Island Station Power Plant
September 12-13, 2006

So my friend
and I

Decided to investigate a cool looking industrial building that I had seen while scouting locations for a movie.

There are intriguing views from across the river or from up on Shepherd's Road:
 

-but it's even more inviting once you scramble through the hole in the chain-link fence and can see dimly into the hollows of the arched windows:


If you don't find this inviting, get off my webpage.



There are several outbuildings around the main structure, and at least two of them appear quite old. They have names and addresses printed on signs next to their doors. I really wonder what this area looked like when the facility was in operation.


On one side of what must once have been a street was a greenhouse-like building called the 'Scale House'.

Across the road, fronting a marshy inlet of the river, is a much larger building labeled 'Screen House'.
   
The best view of it is from the opposite river bank:

Though there is a lot of broken glass inside, this building was clearly the focus of some of the more recent renovation efforts. For one thing, there are new tools and ladders lying about. Some of the wood in the railings and flooring is obviously new, and it feels freshly sawdusty. Well, more freshly than forty years, is what I mean.



















There's a striking view of the main building from the second-floor ledge of the screen house.

The Screen House is built over a deep cistern which, we later decided, must extend back to the sub-basement of the factory behind it.






The Screen House seems to have controlled the discharge of waste water into the river. On the concrete balcony outside the first floor, geared works were still attached to a remnant of a sluicegate below it.

Next to the Screen House lie several large concrete tubes, the kind used for drainage. They look new, and in fact still have the factory shrinkwrap on them:




Now to return to the Main building.


Continue to Page 2: Wherein a circumambulation of the factory is made and the history of and abortive future plans for the facility are discussed ------->