Winsted's Union Pin Company: Highland Lake and Pins Still in the Soil

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Photo courtesy of the Winchester Tax Office Pins in the Brook: The Last Ruins of the Union Pin Company J and I came at it through the trees. No path, just tall standing trees and the kind of undergrowth that swats at your shins and grabs your laces, until the canopy thinned and we found what was left. A turbine, tall and rusted, rising out of the woods beside a brook in Winsted, Connecticut. A small generator sat on top of it, also rusted, also still. Beside that, set back from the tree line and facing the residential houses across Lake Street, a sealed and boarded building held its ground. It was August 2019, midday, the kind of heat that slows everything down. We photographed the turbine carefully, then picked our way downstream along the slippery rocks of the brook that fed toward the Mad River past Boyd Street. What J never mentioned, and what I never thought to look for, was the hydropower outlet tucked behind the thick trees just off the path we'd taken. And neither of us eve...
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Abandoned Additives and Coatings

Leaking barrels of unknown chemicals





Cocaína? I've been watching too much Narcos lately. Puta!




Where the early morning polyaromatic hydrocarbons give you a straight high.




Potential hipster studio warehouse space. You just have to see past the small fauna. 




Brick by Brick Boy!





This industrial property currently houses onsite environmental contamination relating to metals and polyaromatic hydrocarbons. This abandoned place was previously in use 86 years ago before being owned by the local city when the previous owners did not pay off its financial obligations. The site currently sits open to the elements with a tattered roof and several large holes in the brick-lined building. Surrounding the property, mounds of illegal dumping activities are significantly pronounced. Several barrels of containers housing hydrocarbons leak slowly into the soil. A strong aromatic smell wafted strongly in the air. Hardened and loose unknown white powder scattered around the building. Basement or upper floors were nonexistent.








Homeless encampment.





I found this abandoned place while in the area scouting a different place before coming upon the well-known signs of abandonment. At the time, darkness was setting in and I didn't want to enter such a place by myself. It may have been a good thing because I soon found inside a small bed made out of a large sofa that someone may be using to rest their head, breathing in by night deadly chemicals probably not suitable for human inhalation.



















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