Exploring the Lost Grandeur of New York City’s Verizon Building

Shortly after moving to New York, in 1996, the photographer Chris Payne wandered into an old M.T.A. substation in Brooklyn, where he found, behind an unassuming brick façade, gigantic, antiquated machinery powering the subways. The encounter quickly led to a multi-year project—a race to shoot the old substations before they were scrapped—and an obsession with hidden industrial landscapes. Since then, Payne has spent years photographing North Brother Island, a neglected settlement of ruinous beauty in the East River. He has just published a book of photos taken in the old Steinway & Sons factory, in Queens.