By Al Barbarino
Inside 365 West 14th Street, three lonesome, white, overhead lights hang over a barren retail space. Further east, a passerby peers through the façade at 46 West 14th Street, uncovering little more than a few empty, wooden shelves inside the now defunct jewelry store, Gem Story. The vacant spaces are hardly gems. A slew of “for rent” signs line West 14th Street, from Fifth Avenue all the way down through the Meatpacking District. Read more...

By Al Barbarino
It was 1995 – another Sunday morning. For a young Brian O’Neill Jr. that meant another cruise around the Philadelphia suburbs with his dad, making frequent stops at open houses and dilapidated properties that his father would later convert into office space. “We would keep driving around the neighborhood and pretty much every open house sign he saw we would have to go in,” O’Neil recalled. “I just remember going to all these old industrial, abandoned sites. I loved it. It was me hanging out with my dad.” Read more...