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| Shattered London, ON October 2023 This photo originally shared on Instagram |
Years ago, for example, my visit apparently doomed the old McCormick cookie factory, and this time it was the former Ex-Cell-O machine tools factory - later Spike’s Indoor Volleyball - that fell victim to what emergency officials have called a suspicious fire.
Which makes this photo, taken in October, feel even more poignant, as it almost looks like the building’s last effort to survive, each pane of glass stubbornly holding on to impossibly weakened frames despite the surrounding environment’s relentless efforts to destroy them completely.
Like so many previous fires that have ravaged countless demolition-by-neglect properties in our city, this one has a backstory involving rapidly expanding homelessness coupled with society’s inability and unwillingness to address it. Advocates have been saying for months that as the weather gets colder, unhoused individuals will seek shelter wherever they can find it - and that often means buildings just like this one.
It was obvious that it was being accessed as I shot it from the street on that October day, and it’s obvious now as fire officials pick through the debris.
The facility was already earmarked for redevelopment, so there’s no tragedy in lost architecture or legacy or heritage.
But this isn’t about bricks and windows and design and history. It’s about lives playing out harshly on the fringes of a society that has so often looked the other way. Of people just trying to stay out of the cold. Of the rest of us not knowing what to do because every story of every person who’s been here follows a different script - one that isn’t always so neat and tidy.
In other words, a grindingly human tragedy. One that seems to have no end.
There are no easy answers. And tonight, a shadowy population looks for a new place to hide out from the cold.
#ldnont #london #ontario #canada #throwback #weston #factory #building #architecture #architecturephotography #buildingporn #architectureporn #ruinporn #urban #city #120weston #windows #photography #nikon #nikonphotography #nikon_photography #photooftheday #instagood #nofilter #nofilterneeded
Related:
Ex-Cell-O prepares to say goodbye, November 2023
Just before the demolition, October 2023
Making post-industrial tracks, April 2021
I'm staring at old buildings again, March 2021
Life after Frosted Flakes, March 2019
Post-industrial-age lunch room, September 2018
Deep inside an old cereal factory, August 2018
An industrial past, reclaimed, December 2012
McCormick/Beta Brands factory burns - No more cookies for you, September 2012
Shattered windows on a quiet street, August 2006
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