Abandoned Westinghouse Factory Tour: From Atomic Age to University Labs
In 1912, the George Westinghouse company built a foundry and lamp-manufacturing plant here on this site, they made iron castings there until WWI, when the building was used as a barracks for the 120th Battalion, CEF.
The 1930s saw the beginning of an extremely successful venture for Westinghouse with the manufacturing of household appliances.
The company continued to expand and produce during the 1940s and ’50s. During WWII, Westinghouse made gun barrels and produced artillery shells for the armed forces, and participated in the research and development of a uranium derivative for use in atomic bombs.
In the 1970s, the Westinghouse factory became property of Camco, joining plants in Montreal, Weston, London, and Orangeville. With the Westinghouse acquisition, Camco became the largest manufacturer of major appliances in Canada, holding 30% of the Canadian market. The company began by investing more than $1 million dollars in new equipment for the plant, in order to be able to manufacture parts that would otherwise have to be imported.
In 1984, a worker at the plant died after being hit in the chest by a metal bar; the first and only death at the plant.
Camco continued to operate on the property and saw profits at the plant rise until the late 1980’s, when things began to fall apart. The company reacted slowly to sluggish sales from the plant, which led to a surplus of inventory. While Camco managed to survive for another 15 years, ultimately it was shut down in December of 2004 as it could no longer compete with newer manufacturing centers.
It was announced in December of 2003 that Camco would be ceasing operations at the plant and that it would be closing, ending many decades of production and jobs at the site.
Back in 2010, the property was being considered as a site to build a stadium for the PanAm games, but this never came to be.
As recently as around 2016, the factory was being used as a metal recycling plant
In February 2020, police responded to calls of a body that was found inside the factory. It was the body of a scrapper who was attempting to remove copper from an area where there was live power.
The property, I’ve been told, was purchased years ago by the local university and would be incorporated into their large-scale Innovation Park concept on the surrounding lands. The plans are to convert this into a multi-use space, laboratory and research labs for global pandemic and biological threats, as well as a community center.
The proposed lab and research center would feature 300,000 square feet of research and meeting space as well as amenities from dining and more. Described by someone involved as the equivalent of a 30 storey skyscraper, but horizontal.
The original plans for this innovation park stated that it would be operational by December 2024, but seeing as we are now in November 2024, I think it’s safe to assume that there have been unexpected delays!
After my first daytime visit to this abandoned factory, I knew I wanted to return to play with my lights at night.
My original concept was to use light and smoke to make it look like the boat is on the water.
I arrived just before sunset, as soon as I walked in I was greeted by a scrapper and the sound of a girl yelling from the 3rd floor at the top of her lungs, yelling for a guy named “Raaaannndddyyyyyy?”
Since I was early, I headed to the roof to get some drone footage for my video, on the way up, I passed several more scrappers. I had to go to the floor where the girl was yelling. I asked if she was OK, and she asked if I was Randy – I said no, she continued yelling for him.
Once I was done on the roof, I came down to the boat to set up my gear, get organized and prep for my shoot. I passed several more scrappers on the way down as well as while I was setting up with my gear. At one point, an argument broke out between one who had taken up residence on the roof and another who was inside. This argument ended with one of them yelling, “You’re dead”
At this point, I decided that maybe I could use some backup here to be safe, so I texted my friend s0s1nc3r3 as I know he is always down for some light painting. He said he was on his way. I killed time, took some pictures, said hello to scrappers and listened to the girl yelling for “Raaaaaaannddddyyyyy”
Finally, s0s1nc3r3 arrived and along the way he spotted my friend Mike, he’s the guy who I have done fire-breathing pics of in the past, and as luck would have it – he had his fire-breathing stuff with him!
So, now we are 3 deep and I feel confident that we won’t be bothered or robbed by the scrappers – time to get to work.
We started with simple light painting with my multi-coloured tube light, followed by some steel wool spinning in various areas.
At one point, a scrapper headed over near my gear table, Mike held security over the gear while s0s1nc3r3 and I finished with the steel wool.
The scrapper proceeded to climb one of the beams like a monkey with a bag and Sawzall in hand. He climbed up into the rafters and started cutting chunks of metal and copper, dropping them down to the ground near where Mike was standing.
Next, the calls of “RAAAANDDDYYYYY” and “HELLOOOOO?”, started getting closer – the girl had now come down to the ground level in search of Randy. We approached her to see if she needs help, she came here with 2 guys, I’m guessing one of them is a guy named Randy, but now she was unable to find them. So she continued wandering around in the dark.
Next, we got Mike situated on the boat for the fire-breathing part of the night. I love shooting this, it looks cool in pics and it is even more impressive to see it in person. It’s also difficult to shoot, you need the right settings and you have to shoot rapid fire.
One of the scrappers, in a strange moment as we had been inside shooting for about 1 hour by this point, came up to me and asked me if we were the owners. I laughed and said no, he said “ok good” and proceeded to start cutting copper right beside us.
Finally, it was the moment we were here for, to try and make the boat appear as if it were on water. I would create this effect by placing lights under and around the boat and then popping a smoke bomb, Mike would wave the smoke around the boat and using our great photography skills, the boat would appear to be on a dark smoky lake at night.
This idea sounded great in theory – but absolutely failed in execution, I’m happy with the results of the night though!
When that idea failed, we sent Mike into the boat with 2 smoke bombs and placed a red light inside of it. Dodging used needles, Mike headed to the front of the boat and created a pretty cool effect of smoke billowing from the boat.
Thanks s0s1nc3r3 and magnoodles for joining me!
