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Showing posts from September, 2019

Nearpara Rubber Company: From Tire Reclaiming to Toxic Brownfield

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The Last Days of Nearpara Rubber I smelled it before I saw anything worth photographing. That warm, faintly sweet bite of old rubber, the kind that hits you somewhere between a tire shop and a summer highway, drifted through the first building the moment I stepped inside. The structure was burned out, charred and broken, rubble underfoot. But the smell was alive. And then I saw the pile. In the corner of the room, faded brown and heaped maybe two feet high, was a mound of baby bottle nipples. Dozens, maybe hundreds, of the small rubber tips, just sitting on the floor of a collapsed industrial building in Trenton, New Jersey. I stood there for a moment, genuinely confused, and then kept moving. Nothing like the smell of warmed-over rubber. Twenty minutes later, I understood even less. Through another door passage, I found the main source of the smell: six open metal trailer containers, still loaded with bagged baby bottle nipples, sitting in open air. Bags of them, mountains of bagged n...
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Did Not Catch Me Mill

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Oh boy! Do I have a story for you guys today! A first for me and hopefully not one to repeat itself soon. One warm day J and I went to see this mill J had scouted a while back and wanted to revisit. We approached the mill through the front and nonchalantly entered the building we came to shoot first before potentially moving on to the rest of the buildings. We both went our ways inside laboring away behind our cameras when about 20 minutes into taking pictures, J called out to me that he saw a white truck in view from inside where he stood on the second floor. I immediately went up to join J while I continued shooting some more shots you will see below. We found ourselves in a corner of the mill when to my surprise I saw someone enter where we had just entered. We both ducked down behind the partitioned wall and panicked. The male voice was talking on the phone. Next, other voices soon joined the first male voice. Three other people had come in behind the first person. Two male...
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T Uniform

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🔥 Update: May 3, 2026 The former Temco Uniforms facility—anonymized as "T Uniform" in this early exploration—was destroyed by fire on May 3, 2026. These photos are now part of the historical record of a site that no longer exists. 📖 Read the full historical write-up and environmental investigation here . Not much I can say about this little gem nestled next to a bridge other than it is heavily polluted. A nice little fun exploration. The boiler and electrical rooms were neat little surprises. Sometimes you find various equipment from all over and even in some cases defunct factories or mills where you have already explored products right up in your face. I nearly went in through an open window but decided against it since I saw an opening while walking up the bridge surveying the property for any viable entrances. A full historical writeup when I reveal its true name. Enjoy! 📖 Full History: This location is t...
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Popular posts from this blog

Nearpara Rubber Company: From Tire Reclaiming to Toxic Brownfield

Image
The Last Days of Nearpara Rubber I smelled it before I saw anything worth photographing. That warm, faintly sweet bite of old rubber, the kind that hits you somewhere between a tire shop and a summer highway, drifted through the first building the moment I stepped inside. The structure was burned out, charred and broken, rubble underfoot. But the smell was alive. And then I saw the pile. In the corner of the room, faded brown and heaped maybe two feet high, was a mound of baby bottle nipples. Dozens, maybe hundreds, of the small rubber tips, just sitting on the floor of a collapsed industrial building in Trenton, New Jersey. I stood there for a moment, genuinely confused, and then kept moving. Nothing like the smell of warmed-over rubber. Twenty minutes later, I understood even less. Through another door passage, I found the main source of the smell: six open metal trailer containers, still loaded with bagged baby bottle nipples, sitting in open air. Bags of them, mountains of bagged n...
Read more

Abandoned Factory Z (Northeastern, USA)

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Update : A full research write-up of International Silver Company's former Factory H boiler house .  This abandoned northeastern factory sits in the back of a quiet residential street surrounded by nature. Next to this two-story building remains another abandoned medical complex boarded up to the gills. Stay tuned for upcoming flicks. Getting into this building was quite hard. We hopped a perimeter fence in the middle of the morning just before a police car was sitting taking a quiet break or making their due diligence check on the property. This property is down the road at a current asbestos abatement medical hospital by the local town/state agency. Once on the property, it offers a mix of old machinery and pipework from this little factory which was probably much larger before residential developers took over. In addition, the building was free of graffiti and its brick-walled facade still looked like the day it was constructed. The only giveaway is the wide-open away roof...
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Inside the Abandoned St. Michael and St. Edward Church in Brooklyn

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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...
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Exploring the Abandoned Aerosol Techniques Factory in Milford, CT (Photos)

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When I arrived at the former Aerosol Techniques factory, I was filled with a mix of anticipation and curiosity. Meeting a group of new friends for a day of urban exploration in Connecticut, we had a lineup of intriguing abandoned sites on our agenda. Our itinerary included the hauntingly beautiful Seaside Sanatorium, a former hospital, along with a few other potential spots that we were less certain about. We chose the factory as our starting point, mainly because it offered easy access and was conveniently situated next to a Lowe's hardware store. Walking along a well-trodden path, our group made a seamless transition onto the property. The sense of camaraderie was palpable as we embarked on our adventure with eager enthusiasm. The factory grounds, long deserted, were a canvas for countless graffiti artists. Every inch of the building was adorned with vibrant and eclectic street art, each piece telling its own story. This rich color and creativity set the perfect stage for our imp...
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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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