The GE Plant
Last post I discussed the use of filters to obtain a particular visual effect in black and white film. I used images from a roll shot wandering downtown Ft Wayne, In. I lamented a bit about just how little of old downtown FtWayne remained. The historic hotels, store fronts, office buildings and various other venues never made it past the 70’s. For the most part, what remains of the old city center can be summarized in a list that includes the courthouse, Lincoln Financial Tower and the grand churches from the days when the Catholics and Lutherans staged an epic race to heaven to reinforce the superiority of their version of the same faith.
What replaced these building were a few handful of blocks filled with solitary half empty mid rise office towers each surrounded by an acre of greenspace that provide for employee smoke breaks and enough grass and concrete to keep landscape contractors in work for all seasons; A lesser version of a mid century urban vision inspired by Le Courbusier. Oh, also there’s some parking lots.
Other cities made other choices. This spring, as I wandered around Toledo and Dayton making my REFLECTIONS images, I saw the other extreme. Both cities kept the mass of their downtown cores intact. Perhaps in the process, trying to preserve too much such that all of it has fallen into decay. I am a bit of a homer for my hometown, Indianapolis; But my city seems to have kept enough to remember the past, but cleared and opened enough space to let the future in.
There are two other notable things Ft Wayne kept. Neither is downtown. East of town, the remains of the former International Harvester plant and to the Southwest, The General Electric complex. When in Ft Wayne a few weeks ago before heading downtown I made a bit of a pilgrimage to the GE plant. While I am from Indianapolis, my family is from Ft Wayne and the GE Plant has a role to play in our history. I took the Petri to see what was left.
My first memories of the plant, more than 30 years ago, were at night, around 3am when the train from Pittsburgh bound for Chicago rolled in and I, as an 18 year old college student got off the train meeting my mother before driving home or to my Aunt and Uncle’s place in LaGrange for whatever holiday break I was on. The train went past the plant with its massive GE sign blazing through the dark night. The imposing bell tower at the International plant (Digital Image here) 5 miles away stared back at it. The white letters of the sign were 6 feet tall, the blue GE icon 20 feet around. You saw this on the train from miles away and knew it was time for the next step of the journey home. On this day the sign was gone.
The plant made electrical motors of all sizes, including the ones that powered the streetcars and busses that brought workers to the plant and ran the refrigerators in their homes. The plant was massive, several buildings straddling both sides of Broadway, the avenue electrically wired in the ground for the street cars and overhead for the bus routes. The GE stop was the busiest on the Broadway route. Memories of a time before GM money and influence lobbied public transportation off the grid and onto the pump.
A half mile down the road to the south was The Clapesattle Drug store and Soda fountain. My mother and her family sold sundries, money orders, crispy hamburgers and malts to an entire neighborhood that drew its livelihood from the Plant between it and downtown.
Among the plant workers, a great aunt, Aunt Emma. Emma is somewhat fabled not just in the family story but also within the lore of GE’s history in Ft Wayne. She was the last of the plant’s 50 year employees to retire and the only woman to have done so. She started working at the age of 14 before modern child labor laws came into effect and retired at 65, before the omen of a Social Security crises (yet to come) prompted raising the retirement age to 67. Over time, her role changed. She went from being on the floor in 40’s with Rosie the riveter to retiring from a desk job in administration. When she passed years ago, a 70 year old GE refrigerator from her basement, one of the company’s first models, was given back to the company as a museum item. It still worked.
As I wandered around the perimeter of the property looking for glimpses of what the past might have been and searching for images to be made, a few things surprised me, including the park right next to the plant. Now maintained by the City of Ft Wayne, it had originally been owned by GE and made available to its employees and their families for recreation. But opportunities for employees didn’t end there. There was a full sized gymnasium for intramural competition, a bowling alley and a banquet facility. It was a different time.
After more than 100 years in service, the plant shut down in 2014. And as much as GE tried to preserve it, vandals got into the empty plant buildings, ransacking what they found, including the rooftop sign and the memory marking the end of those long train rides more than 30 years ago. It has been dismantled and is in storage hoping for a brighter day in the future. Hopes for the site now are tied to a multifaceted plan to turn it into a mixed use facility that features office space, artist space, apartment lofts etc. The first element to open will be the Farmer’s market in 2021.
Images of that visit taken with the Petri (and the yellow filter) scroll by below. Hopefully one day I can go back and get a night shot of the sign, back in its original place as well.