These photographs are from the long-abandoned Van Nattas Pumping Station in Ithaca, New York, taken in 2016 while on a life changing, several-week-long road trip to the Finger Lakes.
Many years ago, I night hiked into the Indiana Army Ammunition Plant (INAAP) in southern Indiana — the most substantial industrial abandonment in the United States. Sprawling over 19,000 acres, INAAP was overwhelming. An entire day could be spent just covering one power plant, for instance. But two power plants? Dozens upon dozens of pristine buildings that were unused after the Vietnam War? Katy bar the door, you know it’s going to be a long day ahead.
Accompanying me were two other seasoned explorers. Our goal? To camp atop Power Plant 401-1 and take in the sunrise.
Some time ago, I revisited the Genesee Power Station on two separate occasions. From my first visit early in 2017, not much has changed. Absent a camper’s fire in the turbine hall, nothing has been scrapped, nothing has been graffitied, nothing has been vandalized.
During the late evening in the early spring, I piloted a drone over the abandoned Genesee Power Station in New York. It was my third flight of the GoPro Karma drone which presented some teachable lessons in flying around obstacles, especially live high-voltage power lines.
Enjoy the ground and aerial footage of the abandoned St. Nicholas Central Breaker near Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania. The historic complex is in the process of being demolished.
Along the southern harbors of Buffalo, New York is the ruins of several elevators. Some of those giants, such as the former Cargill Superior, and Canadian Pool, have been derelict for decades, while others have been closed for just a few years. They can all point their decline to the intervention of the St. Lawrence Seaway and the unpreparedness of Buffalo’s industrial leaders as the reason for their closure.
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.
In early 2016, I ventured to the remains of Universal Atlas Cement, a former cement plant in Penn Hills, Pennsylvania. It opened in 1906 and closed in 1979.
The factory that produced the first welded steel pipe is partially abandoned. Wheeling Steel’s Benwood Works dates to 1884 when Riverside Iron Works, its earliest predecessor, became the second mill in the area to produce steel.
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.