Just Leave Me Standing

I’m currently backlogged by a little over 10,000 photos, so I’m a few months behind. Around 7,500 of them are from weddings, and those are obviously my priority. So this stuff is going slowly but surely.

I actually liked this place. I’m not really sure why, because to be honest, there’s nothing about it particularly special? It’s covered in graffiti and like every other building in the area, full of illegally dumped trash (just paper shreds this time, thankfully). It’s in a…not-great…part of town, surrounded by both other abandoned factories and several very active manufacturing, shipping, and warehouse facilities.

I thought it was peaceful in here. Maybe not the word others would choose, because the nearby shipping facility is loud as hell, but for me this place felt cut off from everything going on outside. I spent much of my time exploring out here on edge, looking over my shoulder. In here I finally felt left alone.

I haven’t been able to find any reputable information about the history of the building (a former mattress factory) or when specifically it was abandoned. The most I know is that the factory was operational between the early 1920s and early 2000s.

The mattress company is still in business and has moved production to another part of the city. They have an incredible old photo on their website of female employees sitting at their sewing machines in front of those massive windows, but no history regarding the original factory.

I have a few more factory shots left from this trip, and I’m just going to lump them into one post next time. I didn’t like any of those spots as much as here. Some places I never even got my camera out at all.

Honestly, I love old industrial buildings…but this particular kind of old, beat up, empty factory/warehouse rarely does it for me, and out here, it was just the same thing over and over and over. I often think this kind of building is prettier from the outside.