Posts

Henry Gordy International

Image
Photo courtesy of LoopNet.com This marks the start of a new series I am calling “The Forgotten Ledger.” Think of it as a record of places that slipped through my fingers. These are the mills and foundries that came down before I could photograph them, the churches and farmhouses that vanished behind fences and “No Trespassing” signs, the offices, barns, factories, and odd little buildings that were gone before I had the chance to step inside. Over the years, I have built a long list of locations I meant to visit. Some were already abandoned and waiting. Others were still hanging on by a thread. Many of them are gone now. Demolished. Redesigned. Paved over. Erased from the map but not quite erased from memory. “The Forgotten Ledger” is where I go back to those missed chances. Each entry in this series will be a brief look at one of these places. You might see old notes, rough research, scraps of history, half-finished maps, or a single blurry photo taken from the road. Sometimes all tha...
Post a Comment
Read more

Warner Brothers Company (Warnaco)

Image
The news arrived as it so often does: mundanely, in a Google Alert buried between spam and a newsletter. Eight days ago, the demolition of the former Warnaco Clothing Factory in Bridgeport began. For most people, this was a long-overdue end to a local eyesore. For me, it was a missed appointment, and I felt that familiar, frustrating pinch of an explorer beaten by the clock. I was supposed to go back. I had even bookmarked a YouTube video that allegedly revealed a secluded entrance into the main, larger building. My chance was gone. My first and only visit had been a tense reconnaissance. The place was a beautiful monster. I remember the floors feeling less like a structure and more like a damp suggestion. They were soft, spongy with rot, and every step was a careful calculation. Openings in the floorboards gaped wide enough to swallow a car, let alone a person. The air was thick with that specific perfume of urban decay: damp wood, swirling dust, and dark corners. There was a rumor th...
Post a Comment
Location: 330 Myrtle Ave, Bridgeport, CT 06604, USA
Read more

The Human Stories of the Rockville Mill Complex

Image
    The climb to the old Dart Stone Mill wasn't for the faint of heart. My friend J and I huffed our way up that punishing incline, shirts clinging to our backs, calves screaming in protest. But we'd made this trek before, drawn back time and again to this crumbling monument perched high above Vernon, Connecticut. There's something about abandoned mills that gets under your skin, and this one had its hooks in us deep. When Albert Dart built this place back in 1868, he picked the most dramatic real estate in all of Rockville. The mill sits on a rock ledge at the second millseat below Snipsic Lake, clinging to the cliff face like it grew there naturally. And in a way, it may have. The lake fed water to nearly 39 mills as it descended through the valley, dropping ten inches in elevation along the way. That's a lot of industrial muscle powered by gravity alone. Dart built his mill for spinning silk and producing shoddy, a recycled wool material that was big business back th...
Post a Comment
Read more