Cayadutta Tanning Company: Inside Gloversville's Dead Tannery

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The Pink Flamingo on Harrison Street Whether it is a dead mill or tannery, a car will always be sitting in a discrete corner.  Gloversville, New York, earned its name for a reason. For decades, it was the undisputed glove capital of the world. But today, the massive tanneries, dressers, stitching factories, and dyers that built this city are quietly disappearing. One of the most fascinating casualties was the former Cayadutta Tanning Company Inc. Locals called it the Pink Flamingo. Before that, it was E.S. Parkhurst & Company, a place workers simply knew as the Hair Mill. Sitting at the southwest corner of Harrison Street and NY-30A, the property spanned two parcels. A private owner held one piece of the land, while the city owned the other. Visiting the abandoned site felt like stepping into a forgotten tannery that just needed a bit of TLC and elbow grease to restart operations sans a pocketed overhead roof. Just outside the main tanning building, a junked Mercedes sa...

Empty Drum and Barrel






Am I too late?




When the exploration party is over.






Front side view




Peep that taxi?




Just waiting over here to crush stuff.



See my mess?





On my first arrival at the site, it was becoming dark, and vehicular traffic was heavy up and down. On my second visit, construction crews were digging into the roadway just meters away from the open entrance. On the third and lucky visit, I found the site had been cleaned up and a partial demo of the interior and exterior had occurred. Feeling defeated I headed straight in past the many waiting TLC Uber/Lyft/et al drivers waiting for riders to summon them. Inside was leveled front to back. Nothing remained inside except for dirt and loose piping. At the back of the property, a small back room had been leveled and piled in a heap of rusted metal and building debris.






Back of property interior




Side rooms or what is left of them.




Cleared a path from front to back.





One room inside had a lone busted boiler forlornly waiting to be crushed and carted away for metal scrapping.  No machinery or any existence of industrial usage was present anymore. I had come too late to explore this last holdout in an awkward space surrounded by so many long-term parking businesses. Although, next door another industrial business hums along with abandon.










Boiler




















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