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UER Forum > Archived US: Great Lakes > General Hardware, Co. (Viewed 289 times) MKE_MFGng  Location: The Cream City; Mill-Town; Beer Capital, USA; Milwaukee Gender: Male  |  General Hardware, Co. < on 10/4/2011 7:26 PM >   Ok I know I've been posting a lot, but I was really busy this last week and a half so I haven't had the time to post any of our recent explorations until now. But this was another cool place that I'm amazed we got into twice without being caught. I really wish I could say how we got in, it was quite the ninja feat (or at least I thought so). Anyways, this building is five stories tall and has tons of space inside. Its basically a large square with five floors and is great for warehouse space. I think it used to be a distribution center or large scale retail store for hardware stores. Who knows, it could have even been a factory for making tools and stuff that would be sold in hardware stores. But each floor is pretty much the same, full of tons and tons of stuff. The first floor was a little bit different in that it had some offices and had a big wall near the front, but it was still pretty much the same. Unfortunately, the basement was flooded so we didn't venture down in there. As we neared the basement in the rear stairwell, my friend opened a door to the outside that I noticed was wired so we booked out of there pretty quick the first time. But we wanted to come back again to find out whether the building had a second basement below the first (called a sub-basement) which I suspected it did. I'm a curious kind of guy and sub-basements are creepy and unique so I wanted to find out if it had one. We couldn't tell the first time because we ran out before I could check since we thought the place was wired. On our way back the second time, we went in the same way the first time and thats when I noticed the door we used to get in was also wired... so if it was powered we woulda been caught really easily. So we walked through the building again quickly and went down to the bottom to find out that there was only one basement and it was flooded with what looked like was only a foot or two of water. Here's some pics: Up on the roof, great view of downtown. click to view One of the elevator houses where all of the machines operated they were above the top floor. Nice old motor, still runs too apparently! click to view More of the elevator house. click to view "Chicks dig my balls man!" click to view An opening to the 6000 lb. freight elevator, its a long way down. click to view Old Swinger sewing machine. click to view Stuff, and lots of it. click to view Keep the flashlights out of the windows guys! Geez. click to view There's a little flashlight dead nuts in the middle of the picture, right in front of the window. Thats the other end, this place must have been 150 yards square. Check out the concrete pillars too. Very constituent of 1950's building design. click to view Looking straight down to the flooded basement, must be 70 or 80 feet down. click to view Need school supplies? click to view Need school supplies? click to view The floors got more and more empty as you went down. click to view The other freight elevator, rated at 4000 lbs. click to view Mmmmmmmmmmmm, electricity. click to view First floor, looking into the larger freight elevator. click to view My friend seemed to think this pencil sharpener was really old and cool so I took a pic for him. click to view Cool office, its in great shape too. Love all of the glass. click to view Wait, thats right all of the breakers were up! There is power in this place! click to view Gov't regs, fairly recent too. I read this same poster when I worked at Ace Hardware a few years back. click to view The biggest most industrial thing I could find, gotta love the industrial cast iron and paint job. I think it's a milling machine. click to view Outside click to view Outside click to view First pic of our second trip back click to view Some sort of device, I figured you electronics guys would dig this. I have no idea what it is, but its really really old as far as electronics goes. click to view Some sort of fluid transfer pump, didnt look at it close enough to find out whether its for pneumatics or hydraulics although I think it is for hydraulics. click to view Pallet jacks from back in the day. click to view Flooded basement, doesn't suprise me since its in the Menominee valley where the water level is so close to the ground. But at least we found out whether it had a sub-basement or not! click to view [last edit 10/5/2011 5:07 PM by MKE_MFGng - edited 1 times] Dude's got the knack! ohok   |  Re: General Hardware, Co. <Reply # 1 on 10/5/2011 3:50 PM >   Fourth from last photo is an tube amp. Worth some $ working or not. Dimitalus  Location: Cowichan Bay, British Columbia Gender: Male My URBEx buddy '92 Seirra, 454  |  |  Re: General Hardware, Co. <Reply # 2 on 10/5/2011 3:57 PM >   Any idea what the future plans for this place are? Before my current employment I worked with antiques, so I have a general knowledge of older items. "Never fear shadows. They simply mean there's a light shining somewhere nearby. Ruth E. Renkel" UER Forum > Archived US: Great Lakes > General Hardware, Co. (Viewed 289 times) All content and images copyright © 2002-2024 UER.CA and respective creators. Graphical Design by Crossfire. To contact webmaster, or click to email with problems or other questions about this site: UER CONTACT View Terms of Service | View Privacy Policy | Server colocation provided by Beanfield This page was generated for you in 125 milliseconds. Since June 23, 2002, a total of 740772415 pages have been generated.