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Tamron is extending the closure of two factories through the end of 2020 due to ‘decreased demand’

22 Sep

Tamron Japan has published a statement [machine-translated] on its website noting that two of its three main factories will remain closed through the end of 2020 due to the ‘decrease in global demand due to the worldwide spread of the [novel] coronavirus.’\

This closure extension affects Tamron’s Hirosaki and Namioka factories, which were originally set to open back up on October 1. These facilities, located in Japan’s Aomori prefecture, are two of Tamron’s ‘mother plants.’ Each of these three plants play a role in the lens development process: the Hirosaki plant handles metal processing, assembly and repairs; the Namioka plant processes the lens elements; and the Owani plant molds the plastic components.¹

Tamron says ‘the global market has not yet recovered, and in consideration of the uncertainty of the market environment in the future, we will continue to extend the partial closure of the domestic Aomori factory until the end of the year.’ Tamron notes business will continue during these closures, but it could ‘cause inconvenience and inconvenience to our business partners.’

If you’re interested in finding out more about the production process, Tamron Japan has an interesting online factory tour that walks through the steps it takes to manufacture a lens.

¹ Tamron Japan

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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Canon is temporarily shutting down five of its factories due to supply shortages caused by COVID-19

02 Mar

A factory worker inside Canon’s Utsunomiya factory (not one affected by these closures) works on a telephoto prime lens.

Canon has announced it will be suspending operations at five of its plants on Japan’s Kyushu island due to supply shortages from China caused by COVID-19 (Coronavirus).

The five factories, located in the Oita, Miyazaki and Nagasaki prefectures, produce cameras and other photographic gear. The manufacturing facilities will shut down from March 2 to March 13, with Nikkei (translated) reporting these missed production days will be made up at a later time in the year when the supply of parts is more stable.

DPReview has contacted Canon for more details on what products these closures will affect. We will update this article accordingly if we receive a response.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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Search for Spoke: 8 Closed & Abandoned Bicycle Factories

27 Mar

[ By Steve in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

These closed and abandoned bicycle factories are relics of a bygone era before two-wheeled vehicles were supplanted by those with four wheels and an engine.

One of those old-timey bike factories was Memphis Cycle & Supply. Flickr user Robby Virus captured the still majestic though graffiti-marred exterior of the building in April of 2016. ADANAY documented the interior while helping to clear the place out three months later.

Memphis Cycle & Supply appears to have closed around 2010-11 as photos taken before that time show un-boarded windows with stock on display. Flickr user Joe Pusateri (Jo Teri) snapped the building after dark on June 19th of 2011… a brave endeavor as the neighborhood is a tad sketchy to say the least. Curiously, the slipping “S” of the signage was repaired by the time Robby Virus snapped his photos in 2016, after drooping perilously for roughly a decade.

Hungary No Longer

Schwinn is perhaps the most iconic brand name in American cycling history. Founded in 1895, the company’s products enriched many a child’s formative years. Schwinn declared bankruptcy in 1992 after losing a long battle to remain competitive with lower-cost manufacturers in the Far East. A failed joint venture with post-communist Hungarian firm Csepel shows the company didn’t go out without a fight, however. The images above by Flickr users Karl Eerola (keerola) and Waterford Precision Bicycles (waterfordbikes) were taken on November 28th of 2010 and July 26th of 2012, respectively.

Philadelphia Freewheelin’

The Haverford Bicycle Factory at 448 North 10th Street in Philadelphia made Black Beauty bikes “The bicycle with a national reputation” but that didn’t stop it from shutting the doors when the flow of red ink proved unquenchable. Why the company went under in 1924 – in the midst of the Roaring Twenties – is a mystery; the grand red brick factory wasn’t more than twenty or so years old at the time. Flickr user Neil Fitzpatrick (joiseyboyy) captured the color-saturated image above on July 9th of 2010.

After sitting abandoned for years, the imposing building together with its smaller white adjunct was finally sold in 2015 for $ 2.75 million. Construction is currently underway to re-purpose the gutted structure as an “office/creative space” overlooking the newly-gentrified Callowhill neighborhood. Nice that the developers saw fit to retain the building’s historic painted-brick signage; appropriate that future tenants should bike to and from work.

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Search For Spoke 8 Closed Abandoned Bicycle Factories

[ By Steve in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

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Let’s Make A Dill: 11 Closed & Abandoned Pickle Factories

05 Feb

[ By Steve in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

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The Age of Pickles ended when home refrigeration arrived, souring prospects for pickling businesses and leaving abandoned pickle factories hither and yon.

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Folks living in tropic and desert climes depended on preserved foods of all kinds so it’s no surprise A Pickle House (formerly the Arnold Pickle and Olive Company) managed to pump out the pickles from 1905 through 1994.

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The brick factory building/warehouse at 1401 E. Van Buren Street in Phoenix, Arizona was built in 1934 and has lately been repurposed as the CPLC Pickle House Makerspace Business Incubator. Nice that they kept the signage. Kudos to Flickr users Ira Serkes (berkeleyhomes-dot-com) and Amy Brown (amybrownphoto) for snapping the brine-infused building in its abandoned pre-CPLC state.

Detroit’s Booming

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Is Detroit booming again? Well, yes and no… while the much-maligned Motor City continues its inexorable decline, there are a few bright spots amid the gloom. One involves an old pickle factory.

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In May of 2015, Detroit Boom City temporarily transformed an abandoned pickle factory on Detroit’s rough east side into “a site-responsive, fully immersive (art) exhibition” featuring a host of Detroit-based creative artists, painters and sculptors. Good to know not all Detroit booms are gunshots.

All Puckered Out

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The old abandoned Seacoast Packing Company building located at 100 Dill Drive in Beaufort, SC is better known as the “Old Pickle Factory”, though pickle-packing was merely one of its many incarnations. We wonder what came first: the pickle factory or the street being named “Dill Drive”.

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Built in 1921, the factory was originally intended to be a meat-packing plant but sour economic conditions in the region put the kibosh on that plan. The completed building sat vacant for seven years before re-opening, respectively, as a grocery storage facility, a tomato-canning plant, a pickle factory, and a lumber storage warehouse.

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The Old Pickle Factory’s current distressed state looks to be the result of arson and that’s sort of true: the Beaufort Fire Department used to practice there. Hopefully their real world responses turned out better.

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These days, the much-deteriorated Old Pickle Factory is considered to be unrepairable but nobody’s in any hurry to tear it down. Besides, many of the locals find its presence oddly comforting. “It speaks to our hearts rather than our eyes,” states Beaufort native Ryan Copeland. These haunting images were taken by Eye and Eye Photography in June of 2010.

Higher & Dreher

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There’s not much left of the former Dreher Pickle Company plant in Fort Collins, CO, and there’ll be even less after the Fort Collins Community Solar Array is expanded. If you have a “pickle where the sun don’t shine” joke, here’s your cue to relate it.

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At one time, the Dreher Pickle factory processed cucumbers grown for miles around in hundreds of wooden pickling vats. The clever factory owner adapted the vats from disused wooden steam-train watering tanks made redundant after the railroads moved from steam to diesel/electric power. Much of the old plant burnt down in a 1990 fire and five years later the City bulldozed everything remaining except for one small office.

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Lets Make A Dill 11 Closed Abandoned Pickle Factories

[ By Steve in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

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Scrubbed: 10 Unclean Abandoned Soap Factories

30 Oct

[ By Steve in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

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These abandoned soap factories sure look filthy… if only there was something that could scrub away the dirt & grime, making them look shiny and new again.

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The old abandoned Wink Soap Company building in Racine, Wisconsin was built in 1900 though Wink didn’t move in until 1938. The company then proceeded to make soap like it was going out of style – it wasn’t but Wink was, shutting down their soap-making operations in 1980. The building, still sporting its handsome though faded painted sign, looks like it closed fairly recently instead of 35-odd years ago.

Hosed Down

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This abandoned soap factory somewhere in France isn’t much to look at but within its bland decaying shell, a graffiti masterwork by the artist Ziru complements the factory’s detritus of hoses and rust. Kudos to Flickr user Romany WG who captured this ephemeral artwork for posterity in mid-October of 2011.

Finnished

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This abandoned soap factory in Kaarina, southwestern Finland, is close enough to a major city (Turku, in this case) to attract graffiti artists yet isolated enough to let them do their deeds in relative privacy.

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It’s not known why the factory closed – supplying all those saunas must have been good for business. Kudos to Flickr user WIGILOCO for snapping these images and more on a visit to the factory in late 2010.

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Scrubbed 10 Unclean Abandoned Soap Factories

[ By Steve in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

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Nothing Shocking: Abandoned & Derelict Battery Factories

23 Oct

[ By Steve in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

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These former battery factories once lead, er, led the way in electrifying society; now they sit abandoned in environs rife with heavy metal contamination.

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The abandoned Power City Warehouse in Niagara Falls, New York began producing batteries for automobiles and tractors back in 1910. In the early 1940s, work of a classified nature was being conducted there in support of the Manhattan Project – the top-secret initiative charged with creating the atomic bomb. By the 1960s it had been bought by the Prestolite Company, who re-tolled the factory to manufacture hard rubber battery cases and to fill lead-acid batteries with sulfuric acid. The factory was abandoned in the late 1980s.

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The EPA conducted a survey of the site in 2001 that revealed extensive contamination with lead, semi-volatile organic compounds, PCBs, and pesticides in the soil and buildings. Radioactive slag was discovered on the property in early 2012. Flickr user Kevin McBride (Mr Kevino) visited “The Battery Factory”, as it is known colloquially by urbex’ers, in August of 2008 to snap a small selection of photos… hope he wore appropriate clothing like, say a haz-mat suit.

Edison’s Other Bright Idea

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Better buy glass company stock STAT – the former Edison Storage Battery factory in West Orange, NJ is being renovated and re-purposed into Edison Village and roughly 900 windows in the circa-1914 main building are due to be replaced.

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The factory manufactured batteries for submarines, mining lamps, railroad signals and more. The Battery Building, abandoned since 1965, was the only remaining building in Edison’s once-enormous West Orange industrial complex aside from Edison’s old laboratory, now part of the Thomas Edison National Historic Park. One reason for its longevity was the special “Edison Cement” used in its construction – wrecking balls bounced off the outer walls leaving nary a dent.

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Nothing Shocking Abandoned Derelict Battery Factories

[ By Steve in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

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Silence Of The Lamps: 10 Abandoned Light Bulb Factories

26 Jun

[ By Steve in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

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Things may look dim for these abandoned light bulb factories but hopefully the last worker out the door remembered to flip the switch on their way out.

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What’s the deal with the above OSRAM light bulb factory facade in Copenhagen, Denmark? Flickr user Stine Linnemann (stine_maskine) snapped the first photo on August 30th of 2009 while Flickr user maya weeks (mayaweeks) snapped the same – yet magically de-aged – facade almost three years later.

Back In The GDR

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Twenty-five years after the Berlin Wall tumbled, grungy relics of the GDR (German Democratic Republic, aka “East Germany”) linger on like a bad case of heartburn after too much currywurst. Take the distinctive building above, centerpiece of the former VEB Kombinat Narva Berliner Glühlampenwerk which was the main manufacturer of incandescent light bulbs in the GDR. Flickr user Mondrian Graf Lüttichau (Mondrian-Berlin) captured the semi-restored and partially re-purposed main building in 2014 and 2015.

Alien: Resurgence

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Stay outta there, Ripley!! This unnamed abandoned light bulb factory would make an ideal location shoot for some future Alien movie sequel, would it not? Kudos to Flickr user Andrea Pesce (Opissse) for not disclosing the site’s details – vandals would stomp those scattered light bulbs like so much bubble wrap.

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Silence Of The Lamps 10 Abandoned Light Bulb Factories

[ By Steve in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

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Outside The Blocks: 12 Coldly Abandoned Ice Factories

06 Mar

[ By Steve in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

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Ice ain’t all it’s cracked up to be and neither are these obsolete & abandoned factories that once made it, as these 12 examples coldly show.

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Judging by their architecture alone, many abandoned ice factories can be dated back to the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries – an era before the advent of economical household and commercial refrigeration. Home iceboxes, icehouses, fishing boats and ice cream producers had to acquire ice from somewhere, and that somewhere was the local ice factory.

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Take Crystal Ice in Sacramento, California. Built in the early 1920s, the iconic local landmark was gutted by fire in November of 2015, likely derailing or at least substantially affecting extant plans for redevelopment as the Ice Blocks urban retail spaces project. Flickr user Jim Jackson (AxonJaxon) captured the former ice factory in comparatively better days – February of 2014 to be exact.

Nice House

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The former Consolidated Ice Company Factory No. 2 located in Pittsburgh, PA’s Lawrenceville neighborhood opened in 1907 and closed in 1951. Hard to believe the factory wasn’t bought, demolished or re-purposed over the subsequent half-century but hey, such is life in the Rust Belt. On the bright side, the ice factory and its associated two-story office building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in the year 2000 and a portion is now being used by Ice House studios.

Chilling

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Flickr user Rolfen captured the ruins of an abandoned ice factory in Öjersjö (near Gothenburg), Sweden in April of 2010. The photographer’s crisply detailed HDR images don’t detract from the overwhelming eeriness of the place – if anything, they enhance it!

Icy Hot

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You’d think a place like Sharjah in the blisteringly-hot United Arab Emirates would do whatever it takes to keep their ice factory functioning… well think again. The abandoned Kalba Ice Factory now functions as an art exhibit space, presumably air conditioned.

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The 2015 Sharjah Biennial 12 held at the abandoned ice factory featured a series of artificial columns composed of “natural elements such as leaves, bark, shells, coral and dead birds, alongside human consumer products in the form of plastics and deformed sport shoes.” Wait, dead birds??

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Outside The Blocks 12 Coldly Abandoned Ice Factories

[ By Steve in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

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Imploded: 8 Burned Out & Abandoned Fireworks Factories

28 Jun

[ By Steve in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

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Skyrockets red glare and bombs bursting in air were once sweet music to these abandoned fireworks factories, many of which ended with a bang not a whimper.

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Wells Fireworks manufactured pyrotechnics at Dartford, Kent, UK from 1837 through the late 1970s, finally financially sputtering out under price pressure from cheap competition based in China. We’ll bet old Joseph Wells did not see that coming.

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Many of the firm’s original factory buildings still stand (though not too steadily) at the now-overgrown and peaceful Joyce Green area of Dartford. Credit Flickr user Darren Cullern (innerbeast) with these images of the former Wells Fireworks factory taken on August 2nd, 2013.

Colombian Explosition

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Fireworks factories make products that go BOOM… ideally, far from their place of origin. Premature explod-ulation is not cool – just the opposite! Kudos to Wells Fireworks for not blowing itself to smithereens even once during its 150-year-long history; incidents like the colorful explosion of a fireworks factory near Bogota, Colombia in January of 2015 are all too common.

Boom Boom Room

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The office and administration building of an abandoned fireworks factory in Macau looks like it’s been through a battle or two in its day. Most likely it was built to survive an explosive calamity, which if you come to think of it is rather like being in a war. Betcha the boss of the place passed on the corner office with a view – wouldn’t you?

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Imploded 8 Burned Out Abandoned Fireworks Factories

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Played Out: 10 Cheerless Abandoned Toy Factories

06 Apr

[ By Steve in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

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There are few things sadder than an abandoned toy, and abandoned toy factories take that sense of lost innocence to dramatically deeper depths of despair.

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As if an abandoned doll factory isn’t creepy enough, Flickr user Bousure ramps it up to eleven via some nightmarishly awesome photo-processing techniques. Taken in early September of 2011 at an undisclosed location, Bousure’s haunting imagery will surely disturb all those who enjoyed playing with dolls when they were kids… and, well, everyone else too.

Unmade In China

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The pace of change in China is truly startling at times – perfectly good buildings just a few years old are casually knocked down so something bigger and better can be built on the site. Take this sharp-looking toy factory (check out that gnarly gate!) in Zhangmutou, southern China, that had the excavators sicced on it in July of 2013. Flickr user Chris (dcmaster) checked out the factory as the heavy machinery moved in for the kill.

Game, Set & Matchbox

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Lesney Products & Co. Ltd was one of Britain’s few postwar economic success stories. Founded in 1947, the company made “Matchbox” brand die-cast miniature vehicles by the millions until labor issues and the side-effects of Thatcherism drove the firm into bankruptcy.

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The company’s last and largest factory, set astride the Lee Navigation canal in London’s Hackney Marshes, closed in 1982 and Flickr user Sludge G (sludgegulper) snapped it in April of 2009. The abandoned complex, stripped of its machinery and sullied by vandals, was finally demolished in 2010 with the Matchmakers Wharf retail, commercial and residential complex now occupying the site.

LaLa Land of Toys

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Once “The West’s Largest Exclusive Toy Wholesalers”, Pensick & Gordon lorded over the California toy universe from this ominously imposing building in what is now LA’s trendy Arts District. Built in 1907 as a wholesale grocers warehouse, the factory was abandoned by the early Eighties and just recently underwent conversion into condominium lofts. Kudos to Flickr user Kent MacElwee who snapped the building and its faded signage in September of 2013.

Posts Tagged ‘Factories’

Hungary No Longer

Philadelphia Freewheelin’

Next Page – Click Below to Read More: Search For Spoke 8 Closed Abandoned Bicycle Factories

Detroit’s Booming

All Puckered Out

Higher & Dreher

Next Page – Click Below to Read More: Lets Make A Dill 11 Closed Abandoned Pickle Factories

Hosed Down

Finnished

Next Page – Click Below to Read More: Scrubbed 10 Unclean Abandoned Soap Factories

Edison’s Other Bright Idea

Next Page – Click Below to Read More: Nothing Shocking Abandoned Derelict Battery Factories

Back In The GDR

Alien: Resurgence

Next Page – Click Below to Read More: Silence Of The Lamps 10 Abandoned Light Bulb Factories

Nice House

Chilling

Icy Hot

Next Page – Click Below to Read More: Outside The Blocks 12 Coldly Abandoned Ice Factories

Want More? Click for Great Related Content on WebUrbanist:

Played Out: 10 Cheerless Abandoned Toy Factories

Imploded: 8 Burned Out & Abandoned Fireworks Factories

You’re Fired: 9 Smokin’ Hot Abandoned Match Factories

Colombian Explosition

Boom Boom Room

Next Page – Click Below to Read More: Imploded 8 Burned Out Abandoned Fireworks Factories

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Boom To Bust: 10 Abandoned Fireworks Stores & Stands

Played Out: 10 Cheerless Abandoned Toy Factories

You’re Fired: 9 Smokin’ Hot Abandoned Match Factories

Unmade In China

Game, Set & Matchbox

LaLa Land of Toys

Next Page – Click Below to Read More: Played Out 10 Cheerless Abandoned Toy Factories

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You’re Fired: 9 Smokin’ Hot Abandoned Match Factories

Meltdown: 10 Semi-Sweet Abandoned Chocolate Factories

Blocked Out: 10 Closed & Abandoned Hat-Making Factories

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Search For Spoke 8 Closed Abandoned Bicycle Factories

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Lets Make A Dill 11 Closed Abandoned Pickle Factories

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Scrubbed 10 Unclean Abandoned Soap Factories

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Nothing Shocking Abandoned Derelict Battery Factories

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Silence Of The Lamps 10 Abandoned Light Bulb Factories

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Outside The Blocks 12 Coldly Abandoned Ice Factories

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Imploded 8 Burned Out Abandoned Fireworks Factories

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Played Out 10 Cheerless Abandoned Toy Factories