It was my first visit to the once-world's greatest industrial ruin since last winter. The work of Albert Kahn, the complex of huge buildings was too vast for words or pictures to describe. And what buildings!
My favorite was Building 78. On the outside it appeared a standard Kahn multi-story concrete facility. And much of it was; walls of steel sash windows, mushroom columns... But it had something very special, a hoistway. A friend described it best. "it looks like the Death Star". It was an industrial cathedral.
But Building 78, as well as the other 4-stories and the immense steel stamping plant were all pulled down last summer.
But Building 78 had a rival for my affection, Building 85, aka the foundry, aka the engine room. While Building 78 was a magnificant example of Kahn's concrete construction, looking as if it had been elegantly carved from a single block of stone, Building 85 was ramshackled beams of steel, bolted together. The structure was on a nightmare scale. But as impressive as it was, it was what it contained that was most bizzare. Who can forget the sight of hundreds of WW2 era truck engines, lined up in dozens of rows?
And as the day started I figured Building 85 or Building 72 could be my backup as I first investigated the opposite end of the complex. I started with the Administration Building and moved on to the neighboring Building 84. I had wondered if this was the building mentioned in the papers last year as the location of the scrapper bloodbath.
I had to conclude that it wasn't, instead finding a smaller and rather uninteresting non-Studebaker building in 84's shadow.
And with that, I made my way to 85.
The conditions were similar to my last visit, frigid and wet. But I quickly noticed major changes to the building. It is starting to resemble its fellow Kahn-sibling, the Stalingrad Tractor Factory.
The structure is being emptied of its non-structural contents. The heaps of cars are still there, but there are far fewer of them. The elevated rail line is largely gone. The boilers are being cut away. The bathroom mezzanines are gone. The stairs to the roof are missing. There are now huge holes blown into brick walls. Are they being sold for scrap?
The building is truely curious. It is the hq of Underground Pipe and Valve, which I could see still does business. And yet the structure is literally falling apart around them. They are like a modern-day medieval community taking up residence in the old Roman ruins, scrapping out materials as they need.
In my solitude I remembered my great moments at this building. I'll never forget my first trip to it that night with Seth when we took the steam tunnel from Building 78 and cautiously emerged up into the engine room. I'll never forget the proud feeling when I first discovered access the roof. I'll never forget how badly I wanted to talk to Seth after I finally found access to the second floor offices, the last section of the building to reveal its secrets. But it was a few months too late for that.
Anyho, I should get to the major discovery of the day. The engine room is no more. Every last engine is gone. Without them the building seemed both smaller and larger, still impressive and yet now lacking.
Having made my way through the interior several times over, I realized it was time to move on to the next target. Who knows if I will ever return to Building 85 again. But the engine room is history. If there are any constants in my life, any guaruntees, they can be summerized as follows: people die, buildings get torn down, friendships implode, dreams shatter, the world is cold. So, there isn't a point right? No, for some silly reason I think there is. ie: see two paragraphs up. Perhaps I am a silly idealist?
I exited the foundry and made my way into the heart of the complex. It hardly seems that long ago that this vantage point provided a view one of the most incredible landscapes of deindustrialization. But today I was staring out into an immense flat field of freshly cut grass. The ghostly forms of the massive stamping building and the sprawling four-stories existed only in my mind. Well, I guess the complex would now be a nice place to launch model rockets.
Using Building 72 to figure out the location of Building 78, I photographed what I have been craving to see the past month, the hoistway. I took in the scene one last time and started down the icy sidewalk back to the car. I realized that the tune that I was humming was Fighting in Built Up Areas and as I drove off to the local KFC I found my heart and mind stuck on the song's bitter question; "its over. for what?"
2 comments:
Fantastic look at the last vestiges of Studebaker here in the Bend. I miss spending weekend afternoons rambling around the stamping plant, watching the wood block floors swell from moisture and rupture into patterns like geographical fault lines.
One thing about the "engine room". Those engines were actually relics from a time after Studebaker had gone under, and space was available for lease in the complex. AM General had contracted with the Army to modernize thousands of M35 2.5 ton trucks, including upgrading their powerplants. Those engines were the ones which were removed from the trucks being refitted. They sat there for more than 20 years... and were a truly awesome site for explorers who happened upon them....
Great pictures. What has happened with Studebaker is crazy. I had that weird moment walking out of the foundry the spring when I finally saw all the other buildings gone. I need to go back there sometime next year. I have still not seen everything that's left, including most of the tunnels which I suspect may have some really insane surprises.
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