Entering The Factory

There is a factory near my home town that I've been wanting to explore and photograph for several years, now. I've never had time or a group or motivation to go, so it's been on my back burner for a while. When news was passed around that the demolition of the factory was well underway, I decided to make a solo trip to the factory - a first and last mission. There is a standing arrest-on-sight order for the local law enforcement, so I had to be careful.

I learned of a basement window from a fellow explorer, with a weakness in the chain-link fence that could be pulled up to access it. I made my way there, and dropped in to the basement.

The Basement

I moved around the basement of the massive, square-block complex. It was mostly gutted and deteriorating after several years of neglect, but there were some gems. I cased from one end of the facility to the other underground, out of sight.

Machining Floor

I found a set of stairs and continued up from the basement. I skipped the first floor in fear of being seen from outside, and made my way to the second floor where there is a wealth of old machines, left to rust.

Emptiness

Going higher, things got more desolate. There were entire floors completely gutted, and machines with all their innards torn apart for the precious metals inside.

The demolition was indeed well underway, with sections and entire buildings in the complex reduced to heaps of rubble.

The Roof

There were 17 working elevators in the complex at the time it was shut down, and the roof was littered with huts that housed the giant motors and cables attached to the cars below.

Back Down

I made my way back down from the roof on the opposite side of the main building. I came across offices with drawers still open from whoever raided the contents last, and control panels torn from walls and even a pile of rolling pins.

Back to the Basement

I had to go back to the basement to exfiltrate again, so I decided to explore it a bit more as it was getting dark and nobody could see my lights if I was underground. The basement was far more expansive than I had realized, covering the whole square block. There were research rooms, machines, laboratories and what appeared to be a large loom of some sort. I could spend days down there and not soak everything in.

As is my ethic, I took only photographs and left only footprints. This gem of a building will not be around much longer, as it is going through several stages of demolition over the next months until it is gone entirely.

There is one more shot I didn't capture, so there might be another trip yet for me...