Abandoned Textile Mills of Łódź

As I wrote in my previous article, Łódź, Poland, was once home to immense textile mills, making the city a major industrial center in the late 1800s and early 20th century. The city fell into major decline during the Great Depression and in World War II. During the communist era, the mills continued to function with captive markets in the Eastern Block. But the industry collapsed after the 1989-1990 fall of Communism because the industrial base had not been modernized and became uncompetitive in the international market. But the mill buildings remain. As of 2016, many have been redeveloped into technology centers, loft apartments, or malls. Some have been demolished, and some remain empty and semi-abandoned. Ten years ago, Łódź must have been an urban spelunker's paradise. But now, only a few of the unused mills seem accessible, although I am sure the local urban explorers know the interesting spots to visit.

This is an example of one of the former mills, this one visible from Ulica Przędzalniana. Some of these factory complexes extended for a kilometer. This building is unused, but just to its right (north), another factory had been converted into apartments. (By the way, we had fantastic weather in Poland. I used a polarizing filter to enhance the blue sky.)

This place off Księdza Biskupa Wincentego Tymienieckiego is beyond fixing. Many Polish names are like this - rather difficult for this foreigner to pronounce. Notice the quality of the brickwork. We learned that most of eastern Europe used brick for its industrial and monumental architecture. In western Europe, cathedrals were made of stone, but in eastern Europe, they were usually fantastic brick edifices. The quality of the craftsmanship was amazing. Even in the sewers of Łódź (great underground tour), the brickwork looked like artists embellished it to be visually perfect, even though only the sewer workers would ever see it. Remembers the sewer employees in the 1948 Orson Welles film, "The Third Man?" Similar teams of underground experts worked beneath Łódź. Regardless, that was the era when they built infrastructure to last and were proud of their work - in USA, we could sure use this philosophy.

We drove through a gate to visit this site, but a guard expelled us. No fun here.

This old factory, also off Księdza Biskupa Wincentego Tymienieckiego, may have been undergoing some sort of restoration or conversion.

Finally, across the side street from the previous factory, I found one with a pathway through the undergrowth. Aha, urban spelunkers have been here.

Notice how the original builders used reinforcing rods attached to iron rosettes to hold the walls together.

The stairs and halls were a bit intimidating, but they were reinforced concrete and still massive.

Amazing workrooms with concrete pillars. Three floors were reinforced like this, obviously designed to hold heavy machinery.

The urban artists have been at work.

The rooms in the tower would make fantastic loft apartments.

Anatewka Restaurant

All right, I couldn't resist. When you are done exploring abandoned factories, visit a pastry shop and have an espresso and pastry. After a few minutes digesting, take in a superb meal at Anatewka, which features classic eastern European Jewish cuisine. Yes, modern Poland is like this.

Click any photograph to expand it. These are digital images from my Fujifilm X-E1 digital camera with the Fuji 18-55mm and 14mm lenses.

Addendum: If you are interested in sewers, the web page sewerhistory.org: http://www.sewerhistory.org/photosgraphics/germany-poland-and-eastern-europe/ has an interesting discussion of sanitary sewer construction and culture in eastern Europe. You better be interested. That is where your stuff goes when you flush the loo.

Demolished: the Speed Street School, Vicksburg, Mississippi

For many years, a handsome brick school stood at the corner of Speed and Marshall Streets, in Vicksburg, Mississippi.

Location of former Speed Street School, Vicksburg, Mississippi

This is a historic neighborhood east of Washington Street with late 1800s and early 20th century houses.

The school, located at the crest of the hill, was a handsome, traditional brick structure with large, airy windows to allow plenty of light.  Contrast with today's typical, prison-like box, optimistically labeled a super school. According to the Vicksburg Post, the Speed Street School was designed by Vicksburg builder/architect, Mr. William Stanton, and was built in 1894.

"The three-story, brick building at 901 Speed St. was built in 1894 and housed Speed Street School until 1940, making it the last remaining 19th century public school building in Vicksburg. Its fall into disrepair can be traced only to recent decades, with its conversion in the late 1960s to rent-assisted living spaces under a number of different owners. It has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1985."

According to the Nomination Form for the National Register of Historic Places,

"On January 14, 1895, the Speed Street School opened as South Vicksburg Public School No. 200. As late as the mid-nineteen-thirties it was one of only two white elementary schools in the Vicksburg public school system. The district also included a white high school and two schools for black students of all grade levels (Cooper, Sect. 3). Upon its closing in 1940, the Speed Street School was sold to the Allein Post #3 of the American Legion. It was again sold in 1968 at which time it was divided into low-rent apartments." 

The historical background in the nomination is interesting reading.

The entry foyer once had separate doors for boys and girls

It was a stately building, with tall, elegant windows.  The original double hung sashes were still in place,  They were probably in poor condition, but still, they were 120 years old.  The lower photograph was taken from the second floor of an apartment complex across the street.

After the tenants were removed, I explored the property.  The children abandoned some toys.

This hallway was on the north side.  An identical hall was on the other side of the wall on the right.

The door in the back led to the auditorium

The interior was grim.  There were two main halls inside on each floor with adjoining classrooms. Originally, one side of the building would have been for boys; the other side for girls. My mother went to elementary school in Nazi Germany, and she said the boys were separated from the girls with barbed wire and strictly prohibited from interacting.

This was one of the basement apartments.

The 2-story auditorium was added to the rear of the building in 1930.  The steel truss beams look newer, but possibly the roof was replaced more recently. Originally, it was a decent venue for gatherings and school events. I think the auditorium had been closed off from the apartment residents in recent years. Once the building was in demolition, the workmen stored plumbing fittings and junk there.

The building was condemned in 2008 after sewage backed up in the plumbing. Two former City employees told me that shootings, drugs, and rapes plagued the building when it was used for low-cost housing. A friend of my daughter lived there.  She reported that her apartment was one of the few with a permanent telephone.  The other tenants would come to use the phone and then steal things from the family.

The neighborhood has deteriorated, and no one was interested in restoring the building because the revenue stream would never cover the costs. A Bogalusa, Louisiana-based company, Will Branch Antique Lumber, recycled the bricks, wood floors and support beams.  It was hard, dirty, dusty work to deconstruct. Some of the roof joists were huge, made from old growth timber of the type we no longer can get.

I hate to see a building like this torn down, but at least the materials will be reused rather than discarded, as is typical now. Will today's commercial buildings and McMansions have anything worth recycling in 100 years? I doubt most will even be standing in 50 years.

For more information, Preservation in Mississippi had an article on the Speed Street School in 2009 (click the link).

Photographs 1,2, and 4 (the black and whites) were taken on Kodak Panatomic-X film with a Fuji GW690II camera, film developed in Rodinol 1:50.  The rest were taken with an Olympus E-330 digital camera with the 14-54 mm lens, or a FujiFilm F31fd compact camera, all tripod-mounted.

Cotton Compress, Levee Street, Vicksburg, Mississippi

For many years, a complex of brick and steel sheds stood on the west side of Levee Street close to where the historic Fairground Street bridge crosses the Kansas City Southern railroad yard. This was the cotton compress, address 2400 Levee Street (see the circle on the map).
This post card, circa. 1911, is from the Ann Rayburn Paper Americana Collection, Special Collections, University of Mississippi Libraries (originally from the International Post Card Co., New York, N.Y.).
This is a glass negative from the George Grantham Bain Collection at the Library of Congress, with title, "Louisiana Flood 1912, Cotton Compress at Vicksburg as a refuge." I am not sure if any of these buildings still stand.
According to a December 17, 2010, article in The Vicksburg Post, the compress facility dates to 1903 and formerly housed a cotton gin and 13 warehouses and sheds with about 340,000 square feet of storage space. The view above was taken from the top of the levee looking east at about the same location as the 1912 flood photograph. Vicksburg is on the hill in the distance.
These two views show part of the complex from Levee Street. The Post did not specify how long the compress had been unused, but the buildings were in poor shape because of water damage and asbestos exposure following years of vacancy. Notice the sign on the ground with scripture.
This press was under the tower in the upper photograph. I do not know the mechanics of how it worked, but I remember seeing steam and activity in the 1980s, when this was still a going concern.
A developer told the city's Board of Architectural Review that the Vicksburg Compress company planned to use some of the buildings as a self-storage facility. Other buildings would be demolished, and the 1940s water tower would be removed because it was unsafe.
The interior had typically interesting industrial archaeology to examine (and I like exploring places like this). Notice the large wood timbers holding up the roof.
The grimy old workbenches still had tools, pipe, and cans of chemicals strewn about.
You could even wash up...maybe.
Someone had stored some old American muscle cars, but they were in no better condition than the buildings.
While I was exploring on a December day in 2010, a small team was cleaning up bricks and loading them on pallets.
As of December 2011, many of the brick walls are gone, and I assume the bricks have been sold. But the steel sheds are still unused, and the water tower is still standing. These projects tend to take a long time in Vicksburg.

An interesting article on cottonseed oil mills is in:  Wrenn, L. B. 1994. Cotton gins and cottonseed oil mills in the New South. Agricultural History, Vol. 68, No. 2, Eli Whitney's Cotton Gin, 1793-1993: A Symposium (Spring, 1994), pp. 232-242. (Published by: Agricultural History Society)

These are digital images from a 10 megapixel Sony R-1 digital camera, tripod-mounted. The interiors were multi-second exposures, good examples of how well-suited digital cameras are for low-light conditions. You no longer have to worry about reciprocity failure and color shifts as with film; just set the exposure and let the shutter stay open as long as needed. The R-1 has a superb Schneider lens.

Some black and white Panatomic-X film photographs of the compress are in my 2018 article (please click the link).