Like all my books it’s not a photo opportunity or some sort of overall look at scrapping. It emerges out of life and experience within the subject i depict, and the life i lead, and is guided by this. Having said that i’m grossly familiar with two of America’s most wild, down and dirty junkyard zones – the Forgotten Triangle in Cleveland and the Iron Triangle in New York. Honest Scrap is centered in the Forgotten Triangle and spins out beyond, but always returns to the homeland for scrappers in that city, which for many years seemed to be Scrap City with a vibrant scrapper world all over its neighborhoods that were all tied to old, lost or dying industry, much of it connected to working with or making metals both ferrous and non-ferrous
I’ve been shooting scrappers since early eighties. Some, up until their last days. There were some chance encounters, but, by and large, everybody gets to know each other over time.
Joe Brick, master brick recycler in his yard. We’ve been hanging around together, since first meeting. In 2022, Joe’s wife died of covid, then Joe had a heart attack. His heart (and money) is in that yard, so it’s a difficult time. His son has completely taken things over now, and, i’ll pick Joe up at home and go visit the brickyard.
The scrappers have been a feature of this city, following the ebb and flow of abandonment, until recently when it has died down to its lowest levels since the seventies.
One of the peak years for scrapping were after the big industrial recession of the early eighties, and 2003 – 2010, following two recessions, and always a fixture of life in the city. In 2010 demolitions were increased dramatically with much funding on a state, and federal level. The “housing crisis” that followed and caused the 2008 recession was too much and, for the first time, no structure would be spared. All the abandonment is to be demolished and remediated. The city is now snaggle-toothed and even blocks have become empty of all their homes.
Scrappers often viewed with contempt as thieves, with drug and alcohol probnlems. Not to mention the positives of recycling metals, the most recyclable material in the world.
The author in the old Victoreen Geiger Counteerfactory, scrapping.
I got a lot of stories. It’s been a long haul. It’s not right to spill all your beans over something as public as the internet, and doing something for so long would naturally mean there are many stories to tell from deep inside the lives of these scrappers. Of the living, many of them i still see and hang out with today. To respect folks i could recite some things without naming anyone, even if they’re dead, which many are.
If they were into drugs, then many supported it by their own hard work, and not taking anything so they could get high.
All in all the scrapper population follows the economics of both metal prices and abandonment. For them the golden age was the late seventies into the the 1980s, slowing by 1995 when the economy stabilized and employment grew in the Clinton years, only to come back with a vengeance, in the highs and lows between 2001 and 2010 including this city topping the list of poorest big cities for a couple of years.
Since 2015 it’s a dead scene, slowly fading in a city both picked clean, and, ready for mass demolitions, and, eventualy, even the houses, that shelled the metals and scrap were completely gone.
I ended up with a lot of friends for life. One was and is, Joe Brick, although. since 2022 he’s retired from brick recycling, and, to be honest, slowly dying, without his wife who died of covid in January, 2022. Joe buried her, went back to the brick yard, but his heart gave out, and he’s been stuck at home, since.
This was Joe’s last brick yard, another classic Rust Belt neighborhood of both closed and operational industries, and, abandoned and occupied homes and shops. His son has taken over the work now, as Joe is laid up at home for over three years now.
VIEW the slideshow.
