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Ghost Factories along Canal Street E and the Housatonic River Canal Street in Shelton, Connecticut, feels like a graveyard for American industry. Years ago, I walked down this very road to explore the Star Pin Company . Today, Star Pin is nothing but a cracked foundation and scattered rubble. But right next door, separated by a rusty gate, sits another forgotten giant. I arrived too late to see any leftover machinery or the previous tenant's last setups. Cleanup crews had already taken over the site. Grey duct tape and thick plastic sheeting sealed off the window frames and doorways. Abatement workers were busy removing asbestos from the ancient boiler pipes. Nature had already started claiming the site, too. Back in 2018, the local news reported that a section of the back building simply fell into the Housatonic River. Since then, the property has been used mostly for storage. Still, slipping inside was surprisingly easy. I came here on a mission. I wanted to find a hidden pi...
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Abandoned Church of Divine Flames
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The main attraction 😍😍😍
A surprise I would never forget.
One cold morning, S and I headed across town to check out a church many Instagrammers have trodden upon when this church became known for its abandonment in the sprawling green lawns of this residential neighborhood. It seemed every day when the first image appeared of this church's unique stained glass windows everyone all of a sudden appeared within its walls within the next two weeks. Mind-boggling how one picture starts out online and all of a sudden everyone knew about it.
S and I parked the car and took a spin in front of the church only to realize that from the street level, you could see another feature of this church prominently displayed in full view (main photo above). It was the plastic/glass rods hanging from the ceiling. Finding no entrance from the front, we went around and made our way past the high chain link fence and entered the partitioned side of the walkway to the busted door lock. Making our way inside, I headed straight for the chandelier and clicked away happily until S shouted to come to take a look inside the main church hall.
👀
Inside was just the way it was even though months had passed since the last posting of this property. Everything was in unblemished condition except for bad graffiti in the balcony seating some immature scoundrel(s) decided to mark up. The red seats, in particular, show their age where many congregants sat for years and years of church service. Behind the pulpit stood the shimmering and brightly colored stained glass depicting the red-hot yellow flames smoldering bush from a green base. It was all there and more from the very first moment I saw it appear in my Instagram feed.
Center Aisle
Balcony
The Biblical Bush
On the side stood the piano forlornly waiting to be hammered into religious harmony. Behind stood a standalone church kitchen and backroom where I assumed the congregation gathered for light lunches and church dinners. Chairs and tables are piled high throughout. The only sound emanating from the room was water dripping down from somewhere. A tell-tale sign of an unmaintained roof. After clicking away with delight we headed upstairs to check out the rooms and find the way up to the balcony overflow seating. After finding it and shooting from above, we found more empty rooms, office storage, and a standalone room which must have been a church classroom due to the blackboard. Nothing of note besides the balcony existed upstairs. So we made our way down the basement level.
No sweet melodies
Center View
Front of Pulpit
Down in the basement, we found a pitch-black room large enough for a dancehall party of 100 people or more. If I remember correctly there was a disco ball or not. It has been a while since I visited this church. My memory was a bit fuzzy of what I explored down in the basement. Nothing of note and no tools to aid us in lighting the room, we made our way underneath the chandelier and clicked away at all angles until we decided our time was up and left.
Office Room
Bumping our fists heading to the car, another exploration completed in the books.
I was driving towards what used to be the Consumers Park Brewery when something caught my eye—the wooden gate doors of the old auto parts store were wide open. Someone had broken in. The building had been vacant for years, even as new construction surged all around it. Right next door, a fresh, modern structure had risen, but this place remained untouched—a relic of the past hollowed out and forgotten. I pulled over without hesitation. These moments don’t come often. A while back, another shuttered dealership had been left open for months, its entrance exposed. Graffiti artists had made their mark on the metal gates, turning the abandoned space into an urban canvas. I had thought about exploring it, but before I could, the gates were suddenly chained shut overnight. The opportunity was gone. Not this time. This time, I wasn’t letting the moment slip away. I stepped inside, finally getting a look at what had been hidden behind those rolled-down gates and green plywood barriers. An...
For weeks, I had been orbiting the perimeter of the impending demolition of the Church of St. Michael and St. Edward, a once revered church in the heart of Fort Greene, like a moth drawn to a flame. The neighborhood, a patchwork of tight project housing, seemed indifferent to the fate of this historic edifice. The intel I had received suggested that entry was as simple as scaling a wooden fence, yet the timing had never felt right. Until one day, it did. With a mission in New Jersey looming, I knew it was now or never. The demolition was advancing at a startling pace, the church's twin steeples already reduced to rubble. The skeletal remains of timber beams and rusted steel frames peeked out from the ruins, a testament to the relentless march of progress. Summoning a surge of courage, I seized a moment of quiet in the bustling housing project and vaulted over the fence. My heart pounded in my chest as I slipped unnoticed into the church grounds. The once grand entrance now stood as...
If you find yourself driving down Meadow Road in Rocky Hill, Connecticut, there’s not much left to catch your eye. The area, once a bustling hub of industry, has quieted down to little more than a stretch of road with a few remnants of its past. But one sight still stands out: three towering concrete silos, the last visible relics of what was once the Connecticut Foundry. It is rumored the silos were used to store cement during the construction of the I-91 when it was built in the early 1960s. These silos, weathered but steadfast, are all that remain of a 10-acre property that was once home to a sprawling industrial site. The Connecticut Foundry, which officially closed its doors in 1983, was demolished nearly 30 years later, its decline documented in pieces. Based on old photographs and archived Google Street View images, the foundry was gradually taken apart over the course of 2012. By the summer of that year, only a few structures lingered before the land was cleared entirely, leavi...
The text message from my friend J was simple: a list of addresses in Newark and Paterson. An invitation. An urban treasure map with Xs marking forgotten places. I picked the one on Piercy Street. Pulling up, I saw the building wasn’t exactly hiding. It was a behemoth of brick and colorful lettered graffiti, a whole city block of decay. A door gaped open next to an old loading dock, but the scene gave me pause. Mounds of illegally dumped trash lay along the floor of the loading bay. This part of Paterson has a tough reputation, and the open doors felt less like an invitation and more like a dare. I took a deep breath and stepped inside. The air was thick with the smell of dust and damp. I found myself in a vast, open space littered with plastic containers and skeletal metal shelving. I moved deeper, drawn toward the old boiler house section. Before I reached it, I walked into a room that stopped me cold. Everything was stained a deep, blood red. A fine crimson powder coated the fl...
🔥 Update: May 3, 2026 The former Temco Uniforms facility was destroyed by fire on May 3, 2026. What remained of this contaminated industrial site is now gone. Below is the historical record as it stood before the blaze. 📸 View additional interior photos from my 2019 exploration here . In Rockland County, the site of the former Temco Uniforms facility tells a story of industrial ambition and environmental oversight. This 2.6-acre area, framed by Samsondale Avenue and shadowed by an active rail line, has transitioned from a bustling manufacturing hub to a focal point of environmental concern. Originally developed in 1958, this single-story, 32,000-square-foot building was the birthplace of Modern Filters, Inc., a company dedicated to producing vacuum bags, tape, and labels. The industrial prowess of the era was palpable, as these products were essential to a booming post-war economy. By 1985, the building took on a new life with Temco Uniform Company Inc., which transfor...
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