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The building seemed to sag against the Trenton sky, its walls leaning in a way that looked both tired and dangerous. I was driving, searching for a lunch spot after a morning spent exploring the city's industrial skeletons, when I saw it. A questionable choice, maybe, but curiosity is a powerful guide. I pulled over. Getting inside was one of the sketchiest entrances I’ve ever attempted. But once my feet were on the dusty floor, the danger faded. An enormous space stretched before me. It was sparse, cleaned out. My footsteps echoed where a stage once stood, a fact I’d later confirm in a NNKH YouTube video about the building’s past life as an underground punk club. The video showed a vibrant scene, an electric place. But the ghosts of that life were mostly gone. The long, rounded bar, where thousands of hands must have slapped down crumpled bills, had vanished. The dust-coated wine and shot glasses that once lined its shelves were gone, too. The club’s glittering crown jewel, a l...
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Factory H Boiler House Demolition (International Silver Company)
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All these years I never thought Factory H's former power plant and boiler housewould still be standing. Well, unfortunately, the sweeping and cleaning up of blighted properties around Connecticut towns and cities by Governor Ned Lamont are torpedoing ahead with gusto.
Underground fuel storage pit.
Vacant medical facility across the brook.
I remember quite fondly taking my first baby steps in exploring uncharted Connecticut territory as a New York native. Researching and looking up depressed economic cities and towns, taking a deep dive around bodies of water, rivers, and brooks, and finding locations like no tomorrow. As I saw one after another, I realized the locale of Meriden was chock-full. Those beginning days were filled with anxiety and wondering what stuff I would find in these abandoned buildings across the state.
The boiler house is to the left with a smokestack very prominent in this undated aerial. Factory H is in the foreground.
I scoped out the property over Google Maps and drove my way up to meet up with a fellow local who up to this day we still explore around the state with feverish devotion. Entering the property was relatively easy along the quiet residential street. The former powerhouse for International Silver Company’s Factory H plant(William Rogers Mfg. Co.) was clean by today's urbex standards. Relatively little graffiti and the telltale signs of a drinking hangout spot for local young kids. The roof was long gone and the brick and mortar was an equally strong match for the torching summer weather and bone-chilling wintry mix. The asbestos-laden boiler was prominent and massive compared to the space. At the time I did not know there were two underground fuel storage tanks. Nothing inside on the ground floor pointed to any input/output storage pipes from below. There was also the powerhouse smokestack that was demolished during the clean-up of Factory H on Cooper Street in 2012. The power/boiler house and the 70,000 sq feet medical arts facility were all that remained that year. (The facility is privately owned.)
I cannot locate my old archived set of this place but if I do I sure will post/update in a lost photo series.
Now the sun sets on the last remaining work around the site as the storage area is set to be filled in with sand and graded for the future park trail space and flood control measures.
To see now that it is gone and reminisce on those early days and years when I took those initial steps into a hobby I continue to enjoy to this very day. It will always hold a special place in my heart when I first started branching out across state lines.
Sources:
1. Gagne, Michael, “Next phase of Meriden flood control plan includes demolition of vacant buildings”, January 26, 2023, MyRecordJournal
2. "PHOTOS: Looking back at International Silver's Factory H building in Meriden", July 24, 2018, MyRecordJournal
Rockaway Metals Products (RMP) began as a sheet metal fabrication factory beginning in 1961. RMP occupied the site from 1971 to 1987 leaving a plethora of hazardous waste materials onsite. From 1990 to 2004 the building housed various tenants which even included an auto repair shop. Rockaway Metals a manufacturer of filing cabinets and other metal products closed down in 1987. It was leased a few years ago to different owners who did not manage the 4.85-acre parcel. The 155,000-square-foot building has long been an eyesore and trouble in the neighborhood since its closure. A coastal storm in March 2018 blew debris materials to adjacent properties. Rockaway Metals was acquired by Nassau County in 1995 by tax deed. The county has held onto the property for 22-plus years. In February 2011, the site was damaged by fire and condemned soon thereafter. For more in-depth legal ownership of the property, you can read more below in the source list under U.S. v. 175 INWOOD ASSOCIATES LLP. ...
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