place to go for the night. I’d practice painting murals on the already covered brick walls. I’d take pictures there for my photography classes in college. We spent a lot of time there during the pandemic, especially at night. Something was just so peaceful about walking through the woods when no one else was around. Nowhere was really open or safe for teenagers to go and do things later on at night, so we just made our own spot there. I took a lot of inspiration from it as a visual artist, and made so many core memories in the abandoned cement factory turned playground. It was always there when we needed it to be.



