This place is a huge, beautiful, decaying ruin. A former steel mill, built and added to over the course of many decades, the property was abandoned in the mid 1980s, and has only gone downhill since then. Basically a mismatched construct of huge, empty warehouse sized buildings, which stand in various states of ruin. One gigantic hall after another, the plant embodies decay; with its collapsed floors, peeling paint, rusting metal, broken windows, rotting wood, abandoned machinery, leaking roofs, and a solid layer of dirt over everything.
With the rain pouring down outside, Kowalski, David and I set out inside the ruin with our cameras. Dodging the streams of water leaking from the roofs, we went our separate ways to have a look around. I don't recall the exact path I took wandering through the abandoned complex, which sprawls over a large area. It seemed that everything inside was a photograph waiting to be taken, such was the beauty of this place.
At one point, some local kids showed up and started playing inside. When we left the site, they were still there, shouting and running after one another. Ostensibly playing some sort of game; they could occasionaly be seen running about on the roof, climbing up on the girders, shouting through holes in the walls & ceiling. I was slightly envious- who wouldn't want a personal playground like this near their neighbourhood?
This plant is so extensive that despite having spent several hours inside, I was still exploring new areas up until we finally left- and even then, I hadn't seen it all. Basement rooms, hidden buildings and floors, and cavernous spaces all wonderfully decayed.
You'll have to see the photos, to get an idea of what this wonderful place was like.
Green-tinged light filters in, as Kowalski and David take photos in the adjacent room.
One of the larger open spaces. The roof was leaking like mad all over the place.
This room was interesting, because of all the machinery left behind. Not quite sure what these are (furnaces?) but strangely, only some of them had been removed, with other left behind to rust. They were lined up in rows in this big pit in the floor. The bright area at the back is one of the many places where the roof has collapsed.
One of the big furnaces in the pit.
Yet more open space.
This was the biggest, open room in the plant- simply huge. That little person is me, midway between the camera and a large concrete dividing wall. Behind the wall is another, equally large field of open space.
This second-storey walkway between buildings had very cool peeling paint. The doors showed several layers of multi-colored old paint. Also, the floor looks like it used to be paved with bricks.
Inside one of the rooms where the floor was missing entirely. I had to walk across the steel joists to get this photo; trying to avoid a 10 foot fall into the debris-filled basement.
In one of the second-storey warehouse type areas. The floor here was rated to 58,600 lbs, if I remember correctly. Obviously, the roof wasn't quite as strong, and considering the warping and rot, I wouldn't trust on the floor, either.
Another room where the steel joists are all that remains of the floor. Much of the debris in the basement, however, probably used to be the floor.