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Showing posts with label grime. Show all posts
Showing posts with label grime. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Century Electric Foundry was constructed in Saint Louis in 1929 and was employed in the production of a variety of hardware from electric motors and generators to auto parts. The company, based in Saint Louis, was one of the largest such manufacturers in the nation. Their motors ranged from small fractional horsepower types used in small appliances all the way up to industrial strength versions capable of powering an entire factory.

Century Electric started out as the H.E. Lindsey Electrical Supply Company on July 1, 1900 but that only lasted until 1903 when Lindsey left and the company reorganized. During the initial years, they operated out of a former church and could only produce one motor at a time but soon expanded to the point they were exporting their products to over 90 foreign countries. In 1914, they devised a new form of small repulsion type electric motor which almost single-handedly caused a revolution paving the way for early household appliances. The first successful electric home refrigerator had a Century motor inside. Frigidaire became a major customer having purchased a large part of its compressor motors from Century before designing and building their own. They went on to innovate in the area of desktop and ceiling fans and the business quickly outgrew its various smaller office buildings and factory spaces before finally acquiring the land that this foundry sits on today which they acquired from the Lily Busch estate. On April 30, 1930, the foundry commenced its first pour.

In 1972 they were merged with Gould Inc. Federal Mogul came into the picture in August 1998 and continued the facility in much the same manner as it had been used. Eventually, however, much of the work was moved overseas and the foundry shut down in June 2007. It had remained vacant ever since.

It is now guarded by a menacing tan colored minivan parked out front and its driver who snores comfortably inside a closet-sized shack behind tinted windows. Despite such a heavy security presence, some fools still travel through the urban jungle in hopes of reaching the condemned and hollowed spaces within the Temple of Grime, under whose roof many craftsmen once labored. Back then, electricity still pulsed through the walls like veins carrying the lifeblood of modern industry. When the heart stopped, the electricity ceased to flow and valuable organs were torn from their host. The factory now produces only silence and black grime covers everything. It gives a false surface to the floor and cakes into your boots, weighing them down with every step. Grime stalactites cling to the surface of the machines that once stirred their constituent particles into being. Contaminants mix with rain water to form multicolored pools of sludge on the factory floor where ragged doorway curtain strips sway back and forth with the wind. Vague silhouettes of passing vehicles streak past the dirty windows and the sharp and hurried commotion of the traffic from the streets is dulled into a drone whose rumbles and shrieks find their way inside the rafters and echo down the halls and get lost in the dark spaces.

Source

UPDATE: Following a $230,000,000 renovation: The Century Electric/Federal Mogul Foundry of Saint Louis is now "City Foundry STL". Such a transformation for this site is a feat I would never have thought possible.

Click here for video.

Callahan Auto Parts © 2015 sublunar

Callahan Auto Parts © 2015 sublunar

Callahan Auto Parts © 2015 sublunar

Callahan Auto Parts © 2015 sublunar

Callahan Auto Parts © 2015 sublunar

Callahan Auto Parts © 2015 sublunar

Callahan Auto Parts © 2015 sublunar

Callahan Auto Parts © 2015 sublunar

Callahan Auto Parts © 2015 sublunar

Callahan Auto Parts © 2015 sublunar

Callahan Auto Parts © 2015 sublunar

Callahan Auto Parts © 2015 sublunar

Callahan Auto Parts © 2015 sublunar

Callahan Auto Parts © 2015 sublunar

Callahan Auto Parts © 2015 sublunar

Callahan Auto Parts © 2015 sublunar

Callahan Auto Parts © 2015 sublunar

Callahan Auto Parts © 2015 sublunar

Callahan Auto Parts © 2015 sublunar

Callahan Auto Parts © 2015 sublunar

Callahan Auto Parts © 2015 sublunar

Callahan Auto Parts © 2015 sublunar

Callahan Auto Parts © 2015 sublunar

Callahan Auto Parts © 2015 sublunar

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Old Crow Distillery was founded in the early 1800's. It seems that the brewery was abandoned in the 1980s, though it was likely not in use for some time before that. It borders an active business, the one that bought it out, and is therefore very difficult to access.

NOTE: For over 10 years, I called this location "Brewery X" to protect its identity online. Some time after we explored it, the site was purchased by Glenns Creek Distillery. I have since updated the site's real name.

This was actually our consolation prize. The reason we came out here was because of something else nearby. But that something else had cars on the property that moved around from time to time. We learned this through our reconnaissance and became disheartened. It was raining heavily all day and so we spent that time getting a feel for the landscape and eye-ing up what we'd be up against. It wasn't pretty.

Considering the rain and the activity on site, we drove off to a different town down the road in hopes of scoring some other consolation prize (one that would be mostly indoors, thus allowing us to continue to be productive even in the rain). We decided to scratch something off the list we had planned for later so that we could come back and re-try this one after the rain. There was some difficulty getting access to WIFI so I could get the coordinates off a map I had made. More lost time. With coordinates finally loaded into the GPS we approached the area on the map, hoping to make something out of this day. We got there but something wasn't right. Driving around thinking we were lost, we compared the coordinates with our location and determined the place had been demolished. A field of grass was all that remained.

So we returned to our objective. The "something else" was still inhabited. These people hadn't left, but their vehicles had moved. Why the fuck are they here anyway?! UGH. Through our research on site, we determined what it would take to return some day, now that we've seen what we're up against. At this point, it wasn't going to happen.

Note 2: The "something else" I'm reffering to here was the Old Taylor distillery just down the road a ways which has also since been purchased and renovated into "Castle and Key".. Even after all these years, I'm EXTREMELY SALTY that we didn't get to explore Old Taylor during its period of abandonment. That place is so damn awesome. I am, however, grateful that the new owners recognized how awesome that site is and have retained most of its character in their new business. I wish more historic locations ended up as fortunate. Maybe one day I'll get a proper tour of Old Taylor.

We headed for Brewery X. This location wasn't inherently any easier. I began to have my doubts of accomplishing anything this day. Some days are like that after all. But faced with that prospect, the thought of turning around in defeat just made us that more determined to make it happen. Our earlier research in the rain had shown us a weakness in the perimeter defenses that could be exploited. But there just wasn't any place to park. The road was a narrow and windy two-lane. The whole area was a small neighborhood. The car would be out of place anywhere around here. After deliberating for some time, we picked the least horrible place to park. This left us with a totally exposed hike to the objective. Next door was an active business with global reach. Surely they had security.

Once inside the fence, we booked it. A car drove by and we ducked in the weeds. Once it was out of sight, we ran for cover and to find an entrance. I hadn't seen any photos of this place online; no-one seemed to know about it, nor consider it to be a do-able location. It was recommended to me that I don't try it. And yet here we were, wondering if we'd regret ignoring the advice.

I didn't know what to expect. It could have been totally gutted and boring. But what we found was a nice surprise and I was relieved to see that it was all that I could hope for. Glorious remnants of the industrial age were scattered all around us. I could spend all day in a place like this. The ground floor was extremely dark and as we got further I noticed the basement was flooded. That is to say that the water was up all the way to the floor I was standing on, within inches of my feet. And the floor I was standing on was a metal grate. So I shined my light down into the terrifyingly murky water and could see strange shapes and contorted rusty objects submerged and motionless. I could think of nothing worse than falling through.. After that, I stepped carefully.

Knowing our car was totally exposed, we had to make it quick. Several cars had passed by in the short amount of time we had been inside already. We ran around frantically trying to see as much as we could in about 20 minutes. Spending much longer than that here was just out of the question. I wished we had more time to see it because it could be gone soon. But we had seen it and the day wasn't a total waste after all. We salvaged an otherwise unproductive day and made it inside a place that no-one else had blabbered about on the internet yet. Still, I won't be the first to brag about it with google searchable text. For all you know, this is Brewery X.

The Abandoned Old Crow Distillery copyright 2024 sublunar
The Abandoned Old Crow Distillery by sublunar

The Abandoned Old Crow Distillery copyright 2024 sublunar
The Abandoned Old Crow Distillery by sublunar

The Abandoned Old Crow Distillery copyright 2024 sublunar
The Abandoned Old Crow Distillery by sublunar

The Abandoned Old Crow Distillery copyright 2024 sublunar
The Abandoned Old Crow Distillery by sublunar

The Abandoned Old Crow Distillery copyright 2024 sublunar
The Abandoned Old Crow Distillery by sublunar

The Abandoned Old Crow Distillery copyright 2024 sublunar
The Abandoned Old Crow Distillery by sublunar

The Abandoned Old Crow Distillery copyright 2024 sublunar
The Abandoned Old Crow Distillery by sublunar

The Abandoned Old Crow Distillery copyright 2024 sublunar
The Abandoned Old Crow Distillery by sublunar

The Abandoned Old Crow Distillery copyright 2024 sublunar
The Abandoned Old Crow Distillery by sublunar

The Abandoned Old Crow Distillery copyright 2024 sublunar
The Abandoned Old Crow Distillery by sublunar

The Abandoned Old Crow Distillery copyright 2024 sublunar
The Abandoned Old Crow Distillery by sublunar

The Abandoned Old Crow Distillery copyright 2024 sublunar
The Abandoned Old Crow Distillery by sublunar

The Abandoned Old Crow Distillery copyright 2024 sublunar
The Abandoned Old Crow Distillery by sublunar

The Abandoned Old Crow Distillery copyright 2024 sublunar
The Abandoned Old Crow Distillery by sublunar

The Abandoned Old Crow Distillery copyright 2024 sublunar
The Abandoned Old Crow Distillery by sublunar

The Abandoned Old Crow Distillery copyright 2024 sublunar
The Abandoned Old Crow Distillery by sublunar

The Abandoned Old Crow Distillery copyright 2024 sublunar
The Abandoned Old Crow Distillery by sublunar

The Abandoned Old Crow Distillery copyright 2024 sublunar
The Abandoned Old Crow Distillery by sublunar

The Abandoned Old Crow Distillery copyright 2024 sublunar
The Abandoned Old Crow Distillery by sublunar

The Abandoned Old Crow Distillery copyright 2024 sublunar
The Abandoned Old Crow Distillery by sublunar