After operating for almost half a century, Leavens Awards Co. shut down in 1999 after going bankrupt. It has been virtually untouched by demolition or renovation crews since then, but grows increasingly more and more wrecked inside, presumably by local kids. The exterior also seems to be in places slowly collapsing.
Update: Check out newer and better pictures here
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| All that's visible of the building from the road. |
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| Notice all the lights hanging from the ceiling. You'll see them throughout the building. I find it kind of eerie. |
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| This place seems to be the main hang out spot due to the trash and chair-like things found around it. This room is also not too dark in the day, while a lot of the other parts require a flashlight |
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| I don't know what kind of a part in the process of jewelry manufacturing this instrument would play, or if it was even related. Perhaps buffing something out? Perhaps operating a freight elevator? |
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| Bathrooms. |
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| This room that we found was a bit unsettling. It was definitely visited very recently, and seemed like it was inhabited. Fortunately, we didn't run into anyone. Toilet paper, plastic cups, cards against humanity, cigarette butts, a water bottle, possibly a cup of sprite, and more were found around the area. |
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| This was in the room above. I think it's urine. |
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| More mess. |
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| These were fume hoods for all the nasty chemicals involved in jewelry production. |
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| The metal pipes were used for negative pressure (sucking air in) due to the chemicals used. |
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| Not your typical graffiti. |
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| Found some interesting documents from the '80s in a dark and damp room. It seems that vandals don't have time for paperwork. |
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| The roof or floor above seems to have collapsed on the basement, which is below here. |
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| Stairway to the basement, which was heavily flooded and inaccessible due to all the wreckage. |
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| This was painted onto some stalls in a tiny bathroom. |
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| This steel container was just sitting in the hallway. I image it was involved in the production of the jewelry. |
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| We found a safe, an obvious storage spot for the materials needed in fancy jewelry. |
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| The safe was locked shut and the room was encased with cement, so there was no getting in. |
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| The boiler room where we came in |
Used to come here and play airsoft with my friends all the time in the summer before we started high school. Been thinking about taking a visit again, take a walk down memory lane. Sadly these pictures are the only way I can do that now. I just found out the building was torn down and is a pile of rubble as of June 2021. From the pictures I can still see some of our graffiti in the room that we deemed the Spawn room / the room we'd meet up at in between games.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for these pictures.