From Excelsior Needle Co. to Timken: The Rise and Fall of Torrington's Standard Plant

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The Standard Plant and a Century of Making Things It was a hot May week in 2023, and J and I were already sweating through our shirts before we even made it to the entrance. We turned into the driveway off North Elm Street and passed a large Caterpillar backhoe holding up the red, white, and blue at the top of the arm. Patriotic machinery. Only in Connecticut. We moved toward the back of the complex with our eyes open, scanning for any sign of people or activity. We found cameras instead. A few of them, well-positioned across one of the buildings and up on an electrical pole, covering angles that made our original entry plan useless. We backed off, found a Plan B, and stepped into a dark room washed in tinted green light, then took the stairs down to ground level. The former Standard Plant sits along North Elm Street at a sunken grade, one story, with another building rising over the roadway to the far right when you're standing in front of it from North Street. It's the kind o...
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Graffiti Cans (Decades Old)

Pile of Old Graffiti Cans with Bokeh
Takumar 55mm Bokeh - Old Graffiti Cans
The amount of empty, derelict and rust out cans shows the amount of layers of covered art pieces forever lost to new artful pieces never to be seen again. Graffiti art is like love lost. It is there one fleeting moment and the next moment it is gone forever. Gritty street art does not always last forever.

Brooklyn is in the house!

Lens Info: Super-Takumar 55mm 1:1.2 @ f/2

 © Digital Ink'D Photography

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