Filmmaker Dave | Run of the Mill

Lifestylez Barber Shop I was walking down Mineral Spring Ave doing what I usually do — taking photos, getting my steps in, noticing things most people walk right past. Graffiti on the side of a small commercial shop, American flag hanging out front, moving slow in the wind. I stopped and just looked at it for a second. That's the kind of stuff I love snapping photos of. Then I kept walking past Lifestylez Barbershop. One of the workers stepped outside and goes, "Hey, hey — are you that Instagram guy?" His name was John. I laughed and said yeah, that's me. We started talking and I asked if I could grab a quick portrait. Honestly I'll be the first to admit — I don't shoot portraits much anymore and this one showed it. The framing was a little off, I kind of knew it while I was doing it, but you know what? It didn't matter.   John at Lifestylez Barbershop John told me he follows me because of the urban exploration adventures. The abandoned buildings, the fo...

  The Building Before the Superman Building If you've spent any time downtown, you know the Superman Building — 26 stories of Art Deco staring down Kennedy Plaza like it's still 1928. Tallest building in Rhode Island. Empty since 2013. On every endangered-places list there is. Here's the part most people don't know: there was another building on that lot first. Bigger than anything else in town when it went up. One of the most photographed buildings in Providence in its day. Then it burned. This is the Butler Exchange. What It Was The Butler Exchange went up between 1871 and 1873, built by the heirs of Cyrus Butler — the same Cyrus Butler who put up the Providence Arcade back in 1828 (the one folks called "Butler's Folly" until it eventually proved itself). His heirs went bigger. A lot bigger. When the Exchange opened in 1873, it was the largest building in Providence. Six stories. Second Empire style. Iron storefronts on the first floor, three sto...

How I Scout (Without Giving Away the Spots) Everyone wants to know where I find this stuff. The mills, the houses, the places half-eaten by vines that somehow still have their bones intact. So let me tell you the actual answer — because it's simpler than people think, and it's older than the internet. I use a map. A map has always been an explorer's best friend. You don't need a tip from a forum. You don't need someone whispering a location to you. You crack open a map on the kitchen table or pull one up on your phone, and you'll see something you never noticed driving past it a hundred times. Sanborn Maps Are Where I Live The ones I really get lost in are Sanborn fire insurance maps . These got drawn up for insurance companies back in the 1800s and early 1900s, so they show every mill, every shop building, every store house, every reservoir — labeled by number, footprint, and use. Pull up a Sanborn from 1923 and you're holding a snapshot of an industr...

  Parked for Now: The Houses That Got Away It's that time of year again. The weather turns, the roads open up, and all I want is to be out there — cool breeze going through my hat and what little hair I have left under it, eyes scanning the side of the road for the next crumbling beauty waiting on some forgotten stretch of New England. But car trouble and I? We're old friends. Been through enough rounds together that I finally made the call: I'm getting rid of my car for now. Took me a good amount of time to think this one through, but the plan is to get back out on the open road later this year. New wheels, new routes, more pulling over and pumping the brakes the second I spot a mouth-watering old mill that needs documentation. The more decay the better. Until then? I've got memories. And honestly, that's not the worst place to be. How I Got Started For anyone new here, before the mills, it was houses. So many houses. I had no idea New England was this comfort...

Coal Fires, Old Mills, and the Movies That Started It All College was 2009, I was in a presentation class, and I remember loving every minute of standing in front of that room. My topic? Centralia, Pennsylvania. The town that inspired Silent Hill. But Centralia wasn't where it started. A few years before that classroom, I'd already let the cursed tape from The Ring burn itself into my eyes. The Grudge was the door. The Ring was the descent. Silent Hill was where I figured out I wasn't going back. That trifecta didn't just light up my love for horror films. It lit up something else — a love for the aesthetic of dark places. Forgotten buildings. Roofs caving in across decades. Brick by brick by brick, the earth pulling everything back down into itself. By the time I was standing in front of that 2011 classroom talking about a town that wouldn't stop burning, I wasn't really giving a presentation. I was sharing my passion. Silent Hill Movie Poster Here...

I Got Way Too Deep Into Draper Corporation  So I've been researching Draper Corporation for an upcoming project and I have to share some of this. Most of you know I've been in the Blackstone Valley mill rabbit hole for a while. Lonsdale, Ashton, Pawtucket, Woonsocket. Every time I walk into one of those old buildings and find a loom rusting in the corner, there's a good chance the machine came from one place. Hopedale, Massachusetts. A town most people in Rhode Island couldn't find on a map. And the company that ran that town for over a century was Draper.   Now here's my favorite part of the whole thing. The loom that made Draper a giant was called the Northrop. Named after James Northrop, a guy who emigrated from Yorkshire in 1881. In March of 1889 George Otis Draper drove out to Northrop's farm near the Hopedale and Mendon town line and saw the prototype. It was set up in a hen house. Like, a chicken coop. That's where the loom that changed the global te...

  The Turk's Head: Providence's Most Iconic Corner Has a Stranger History Than You Think By FilmmakerDave I've walked past the Turk's Head Building probably hundreds of times. It's one of those places you stop noticing after a while ... just another part of the Providence skyline that you take for granted. But here's what stopped me cold: the building wasn't the first "Turk's Head" on that corner. That name goes back over 200 years before the skyscraper ever existed. And that changes the whole story. A Name Older Than the Building The Turk's Head Building sits at the corner of Westminster and Weybosset Streets in downtown Providence — and it was built in 1913. Fourteen stories, Beaux-Arts style, designed by architects William R. Walker and Son. At the time it went up, it was one of the tallest buildings in the city. One of Providence's first real skyscrapers. But the name ? That's colonial-era. Long before that building bro...

Before the Fire: Exploring a Lost Mill in Haverhill, MA Nate hit me up on Zoom one evening and said hey, you want to check out a mill outside the Blackstone Valley? I didn't even hesitate. I said yeah, let's go. That's how Jess, Nate, and I ended up in Haverhill, Massachusetts on a perfect summer day back in 2021. I'll be honest — I don't get outside my usual territory much. The Blackstone Valley is my world. Woonsocket, Pawtucket, Cumberland, the river — that's my lane. So when Nate floated the idea of exploring somewhere new, I was genuinely curious. Different river. Different city. Different story. And it was a great day. Long, sunny, the kind of weather where you're just happy to be outside doing the thing you love. New people, new location, new building to figure out. Jess and Nate were good energy and we covered a lot of ground together. The sun was cutting through the windows in ways that made every shot feel like it was handed to you. I didn't k...