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 MKE_MFGng
Location: The Cream City; Mill-Town; Beer Capital, USA; Milwaukee
Gender: Male
 |  | Milwaukee Solvay Coke Plant
< on 9/29/2011 4:35 PM >
|  | | | This was my first exploration where i actually took pictures, so go easy on the photography =P. But we went to the Milwaukee Solvay Coke Plant a few weeks ago to see what it was all about. We went at night too and it was quite dark so I didnt get to take too many good pictures. But anyways, a little history first: The Milwaukee Solvay Coke Co. originally known as the Milwaukee Coke & Gas Co. started in 1906 during a time when coke was needed the most. Coke is a product used in the steel making industry and is one of the primary ingredients used in the BOF or Basic Oxygen Furnace. Coke allows furnace temperatures to reach the necessary 3000 F at which point iron begins to melt. To make Coke, which is what this company did, raw coal is fed into skinny tall slots that are the coke ovens. These ovens have no air in them which causes the coal to burn slowly. As the coal burns, many of the impurities within the coal get removed which makes the coal acceptable to use for steel making operations. After the coal has been 'cooked' it is now considered coke and is then ejected from the furnace hot & and steamy and is sent to the steel foundrys to be used. This process produced many by-products some of which were helpful, some of which were not so much. As the company's original name implies, Milwaukee Coke & Gas Co, the also produced gas- which came from the Coke. They produced differing fuel gasses, ammonia, and sulfates which were very useful to other industries. In fact, in Milwaukee Solvay Coke Co's best years, the natural gas they produced was used to heat most of the homes in Milwaukee. However, the by-products were also very polluting and they left the land covered in mercury, PCBs, cadmium, nitrates, sulfates, and covered in soot- which is basically pure carbon. Either way I would have loved to work here when it was still around. The reason the plant closed was for two primary reasons: One, the collapse of the steel industry in the United States reduced the need for such large coke making operations. Two, new methods of making steel like the Electric Arc Furnace reduced the need for coke since these new types of furnaces didnt need it to operate. Also, the management was making way to much money for themselves and the unions were lazy assholes that also got greedy and wanted more money- whether that meant tanking the company or not. So there's my little schpiel on this place- sorry I talked so much, but I love this kind of stuff. But unfortunately since the company went out in 1983, many of the buildings have been demolished- including the massive slots of coke ovens. The ones we explored were pretty well trashed and graffiti'd up which is sad because these are some really nice and historic buildings with some classic architecture. Either way I had fun exploring what was left.
This is right through the front door, I took a shot of the graffiti thinking this was the most of it i was gonna get to see... lol wrong.
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Shot of the first floor main hallway, I love the architecture in this building and all of the exposed wood.
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Here's the basement hallway where there's a lot of general disarray and paint peeling.
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One of the basement rooms, this one was in particularly bad shape
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Ughh this makes me sad. This is the far east room on the second floor and looks to be the management office. Very nice ornate woodwork all around with plenty of windows and this fireplace... which has been graffiti'd.
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Some more graffiti.
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The fisrt descent picture in the large machine shop, it was quite dark. This was on the ground floor of some more acceptible graffiti, which i didnt mind so much because it looked like someone had taken more time to make it.
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Ever heard of Glug Beer? I havent xD
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The only descent shot I could get outside of the machine shop.
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We made our way south to some huge concrete structures which were some part of the coke making process. A few of them had these little pathways inside of the concrete.
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Someone's home was here- i guess his name was Nokes?
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Wow, now I hate graffiti when its simple and thoughtless and all over a really nice fireplace, but this graffiti was fantastic and a piece of art. Someone really did a good job here. Besides it was just on some decaying concrete structure.
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Another one of the passageways inside the concrete structure.
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Downtown Milwaukee, or what you can see of it.
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This graffiti was pretty cool too, it was on one of the two smokestacks and if you look closely the head of this guy is actually made up of little puzzle pieces. Pretty cool.
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Some of the urban decay of this once great industrial factory.
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A large motor with the windings exposed. It was once underground and ran into some pipes that were in front of it.
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As we were leaving, here's a shot of the outside of the front building.
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. Either way I had fun exploring what was left.
Dude's got the knack! |
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petticat
  
Location: Milwaukee, WI
Gender: Female
| | Re: Milwaukee Solvay Coke Plant
<Reply # 1 on 10/1/2011 3:01 AM >
| | | | Hey, great, another Milwaukee explorer! It's a shame Solvay is almost the only location Milwaukee has left, what with the demolition of Gallun and Peter Cooper. Definitely go back to Solvay during the daytime, though there's lots of surveying work going on under that bridge by city workers, try to get there when it's unwatched, the eerie green light in the warehouse is so photogenic! and the Glug Beer belongs to the Glugbot, a drunk robot (easier to see in the daytime, otherwise there's plenty of glugbot photos on flickr). Send me a message if you are ever wanting to scout anywhere! I'm on the east side of Milwaukee currently.
We're all just trapped between the stippled earth and the stubbled sky. |
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MKE_MFGng
Location: The Cream City; Mill-Town; Beer Capital, USA; Milwaukee
Gender: Male
| | Re: Milwaukee Solvay Coke Plant
<Reply # 2 on 10/4/2011 5:03 PM >
| | | | Cool! We'll I'm glad there are a few more explorers here in Milwaukee petticat. It really is sad that A.F. Gallun & Sons is gone, I work right across the street from where it used to be @ Moto-Scoot. Its a shame the older buildings of Gallun and Pfister & Vogel had to be razed, they held so much history to Milwaukee and did so much for the city in terms of development. Not only that, but they had lots of cool stuff on the inside where you could actually see how the process went on, especially at Gallun where you could see how it was all done back in the day with the old wooden machines and barrels. The buildings were so old, historic, and unique too! Such a shame. Anyways, it would be fun to go exploring with some more people and I have a few good sites that are worth checking out. I did end up going back to Solvay during the day last week and we also explored some new sites this week and last week. I'll post the other pictures of Solvay on here.
Here's that cool pump motor that I seem to keep taking pictures of.
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This is a shot looking northeast and you can see whats left of this relatively solid concrete structure. I honestly can't picture where the ovens themselves once stood, but these structures must have been right next to them. As i walked up to this area, you could still smell the aura of coke, tar, and oil fumes 25 years after the plant closed.
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Just another pic I took.
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The more solid of the two concrete structures. The one on the left had the little porticos running through it.
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I love how heavy and geometrically designed this structure is.
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A 3 or 4 foot diameter pipe running above one of the porticos into the concrete structure.
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Inside the portico, there is some room for storage for tools or something like that. Notice the heavy all steel doors (one right ahead and one to the right).
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Looking almost directly south. There is one building off in the distance that was about 30 or 40 feet long, the width of a single car garage, and two stories tall. It was just one room and had nothing in it but building debris, so I didnt need to go back again on this day to check it out.
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Looking north at the largest remaining building, the machine shop. I wanted to go inside but I was by myself and this place is full of tags.
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The other side of the machine shop. That black door, which is normally left open, is the most direct way to get in.
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This building was something like a research or office building and was directly north about fifty feet of the machine shop.
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This is the building with the street just on the other side and is about another fifty feet northwest of the other research/office building. It was in terrible shape and was the most photographed building when we came at night.
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Dude's got the knack! |
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MKE-Photog
Gender: Male
I'm so confused
| |  | Re: Milwaukee Solvay Coke Plant
<Reply # 3 on 12/8/2011 3:53 PM >
| | | | I had come across this by sheer happenstance. I was out shooting the sunrise at 5am at the lakeshore. It was a great morning, not to warm not to cold. Got some great shots of the Hoan bridge. I decided I would drive around the east side of Milwaukee and see what else I could find. I drove down Greenfield ave and caught this building out of the corner of my eye. I wanted to turn around and walk in right then, however the cop car ahead of me told me otherwise.
I've been back 3 times, each time I find more and more. Trying to find the perfect light is the tough part. I would love to get into the old Pabst buildings. I have posted quite about 40 pictures http://www.stoppintime.com/?page_id=5523 have at it.
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retnay
Location: Milwaukee
Gender: Male
Hynite's Best
| | Re: Milwaukee Solvay Coke Plant
<Reply # 4 on 3/4/2012 4:09 AM >
| | | | Posted by petticat
what with the demolition of Gallun and Peter Cooper.
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actually a lot of Peter Cooper is still up. I was just there a week ago. I will post pics in this thread or another thread once I can figure this out.
You know when you've found it because you can feel it when they take it away. |
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Downtown D-Low Brown
Location: The Ill Noize.
Gender: Male
The game is the game.
| |  | Re: Milwaukee Solvay Coke Plant
<Reply # 5 on 3/7/2012 2:32 PM >
|  | | | Ah, Milwaukee. Chicago's largest suburb, haha. I loved Milwaukee when I was there years ago. Shame to hear about the recent demos and such. I may still have to go back up there and roll around.
The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.
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andru
| | Re: Milwaukee Solvay Coke Plant
<Reply # 6 on 3/8/2012 7:21 PM >
| | | | Posted by petticat
Hey, great, another Milwaukee explorer! It's a shame Solvay is almost the only location Milwaukee has left, what with the demolition of Gallun and Peter Cooper. Definitely go back to Solvay during the daytime, though there's lots of surveying work going on under that bridge by city workers, try to get there when it's unwatched, the eerie green light in the warehouse is so photogenic! and the Glug Beer belongs to the Glugbot, a drunk robot (easier to see in the daytime, otherwise there's plenty of glugbot photos on flickr). Send me a message if you are ever wanting to scout anywhere! I'm on the east side of Milwaukee currently.
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Milwaukee has a bunch of good locations and im from chicago meet up with me sometime and i can show you around. one of the best locations will be gone by the end of the year and has been heavily watched after trolls found my photobucket.
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