Inside the Abandoned Rockaway Metal Products Factory in Queens (Photos)

A bird's eye snapshot of the building and the surrounding businesses.

Rockaway Metal Products (RMP) began as a sheet metal fabrication factory in 1961. RMP occupied the site from 1971 to 1987, leaving a plethora of hazardous waste materials onsite. From 1990 to 2004 the building housed various tenants, which even included an auto repair shop. Rockaway Metal, a manufacturer of filing cabinets and other metal products, closed down in 1987. It was leased a few years ago to different owners who did not manage the 4.85-acre parcel. The 155,000-square-foot building had long been an eyesore and trouble in the neighborhood since its closure. A coastal storm in March 2018 blew debris materials onto adjacent properties. Rockaway Metal was acquired by Nassau County in 1995 by tax deed, and the county held onto the property for more than 22 years. In February 2011, the site was damaged by fire and condemned soon thereafter. For more in-depth detail on the legal ownership of the property, see U.S. v. 175 Inwood Associates LLP in the source list below.

The site was designated a Department of Environmental Conservation Superfund site in 1992 during an inspection. That classified the site as a Class 2, which made it ineligible for the Brownfield Cleanup Program. In the 1992 inspection, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) discovered dry wells containing flammable sludge, underground tanks, a 5,000-gallon tanker, and 240 leaking 55-gallon drums. The EPA removed most of the materials from 1993 to 1995, but ground contamination of lead, cadmium, and arsenic still remained.

Rockaway Metal Products made metal boxes, specialized steel office partitions, and the office Rolodex. The Rolodex can be found at the U.S. Patent Office under patent number 3190707A, filed all the way back in 1963 and granted two years later in 1965.

The Rolodex patent drawing, filed 1963 and granted 1965.

Rockaway Metal was demolished in the summer of 2018 by Nassau County for $2.1 million in borrowed funds. You can still find used "vintage" steel cash boxes on sale from various vendors on eBay and Etsy. While the building may be gone, its products still live on today in many U.S. households, unbeknownst to them that the manufacturer has been deleted from history. Currently, the site is being shopped to developers willing to clean it up and develop it according to the local commercial zoning laws.

Update — October 21, 2019: When I First Ventured Inside RMP

Where the bed bugs definitely bite.

As I pulled up to Rock A Bye Baby (draft writeup name) I immediately saw my access point and circled around the block to see if the other businesses surrounding the property were open and active. Seeing that only one was open and further away from the entrance, I found a parking space and headed into the property.

Upon entering I saw piles of clothing and bedding material in one corner. Obviously, this place was a safe haven for the homeless during the winter. Finding nothing amiss I continued on my way to the burned-out portion of the property. Some firebug had time on his hands and used this place for his inferno lust. Only a portion of the property was consumed by fire. Taking my shots of the burned-out half and the untouched half gave me great contrasting features. Satisfied, I made my way back inside.

Past a huge open doorway, I saw a plethora of used beds piled on top of one another. It was an arsonist's delight in this space. Evidently, before this business went belly up it served as storage space for beds and clothing, because on the other side were wet and soggy clothes strewn all over the floor. It was utter chaos. The only thing I could think about was taking bed bugs or worse, fleas, from this place. Taking some quick shots I headed to the loading dock for some symmetrical lines.

Finally, I headed upstairs to the offices. The office portion was characteristically the same as in any abandoned office setting. Wet mossy floors, pulled-down ceiling insulation, vacant chairs, upturned tables, and drywall holes in the walls. The centerpiece of the office was the large graffiti pieces, one centered straight down as you entered and one behind you if you stood in the middle looking back. Finding all there was to the place, I headed out beaming that I got in before plans had come to fruition to clean up the property. All in all not a bad spot, but it was certainly a nice restart for me since it was one of the first spots I explored after not shooting for a while earlier in the year.

📋 Reader Records

🗄️ Did You Work at Rockaway Metal Products — or Own Something It Made?

This company held the patent on the office Rolodex and its steel boxes and partitions are still sitting in American homes and offices, yet the factory itself came down in 2018 with almost nothing written about the people who worked there. If you ran a press or a brake on the Roger Avenue floor, sold their cabinets, or have a catalog, a company photo, or a box with the Rockaway stamp still on it, that is the record now. I am also interested in what the site looked like between 1990 and 2004, when the building was carved up among tenants, and in anything about the February 2011 fire.

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🗄️ Rockaway Metal Products made steel boxes, office partitions and the patented office Rolodex at 175 Roger Avenue in Inwood, Nassau County, closing in 1987. Declared a Class 2 state Superfund site in 1992 after inspectors found leaking drums, tanks and flammable sludge, the 155,000-square-foot building burned in 2011 and was demolished by Nassau County in the summer of 2018 at a cost of $2.1 million.

Sources:

1. Vanished makers: Rockaway Metal Products Corporation, Inwood, Long Island, New York. (2014, November). Progress is fine, but it's gone on for too long.
2. Demolishing and selling 175 Roger Avenue. LI Herald.
3. Is 175 Roger Ave. coming down? LI Herald.
4. Nassau Executive Curran announces successful demolition of long-abandoned Inwood building. (2019, January 29). LongIsland.com.
5. Fact sheet: 175 Roger Avenue site, building demolition. New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. dec.ny.gov.
6. Trade catalogs from Rockaway Metals Products Co. Smithsonian National Museum of American History. americanhistory.si.edu.
7. U.S. v. 175 Inwood Associates LLP, 330 F. Supp. 2d 213 (E.D.N.Y. 2004). Leagle.
8. Rolodex-type filing device, U.S. Patent No. 3,190,707 (filed 1963, granted 1965). Google Patents.