Watch your step, look out for water damage and stay safe. On the top floor, you can still see two holes, one where an explorer fell through, and one where his friend fell through trying to help him. Time and the elements have created some weakness though, especially under the small collapse in the roof. In most places the wood floors still feel as solid as concrete. However, bags of grain are very heavy, so the floors of the storehouse were built STRONG. Wood floors that have not been maintained since the 1960’s have usually long since collapsed. Wood floors are usually very unsafe for urban explorers. This very obsolete piece of equipment still stands tall over the canal. This old building may be the best look into industrial history you can still visit today.īefore newfangled elevators were invented, pulleys like this were used to hoist heavy goods into the upper floors of factories and warehouses. The original wood floors were never done away with in favor of concrete. This storehouse, however, looks pretty much the same as it did in the 1880’s, inside and out. Most abandoned industrial buildings, even ones older than this, are filled with modern equipment and have often been renovated or added to in more (relatively) recent times. Bowne Grain Storehouse is uniquely significant. While Red Hook is filled with abandoned warehouses, the S.W. Wooden beams and floors still stand strong after almost 150 years He won, however, when the NY Appeals Court ruled that while Bowne was the owner of the company, he was also a working employee, and was therefor entitled to worker’s comp. After the amputation that followed, Bowne was forced to sue for worker’s compensation, which was contested by his board of directors. One day, while helping his workers carry lumber, his foot broke through the floor and was caught in a machine, which tore apart his leg. Instead of sitting in a comfortable office lavishing in his own wealth, he spent his time in the storehouse, doing manual labor alongside his workers. S.W.Bowne, the storehouse’s owner, was not the standard rich person of his day. Those flimsy boards are the only things between an explorer and a 2 story fall. The company’s fortunes were directly tied to grain,and when cars replaced horses on the city streets, the storehouse was forced to become a general warehouse, until it was finally abandoned sometime around the 1960’s. It stored grain and animal feed, both which were valuable commodities in a time when horses were used for everything from pulling the carriages of the elite and wealthy to plowing the fields of the farms still prevalent in the outer boroughs. Bowne Grain Storehouse was built in 1886 on the shores of Brooklyn’s vile Gowanus Canal. A large, open room filled with wooden support beams, top floor
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