Niagara – Page 2 – This Apparatus Must Be Unearthed

Fluid Dynamics 201

Post author:Concrete
Post published:April 11, 2011
Post category:Concrete Industrial Niagara
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After the furniture factory, a few of us split off from the UR group at Nate's suggestion to check out this place in Niagara Falls he found. Once the power plant for the massive (and demolished) Union Carbide plant, at the time Niagara's biggest employer, this was the largest Tesla AC (54 volt) facility ever constructed. Union Carbide eventually failed massively, in part due to bad public relations after the Bhopal incident, and most of the compound met its demise. This part still remains, surrounded by active machine shops, but completely open for the past few decades. Other than the…

The Birds Now Sing

Post author:Concrete
Post published:January 30, 2011
Post category:Military Niagara
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Two creepy as fuck songs/poems from the air force gym walls. The weird thing is, I heard the music from them and know exactly what they are supposed to sound like. Someone have any clue what these are from?

Air Force 763

Post author:Concrete
Post published:January 30, 2011
Post category:Concrete Military Niagara
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A relic from the age of missiles, AFRS (Air Force Radio Station) Cambria was the command center for the Niagara region's rocket program. While not a launch site itself, Cambria was still the largest of the bases, with barracks for the entire 763rd who served around Niagara county, a school, a gym and drill building, a computer center, and a (very) hardened bunker, the only building on base we couldn't get in. Inexplicably, the main road through the base is a Unicorn Drive; this probably had some military significance at the time, but now it's a weird aside. The Fightin'…

Sandstorm

Post author:Concrete
Post published:April 5, 2010
Post category:Buffalo Industrial Institutional Niagara
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Back at Flintkote with the UR UrbEx. I'm still amazed we made this one happen, with Andrew on it and all! More giant machinery here The destructed ruins of what was once a relatively grand train station on the way to Niagara Falls. It was already closed for decades by the time it burned in 1974, and now only the brick and stonework somewhat remain. More fire damage... we probably could have brought this steel mill down with our hands. Some deranged protest... Lockport was left out of the Interstate highways, and someone wasn't happy? I guess? So many rusting…

…and Steel

Post author:Concrete
Post published:March 21, 2010
Post category:Industrial Niagara
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After leaving Flintkote, we went downtown to one of a few abandoned steel plants in Lockport. Parking wasn't so easy to find, with the one garage abandoned, the streets were parked up. This particular steel mill had sections of Quonset hut and prefab building, clearly newer than the rest of the complex. Interestingly, their business was sheet metal, so maybe they used their own product to create their factory. If you seal a building with 12 foot fences, close the gate so people can't do what we just did! Now that's a dirty window! The rest of the photos here.

Flint…

Post author:Concrete
Post published:March 21, 2010
Post category:Industrial Niagara
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A return to Lockport, without the snow this time, to see the place we saw the first time, with the water tower. After doing some research on it, we discovered that it is the FlintKote factory, which at one time made asbestos roofing and tiles. Which mostly explains why it's abandoned now, and thoroughly surrounded on (only) three sides by a barbed wire fence and big orange hazmat signs. After making a poison ivy-infested path through the unfenced woods, we climb through a stone window onto the assembly line Reinforced floors for giant, missing machinery The heating or power plant…