Amazon.com has been called the killer of the American indoor shopping mall in countless articles. But it’s been no secret that traditional shopping centers have been struggling long before the advent of online shopping, with the United States boasting more square feet of retail than any other developed nation by far. It’s with some irony that Amazon.com is building new fulfillment centers on the grounds of two dead malls.
Located on the tracks of the former U.S. Steel McDonald Works are dozens of locomotives either in various stages of disassembly or intact, awaiting refurbishment. LTEX Rail has been in the business of scrapping locomotives for years, with its dead line tracks chock full of first- and second-generation locomotives and switchers from Amtrak, Canadian National, Union Pacific, Conrail, VIA and many other companies.
The end of 2016 is fast approaching. 9,000 photographs were snapped, 35,000 miles traveled, and 200 locations explored. Here are the top 35 images of 2016.
The Longaberger Company is a manufacturer of handcrafted maple wood baskets based near Newark, Ohio. Once employing a thousand manufacturing baskets, the company has just 35 on payroll today. Sales peaked at over $1 billion in 2000, declining to just about $100 million today.
East Liverpool, Ohio is the classic definition of the Rust Belt. Historically, it was referred to as the the “Crockery City” and “Pottery Capital of the World” due to a large number of potteries in the region.
The former St. Joseph Riverside Hospital in Warren, Ohio nothing more than a scrapped, flooded, and fire-damaged carcass of a building.
When the Dennison Hotel on Main Street in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio closed in 2011, it marked the end of a hoteling era. The single room occupancy extended stay facility once competed with the Browne Hotel, Fort Washington Hotel, Fountain Square Hotel, and others — all of which are long closed and demolished.
Several years ago, I was able to visit the former printing operation for the Crowell-Collier Publishing Company, once the world’s largest magazine publishing house, in Springfield, Ohio.
National Acme, located in Cleveland, Ohio, was one of the largest manufacturers of machine tools in the United States. National Acme began as the merger of two notable machine tool manufacturers, the Cleveland Twist Drill Company, and the National Acme Company.
The Warner & Swasey Company is a former manufacturer of machine tools, instruments, and speciality equipment, best known for its astronomical telescopes and turret lathes for astronomical observatories and military installations. It was founded as a partnership in 1880 by Worcester Reed Warner and Ambrose Swasey in Cleveland, Ohio.