HONEST SCRAP (1980-2024)

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 Counter Factory, 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. Part of a much larger yard including abandoned industrial structures. Randy, the owner and a major demolition contractor, would drop loads of bricks from the many buildings and factories torn down over a period of forty years. Joe’s son,Mike, has taken over the work now, as Joe is laid up at home for over three years. When his wife died in 2022 from covid, then Joe had a heart attack, he began to stay at home and stopped working the first time in his life.

VIEW the slideshow.

Joe Brick, The Day I Met Him

This is the heart of the Forgotten Triangle, and i had been hanging around its scrapyards and brick yards for twenty-five years, when i saw this guy with a fire recycling bricks, which, for me, was its third reincarnation as someone's brick yard.

I took my camera and tripod, and shot as i approached him, and intuitively felt, he was ok with me. We hung out and shared stories of the area and he spoke to me of bricks.

That was 2005 and we still hang out quite a bit. Joe was eighty-nine years old and iwasstill slinginging bricks in another section of town. He left the Triangle around 2011, along with everybody and everything that was left there, worked at a demiltion yars ooff St. Clair.

Joe's wife died of Covid in 2021, and, he briefly went back to work, but his health began to fail, had a heart attack and rarely left home after 2022. I continued to visit him at his home, and, his son, Mike, took over the Brickyard.

Scrappers' Homes & Vehicles, Grand Street

The camera is positioned in the backyards of the homes across the street, that had been demolished in 2019. The home with the lights is still there in 2021, and all else is gone. It was once part of a huge immigrant Hungarian neighborhood whose acreage was largely insdustrial, like Eberhard Manufactiuring that was 200 feet south and has been entriely demolished.

A parkway called the Opportunity Corridor is now coming through here. In a giant swath of land, in a couple of different neighborhods, there were only seventy homes that had to be compensated by eminent domain rights of the DOT.

This was called the Forgotten Triangle, it's heart just blocks away, and was truly a scrappers paradise and outlaw zone. That name fading, because it deteriorated organically over a period of forty-five years, until nothing was left. And, under those conditiuons, what a place it was.

That last home that remains, i shot in winter, 2020 and 2021, to match the older shot, like this shot, at night, and, of course, it was an experience. Dealing with multiple people, on one of the most desolate streets in America, all of them partying is always a trip. I've never come across a better place for a cheat spot in a city that had many.

Grand Street, Homes and Houses

The last house on the left was the only one left by 2019. It was a cheap spot so it was always open, and, believe it or not, it was completely rehab in 2022, and, stands for sale. It's one of the few homes that survived in the huge area that became known as the Forgotten Triangle.

Waste Site, Forgotten Triangle, East 83rd Street

East 84th Street, to East 80th Street, in this section was the cluster of homes ithat went up in in the lfirestorm, like much of the city itself, is populated in homes, railyards and factories existing in close proximity to one another, and, in the Triangle, a very old industrial area, itwas thick with this mix of residences and factories. 

This, at one time, was an industrial facility and homes, became a brownfield, that, at one time, would mean a progression to dump. This one lasted two years, and was allowed to meet the surge in demolitions where the debris from thousands of homes and factories needed remdiation or just plain storage.

This was because, beginning in 2010, a mass demolition effort began to get rid of the 12,000 abandoned structures in the city, which suddenly needed places to store the pulverized houses of the city.

Stacked Engines, Junkyard, Grand Avenue

Deep in the Triangle at one of the many scrapyards that six years later would be gone. Today the Opportunity Corridor goes right throught here, and that's what finally got the Triangle completely tore down.

Old Junked Car

This car emerged one week, after much of the underbrush got removed from it. How long was it there?
Undisturbed organic descent, the bread and butter of the scrappers.

Booth Avenue Underpass

Hole in Sidewalk, Holton Avenue, Forgotten Triangle

House & Deer, East 68th Street, 2024

Tiny Home of a Scrapper

Demolition Crew Salvaging a Vent Stack Lead Pipe

Scrappers Loading Metal Into Truck Bed, East 89th Street 1

I was inside the abandoned house next-door shooting, and I heard the scrapping.

Street scrapping comes in waves with abandonment, so, 1995 to 2002 was relatively stagnant for scrap employment, and, after 2002 it grew until 2009 when it began to taper off due to the very effective demolition of the remaining abandonment in the city.

Scrappers Loading Metal Into Truck Bed, East 89th Street 2

Starting around 2002, after the great still recession of 2001 that nobody paid any attention to, the amount of scrapping completely skyrocketed and didn't let up until 2009 when they began the major takedown of all the abandoned structures in the city.

Grafitti, Lakeview Avenue

Chimney, Forgotten Factories Zone, the Trianagle

Deep in the Triangle there is a dead-end street, parallel to an important reail line, that was a line of factories, and dead-ended here. Today all the factories are gone.

The Forgotten Triangle began when a firestorm swept through the center of the Triangle taking out 27 homes. After that a slow descent into undisturbed organic descent began until, by 2020, there was nothing left.

Pee Wee in His Usual Spot

Pee-Wee is a long time veteran of the streets, complete with a throne of sorts. Last time i saw him was 2019, when he was headed for some (more) serious surgery. Scrapping for so long, combined with chemical  and natural motivators, has taken out a lot of cartlidge.

Door, Jones Avenue

There has always been a realistic dialogue between property owners and scrappers.

Vault, Quincy Savings & Loan, Quincy Avenue

It's common that vaults sit awhile before their eventual demolition. I've heard famous stories in the Triangle where folks have met their demise, mistakenly, ending up locked in a safe in the office of an abandoned factory.
The most common death for scrappers, after building collapses and falls, is electrocution from scrapping carelessly around live transformers and  electricl psnels, in search of scrappers' gold - copper.
 

Sign on House, East 83rd Street, 1988

Sometimes communication between property owners and scarappers is quite direct.

Robert, Scrapyard Owner With Club

I think this guy initially wanted to beat my head in. Flapping my jaws i might not have noticed, but when i took his picture, it became clear what his initial response to me shooting his property was, which was to bash my head in, if i turned out to be a scrapper or something like that, for instance, a photographer.

Richard Hodges, Scrapper

Scrappers With Rental Truck Scrapping Out Recently Demolished White Motors Site

There were two big demolitions at White Motors. The first one was in the late eighties when they took out the front of the assembly plant on St. Clair Avenue. In 2009 the rest of the assembly plants on the north side and the glorious administration building were demolished.
These plant demolitions really brought out the scrappers as large quantities of metals would lie exposed.

Scrappers Cut Through Woodland Cemetery to the Scrapyard

On the east side, around the Triangle, a particular scrapyard on East 55th Street, was often the destinaton for many scrappers as they cut through Beaver Heights to East 55th Street.

Ernest's Home, Forgotten Triangle, East 83rd Street, Cross

Ernest constructed numerous works throughout the land he was squatting on, over the years.

Electric Fence Warning, East 56th Street

This was a huge industrial plant that had closed and became an indoor and outdoor warehouse for large pieces of industrial equipment that is made of metal, and had to be protected from the hungry scrap folk

Beware of Dog With Gun, East 36th Street

Scrapper's Truck, East 74th Street

Scrapper's Truck, East 74th Street, Note

Honest Scrap

Advertisement from the 1930s for honest scrap chewing tobacco on the side of a building at East 49th and Broadway