The Hartz Mountain Factory

This 750,000 square foot complex of blighted industrial buildings was, in its latest incarnation, the headquarters for the pet food division of the Hartz company.

The factory was built on a tract of land adjacent to the Crucible steel company, based on the banks of the Passaic River in Essex County New Jersey. 

It was originally and most notably used by Hyatt Bearing Works, an affiliate of General Motors. Founded in Newark by John Wesley Hyatt in 1892, Hyatt's bearings were considered to be the industry leader. These revolutionary new bearings were not round, but rather coiled helical pieces of steel. They were much more efficient than their competitors. These coiled steel bearings were just one of a handful of parents Mr. Hyatt held. He also invented celluloid after spending some time working with chemicals.

The bearing company was quickly outgrowing it's humble original factory. When the Old's Motor Works company placed an order for their new line of 1,000 vehicles, Hyatt new the company needed a bigger factory. In 1901, operations were moved to a new building in Harrison.

Things were not as perfect as they seemed, however. One early shipment to Cadillac was refused by the general manager of the factory due to minor imperfections. The manager of the Hyatt factory was not discouraged, but rather accepted that such attention to detail was to be immeasurably critical to the operations at his factory. From that point on, the name Hyatt was to stand for perfection.

This caught the attention of a huge automobile manufacturer, General Motors. GM was interested in keeping as much of the production of their vehicles in- house. They began to buy up crucial companies left and right, and in 1916 Hyatt Bearing Works was acquired. GM also purchased Connecticut's New Division bearing company, famous for the "double row" bearing. Despite this affiliation, Hyatt would go on to supply bearings to a number of competitors, including the Ford Motor Company.

Hyatt continued marketing and selling bearings for personal automobiles, but as the market changed the company spilled over into other markets. Soon, their bearings were in everything from industrial equipment to train cars.

The two bearing companies that were under the ownership of General Motors merged in 1965, and with that, the Harrison factory was closed. The Hyatt- New Division bearing company would continue to manufacture bearings for aircraft until 1993, when the company officially stopped production on bearings.

After the Harrison bearing factory was closed, the Hartz company took it over around 1970. They did extensive renovation work to incorporate offices on either side of the old bearing company buildings they purchased. They also converted the warehouse on the property into a parking garage. 

The history of the Hartz company goes back to the late 1920's, and over the years expanded and merged with other companies until it had built up an empire. The company had grown so much that the former Hyatt Bearing factory in Harrison had an ideal amount of space to become the new headquarters for their pet food division.

In 1999 the company vacated and sold the factory. One condition of the sale was that Hartz would assume liability for remediation of the site. However, they never made any effort to take care of it. It wasn't long before the old factory began to fall apart.

Due to its location directly alongside Route 280, thousands and thousands of people passed by these buildings every day. Around the same time, most of the other existing crucible steel buildings were being demolished. It appeared that it wouldn't be long before the demolition would move north to the Hartz buildings.

The area continued to see change as it was slowly being redeveloped. Other buildings belonging to Crucible Steel on the other side of Frank E. Rodgers Blvd were demolished to make way for a new Path station. The Hartz complex still wasn't touched.

Finally, the complex was acquired by the Heller Redevelopment Corporation. The complex was demolished, as part of a redevelopment effort spearheaded by the town. The complex is now just an empty lot, peppered with piles of rubble from the once magnificent factory.

The United States Immigrant Isolation Hospital at Ellis Island

Ellis island is a largely man-made body of land in the Upper New York Bay in Jersey City, New Jersey. It was supplemented in the late 1800's with landfill from the New York City subway projects. In 1892, an immigrant inspection station was built on the island, to screen the patients coming to America from all over the world. Once they were deemed to be in good health, they would be shipped off the island to New York City, where they would begin a new life. However, if you were sick, you received a chalk mark on your collar and were sent to the immigration hospital on the south side of the island. In 1990, the main inspection building became an immigration museum. The twenty two hospital buildings, however, remain abandoned and off limits to the public. In October 2014, small groups started to be allowed back in the hospital in order to document the decaying buildings. I was lucky enough to be part of one of these groups.

1. The main hospital buildings. This was the first public health hospital in the United States, built in 1902 in a Georgian Revival style. The central block was the administration building, and the right and left buildings were for men and women, respectively. The rounded accents you see on the buildings are actually skylights for the 4 operating rooms the hospital held.

2. The buildings have all been boarded from floor to ceiling, but they have vents and windows cut into them to allow the buildings to breathe and for light to enter.

3. Here is one of the stairwells inside the wards.

4. An artist was let in to the buildings to glue some blown up photographs to the walls and windows. I think its incredibly disrespectful, and as such i didn't take many photo's of them. Despite the tour guide constantly telling me "this is what you're here to see" and "I want you to take pictures of this"...

5. The hospital was one of the most well respected teaching hospitals in the US. Roughly 20 percent of the immigrants who made it to the island ended up here. 3,500 of them never made it off.

6. The wards were typical hospital designs, with dayrooms at the end of the halls and plenty of bedrooms.

7. A few of the wards at the end had curved hallways between them.

8. The outside of the same hallway.

9. The Statue of Liberty, from between abandoned wards. This is the one thing the tour guide told me to take photos of that I actually listened to.

10. The ward buildings were not as nice as the main hospital buildings, but i still think they have a certain charm.

11. I believe this was the nurses residence, as it was more decorated than the bleek wards.

12. The kitchen was incredibly hard to shoot without a tripod. The wooden beams cutting across between the walls were used to stabilize the crumbling structures. The hospital closed its doors in the 1930's, and was used for another couple decades as a POW camp and FBI facility before officially being vacated in 1954.

13. The hallways were really tight in some spots.

14. Finally, a leaving shot of the front of the wards. Much nicer looking from up front, but still pretty foreboding.

Hopefully one day the buildings will be open for everybody to be able to traipse through at will. As of right now, the island is under the control of Homeland Security and the United States Park Police. The only access to the abandoned part of the island is through a building that holds a gymnasium that belongs to Homeland Security. Please do not try to access the abandoned side of the island without permission, it will not work.

Everyone can check out the website for the group who is responsible for offering the tours. They have been working for a very long time to restore the island to it's former glory.

http://www.saveellisisland.org/support-us/

Empty Cloud Monastery

Sitting in the middle of a neighborhood, two blighted monastery buildings sat behind a large stone wall. The main building of the small complex found new use, while two residential buildings and the gatehouse crumbled with time.

I don't know when these beautiful buildings were built, but they are likely over a century old. When the monastery moved to the property they kept the house mostly original, with the addition of some Dalle De Varre windows and cross-lite doors. 

Every bedroom in the home had its own fireplace. 

Despite some peeling paint, the buildings remained in very good shape. 

I would drive by the buildings often, each time making sure to close any doors or windows I found open. I wanted to make sure the property didn't fall into serious disrepair. 

Thankfully someone purchased the property and began renovating the buildings. Before long they were occupied again.

The converted garage on the property had been heavily modified, unlike the home out front. 

But the second floor was much nicer looking. A furnished kitchen greeted me as I ascended the stairs, and the spacious dormitories mostly all had fireplaces as well.

It makes me so happy to drive by the structures now, as I was convinced they would inevitably be demolished. Finally a happy ending for once.

The old Essex County Jail

John Haviland, architect of the famous Eastern State Penitentiary, was hired to design the new Essex County Jail in 1837. 

The old prison had succumbed to a fire a few years earlier, and the county decided to go a different way as far as the feel of the prison. The old prison was a nice building, and the prisoners were encouraged to spend their free time productively. The new building was an emotionless stone box.

 The building was small, holding roughly 100 cells. Soon the space in Newark wasn't enough, and a large new annex building was built in North Caldwell.

With the rise in crime and prosecution, both of the prisons expanded. This expansion included a large new cellblock built at the Newark Jail in 1890. The building could now house over 300 prisoners.

The walkways on the different tiers in the cellblocks were made of glass, so the officers could see through them in the event of a commotion. 

While the annex would grow to house thousands of prisoners, this building would go on to stay at 300 cells until it was closed in 1970. It was used up until 1989 by the Essex County Narcotics Bureau, who were the last group to occupy the structure.

 In 1991 it was added to the national register of historic places, and subsequently used in the filming of the movie Malcolm X, but the jail would remain abandoned and neglected until eventually catching fire in 2001. 

The fire gutted part of the structure, and ever since then the building has been totally falling apart.

Despite living within 15 minutes of the building, I have only ever visited the building twice. Once in 2011, and once again just recently. It is basically a ruin, and the future doesn't look very promising for the building. Just another example of how Essex County lets it's history demolish itself.

The Last Tunnel of the Essex Mountain Sanatorium

In the early 1900's, tuberculosis was becoming a major problem in America. The booming population of Essex County was no exception. So many people were sick, that two local women proposed  establishing a hospital in the more rural section of the county where they lived. A parcel of land on the second Watchung Mountain which held an abandoned boarding school was suggested to become the new county sanatorium.

http://www.mountainsanatorium.net/images/g/girlscottagefb.jpg

There was just one problem. Some residents of the area did not want the illness to spread from the hospital and start affecting the townsfolk. The group decided to ignore the concerns of the residents, and began sneaking patients into the shuttered boarding school in the middle of the night. Once they had established their presence, it was legally very difficult to evict them. As the disease became more prevalent, Essex County decided to take over the small clinic and expand it to the massive building complex it was. From 1917 to 1930, the county added 21 buildings, to accommodate for the growing population of ill people.

http://www.mountainsanatorium.net/images/c/conaerial.jpg

The land on which the hospital sat proved to be ideal, as the quiet scenic setting and fresh mountain air helped the hospital become "The Colorado Springs of the East". The sanatorium boasted a 50% recovery rate, which was almost unmatched by every other sanatorium in the world. The hospital was so efficient in its eradication of the disease, the county no longer needed such a large facility to deal with it. The county closed the sanatorium in 1977, and moved the last few patients to other area hospitals. They also closed the small division operating out of the Freeman Pavilion at the nearby Overbrook Psychiatric Hospital.

http://www.mountainsanatorium.net/images/c/courtfb.jpg

The sanatorium fell into serious disrepair, and in 1993 most of the hospital was bulldozed. A few small buildings remained on the complex for over a decade. One of my earliest memories was riding bikes by the former hospital with my father. I saw the dilapidated nurses cottage, and asked him about it. He said it used to be a hospital, but they didn't use it anymore and they were demolishing it soon. For over a decade, I thought that was the last I was ever going to see of the place. But that all changed when I found the tunnel that was still intact.

I had heard about the tunnel from other explorers, but I could never find the entrance. I spent dozens of hours over the years scouring the reservation, to no avail. One day in 2014, my girlfriend and I decided to go for a hike. I was telling her how I had always heard rumors that the entrance was in our general area, but I could never find it. I decided right then that maybe today would be the day. Sure enough, after thrashing around in the tall overgrowth, I found the small concrete opening in the earth.

I called over my girlfriend, and prepared for my descent into the earth. I slid in, which was challenging for a person my size. I didn't have my camera with me, so I was just taking a peek around. I turned to face the hole, and I was frozen by what I saw. Cave crickets. Thousands of them. I quickly popped back out of the hole, and said I would return with my camera when the cold kicks in. A few months later, we headed back with a friend and fellow historian from Old Jersey News.

We didn't spend to long in the tunnel, as it only runs about 50 feet or so. As I walked around this time, I got hit with the real gravity of what we were exploring. It was more than simple exploring, it was something more akin to archeology. We quietly took our photo's, and once again exited the concrete expanse before it came down on top of us.

The buildings of the Essex Mountain Sanatorium may be gone, but the memories of the complex remain. For more info, please visit Rich Kennedy's site