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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Archives #6: Contender For 2018






Stumbling upon this piece in an unremarkable back room left me utterly astonished. It was a genuine masterpiece, the only example of graffiti I encountered during my exploration. The area was laden with metal piping, making the artist's choice to echo this industrial theme through their work particularly apt. The piece not only showcased their talent but also their keen ability to harmonize their art with its surroundings, transforming an otherwise overlooked space into a canvas that spoke volumes.

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