The Casting Shop Now

In the old shed beside the catwalks and bag-houes, oil-coated rainwater puddled on the floor of the gutted casting shop gives the space clarity that it lacked a decade ago, when furnaces smoked and steamed. In 2011 it was a place of blinding darkness. The president of the company was leading us on a tour of the brass works. It was the first of what would become regular visits. I kept trying to see what I was seeing, expecting my eyes to adjust to the dark, until I realized the dark adhered to every surface, hung in the air, soaked up light like paper towels suck spills. Where daggers of light managed to crack the darkness, they illuminated blue haze and turned high mercury-vapor lamps into small glowing orbs in space. I hadn’t yet discovered how they would scatter lens flare. 

Behind us an operation’s foreman, safely muzzled in a breathing mask, puttered along on a yellow HysterCart. A hose connected his breathing mask to a large oxygen tank that accompanied him in the utility vehicle. He was not at all happy when the president invited us to return and shoot “anytime.” However, Mike, Willy, Damir, and Lucio became our familiar guides as we returned often until operations ended in December of 2012. Since then the space has been scrapped, salvaged and detoxed to its shell which has now been polished by rainwater, while every surface remains well-greased to the touch.

Iconic Ansonia

With the announcement of funding for redevelopment of the American Brass and Farrel industrial sites in the center of Ansonia, one of the most iconic survivals of Connecticut industry will likely become a thing only of memory and photographs. The Naugatuck Valley played a central role in the creation of industrial America, but from Shelton to Winsted there are few remnants or monuments to tell future generations what went on here. Unique among survivals are these remarkable sculptures that climb over the old casting shop of American Brass along the Naugatuck in Ansonia. Mike, who ran the last furnace in this shop said there were once 30 furnaces casting alloys here. The furnaces needed air, and the exhaust had to be scrubbed and filtered. The residue had to be carried away in giant bundles.

Perhaps it is foolish to think they could or should be saved. To some this baghouse is an eyesore, nothing but a rusty muffler, but I would guess future generations would see it quite differently, a 20th century solution to pollution control. On this patch of ground Almon Farrel and Anson Phelps built the canal and factories that made Ansonia. Could a bag house become, not an eyesore, but an icon of industries and struggles that built Connecticut that will lie along the riverwalk that is creeping closer both from north and south?

Inside the Flat Wire Mill

Inside, the Flat Wire Mill is a shadowy sundial of delicate trusswork that spins like a kaleidoscope through days and seasons. Was this the space that housed the Wallace & Sons Brass Co? By 1906 the Sanborn map will identify it as the Coe Brass Co. The space is made of three, long buildings ending in three south-facing gables that are shown on the 1921 aerial map of Ansonia and on Sanborn maps back to 1906. The old space of the “Tumbling Bbl’s” had by 1906 become the “Rivet Shop.” It still hangs into the Flat Wire Mill interior. A door at the end leads to several steps that hang above this mill. The steps provided access to a crane that was removed in 2015. It is a strange thing to see that stair to nowhere dangling there.