There are plenty of places within a two hour drive or train ride from NYC where you can see gigantic steel concrete and brick structures that are less than 150 years old well into the process of dissolving. If you live in prosperous cities and don’t have to maintain property, it’s understandable how you can be unfamiliar with the relentless processes of rust, melt-freeze weathering, erosion, storm damage, how quickly vegetation grows, and so on.