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