Virjune Manufacturing Co: Inside Waterbury's Vacant Factory

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J and I were already having a rough day. We'd just driven across town to check out an old industrial site he hadn't visited in a while, only to find it erased. Nothing left but a slab of concrete and chain-link fence. So we took a detour. Sometimes you salvage a disappointing afternoon with a backup plan, even if you're just ticking a box. The former Virjune plant hides in plain sight off Thomaston Avenue. If you drive past in summer, you'll miss it completely. Trees and shrubs swallow the building whole, nature reclaiming what industry left behind. Come winter, though, when the branches go bare and the world turns gray, the red brick skeleton reveals itself. Even then, you have to know where to look. I pulled up old Sanborn maps to trace the building's history. The earliest tenant was an auto body shop in 1922. By February 1950, something bigger had moved in. The map labels it simply "Stamping Wks." No company name. No flourish. Just function. That namele...
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Abandoned Rails Over Highway


A perspective view of an old, overgrown railway track leading into the lushness of surrounding trees and foliage. The wooden sleepers and rusted rails are partly reclaimed by nature, as greenery encroaches upon the disused line, hinting at the quiet solitude of a once-busy thoroughfare now at rest.
















This short exploration video contains an abandoned railway line stuck between two properties abutting a major highway in the northeast. The line crosses three city street blocks on one side and one street block situated over a river into another neighborhood. You can almost say that the train line divides the poor from the rich.  I wish I could have crossed it without causing unwanted attention from the highway patrol. Maybe I will cross it one night sometime later in the year when no one is around.

A short but satisfying exploration involving two abandoned properties and a rail line. 

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