Exploring the Abandoned Curtiss Wright and Otis Elevator Factory, Buffalo NY
Recently I had commented to RiddimRyder Photography that this year (2020) I’ve not explored one good abandoned industrial site, and that sucks!
Then I remembered that on our roadtrip to the US around this time last year, we explored this old industrial site in Buffalo that I had not yet posted.
This building was our third of five locations that we would hit in one day as we waited for night to fall so we could slip into an abandoned psychiatric hospital for the night.
This old industrial building dates back to the 1920s and was home to an elevator plant and also an aircraft manufacturing operation before a took operation was in business there.
This industrial building has been vacant for more than 30 years, many explorers will recognize this place from certain rooms with that green glow!
The Otis Elevator Company acquired 35 acres for their Buffalo Works in February 1906. The company intended to use the factory to manufacture the plunger elevator which at the time was produced at their Worcester Works in Worcester, Massachusetts.
Construction of the facility began in March and it was completed in 1907 at the cost of $130,000. The site featured ten buildings, including offices, shipping facilities, a machine shop, an electric equipment shop, pattern vaults, a power station, a car and grill shop, an escalator shop, a foundry with two cupola annexes, and storehouses for raw material.
Curtiss-Wright purchased the Otis’ Buffalo Works in 1951 for its metals processing division, which was divided into casting, forging, and extrusion operations. The site manufactured aerospace and aircraft components and later titanium parts for General Electric engines, and worked closely with the United States Air Force and the United States Air Express program. Early in the facility’s history, the company produced uranium heavy walled tubing and extruded steel propeller blades.
Because of cutbacks in the commercial aviation industry, Curtiss-Wright began negotiations for the sale of its metal processing division and Buffalo facility in July 1993.
***Thanks to my friend Sherman at Abandonedonline for the history
Inside the Abandoned Curtiss-Wright Factory, Buffalo NY
