The final stop on my most recent American adventure, and an absolute beast. This is in the top five, maybe three, biggest locations I have ever explored. It's probably the second largest industrial abandonment in America, after the Packard Plant in Detroit. Over two million square feet of factory space spread over five enormous buildings linked by sky bridges, falling apart and decaying since the closure of the entire factory in 2002. My friends who live in the city tell me tales of what it was like in the old days when it was full of machinery, but then the scrappers and pikeys found it and practically cleared everything that hadn't been taken when it closed down.
This is a shame and, to be honest, this was originally not on our radar at all until the previous day when, during our string of fails at various churches we realised we were very close, having spotted the faded logo of the plant on the side of a building nearby. I knew how big the place was having found it on Google Maps some time previously but my friend had no idea just how enormous the place was, he was open-mouthed as we drove around the outside, and we both noted the incredibly easy way in. After having a string of fails at various schools this time, we both decided to head here as we knew it was a certainty on getting in. I wasn't expecting much from the inside, and thought we may spend an hour or so there before we got bored, but after half an hour or so we were fully engrossed in one huge explore and enjoying it immensely. After a few hours we had worked our way to the top of the building at the back of the plant, furthest away from where we'd entered, and looking out across the buildings was amazing seeing just how huge this place was. We even worked out how to get down into the boiler house utilising, you guessed it, another sky bridge taking us over the active car park of one of the few buildings that had found a subsequent use.
All in all, an absolutely brilliant way to spend my final day. I think we saw maybe two-thirds of the place overall, so by no means did we do it all.
I'm already planning my next trip, which will hopefully be my biggest and longest one yet.
Every building in the photo below is part of the same plant, we entered way over the front side of the tall one in the background.
More here https://www.flickr.com/photos/mookie427/albums/72157671473585904
Thanks for looking and I hope you've enjoyed my latest batch of American wanderings...
This is a shame and, to be honest, this was originally not on our radar at all until the previous day when, during our string of fails at various churches we realised we were very close, having spotted the faded logo of the plant on the side of a building nearby. I knew how big the place was having found it on Google Maps some time previously but my friend had no idea just how enormous the place was, he was open-mouthed as we drove around the outside, and we both noted the incredibly easy way in. After having a string of fails at various schools this time, we both decided to head here as we knew it was a certainty on getting in. I wasn't expecting much from the inside, and thought we may spend an hour or so there before we got bored, but after half an hour or so we were fully engrossed in one huge explore and enjoying it immensely. After a few hours we had worked our way to the top of the building at the back of the plant, furthest away from where we'd entered, and looking out across the buildings was amazing seeing just how huge this place was. We even worked out how to get down into the boiler house utilising, you guessed it, another sky bridge taking us over the active car park of one of the few buildings that had found a subsequent use.
All in all, an absolutely brilliant way to spend my final day. I think we saw maybe two-thirds of the place overall, so by no means did we do it all.
I'm already planning my next trip, which will hopefully be my biggest and longest one yet.
Every building in the photo below is part of the same plant, we entered way over the front side of the tall one in the background.
More here https://www.flickr.com/photos/mookie427/albums/72157671473585904
Thanks for looking and I hope you've enjoyed my latest batch of American wanderings...