MikeM wrote:James... Sharon had told you about a Raleigh restaurant that is built in an old creamery that kept it's pumps and motors on display. It's called the Underground.
Here's a pic that I snapped tonight with my phone camera... not up to the level of your pics, but thought you might be interested.
This is the smaller setup with four belts. There is a seven belt unit next to it... but unfortunately in poorer lighting.
Mike and Sharon;
Thank you very much for the pictures, and your very kind words. Now that the move from one house to the other is almost behind us, I have th energy to post anothe attempt at a reply.
It is so neat to see an industrial building where they actuall kept some of the machinery in place. That is exactly what Larry Tucker and myself had in mind for the 1907 compressor house at the former Solvay Coke plant in Milwaukee, Wisconsin:
Like most steam powerhouses, it had two floors. The second floor, or the machinery deck, had eight massive steam powered compressors and blowers. (I am sorry they are so dark; but there was no power to the building when Larry took his pictures.)
The ground floor, or first floor, is mostly taken up with the concrete foundations for these machines; it also often has the condensors that condense the steam back to water for pumping back to the boilers along with various pumps, pipes, and tanks. It also had the restrooms/washrooms.
The massive foundations can make for creepy spaces:
Anyway, our proposal was clean up and restore the compressor house, and let the first floor serve as a visitors center for the new development of condos and marina on the old plant site.
The second floor would be preserved more-or-less intact as a museum, giving the development a tie back to history. It could have also made for an interesting meeting space, as you saw in your visit to the Underground.
Although it was a steam powered compressor house; you can now compare it to the pictures I took of the Grandbury Light Plant, and see that it was a great standin for a turn-of-the-century Light Plant or other steam powered facility. I had written up a proposal to have it declared a Wisconsin history landmark and an ASME Mechanical Engineering Landmark, but it went nowhere.
The developer, Tom Short, came across as sympathetic. Two articles were published about our efforts in the Milwaukee Journal Sentenial, and an episode of the "Urban Explorers" series in Milwaukee was filmed there. (The film crew called me from the plant site to ask "now what is it that we are filming here, and why is it important?" I am mentioned in the credits at the end.) But, as he ran out of money trying to clean up this massive superfund site, he decided to tear down the compressor house anyway.
Two of the engines and some smaller engines (from the boilerhouse) and pumps were saved. But all Tom got out of it was brick and concrete, plus a few pipes. Why he could not just leave it intact along the office buildings to the north puzzles me to this day; to best of my knowledge, it still looks like it does in this Google shot; unless a new buyer of the site cleared the remains out. (The stacks on the right are from the former boilerhouse)
http://tinyurl.com/2wy3n5
So, you can see that many of these industrial sites, steam or not, look very similiar, with their pipes, compressors, pumps, engines, and tanks everywhere; much like you found in the Underground. However, once you scrap the machinery out, and blow down the stacks, then it becomes just another building. That of course, is what is being down with the old TXU plant in Fort Worth; and is usually the case.
A more well known example is Battersea Power Plant on the shore of the Thames in London. That name would not ring a bell in most people's mind, but the image below of it will for many folks:
Yes, this is the plant over which the rock group Pink Floyd (later others) floated the pink pig for the cover photo of the album "Animals". It was this scene that was duplicated when an inflated pig was floated over Dallas Power Plant, as mentioned on that thread.
This plant is quite historical. Designed by the famous architect Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, it was the first large central electric station to be built in Europe. Battersea-A was completed in 1933 and Battersea-B was completed in 1953. There were fears that the massive amount of emissions from it's stacks would do Londoners harm (including "bleaching babies"), so a wet type scrubber, the first of their kind, was installed in the square base of each stack. It did indeed result in cleaner stack gasses, but it also made the gasses cooler, so that they sunk down onto the city rather than rising higher and disappating; so they were a mixed success.
It is a registered landmark; and locals wanted it preserved intact as a museum. But instead, London Power and the developer scrapped out all of the machinery, and left it a crumbling shell of a structure:
The original development failed; but apparently a new one has been started; here is a great tour of the plant courtesy of the BBC:
http://tinyurl.com/7ttsf
Here is a webpage that illustrates some preserved power plants in Europe; including another former power station in London, Bankside Power Station, now the Tate Modern Art Gallery:
http://www.industcards.com/pp-conversions.htm
And finally, a great article on European industrial preservation efforts:
Europeans are giving new life to relics of the industrial era. They have a much easier time "getting it" than us forward (not past) looking folks in the States.
Thanks again for your feedback; hope you enjoy this as much as I have putting it together.
:
