This great Sanborn Fire Insurance Map makes identifying the various buildings of the Lemp Brewery much easier, though I think several buildings must have been built after this digitized copy was published originally.
As can be seen, the upper right hand portion of the brewery grounds was kept open for rail tracks, allowing beer to be loaded directly from elevators that brought the beer up from the cellars.
In the shadow of the reinforced concrete grain silos, the small building I had shown before apparently was the locomotive house for the Lemp's railroad.
The light was really beautiful on the Saturday I was out at the Lemp Brewery.
I love how the neighborhood surrounding the brewery is still right across the street, and not blocks away because of surface parking lots, like so many "urban" industrial concerns nowadays. Can you imagine living thirty feet from a grain silo in the middle of a city?
This great Sanborn Fire Insurance Map makes identifying the various buildings of the Lemp Brewery much easier, though I think several buildings must have been built after this digitized copy was published originally.
As can be seen, the upper right hand portion of the brewery grounds was kept open for rail tracks, allowing beer to be loaded directly from elevators that brought the beer up from the cellars.
In the shadow of the reinforced concrete grain silos, the small building I had shown before apparently was the locomotive house for the Lemp's railroad.
The light was really beautiful on the Saturday I was out at the Lemp Brewery.
I love how the neighborhood surrounding the brewery is still right across the street, and not blocks away because of surface parking lots, like so many "urban" industrial concerns nowadays. Can you imagine living thirty feet from a grain silo in the middle of a city?
Can you imagine how much the City stunk due to all of the foundries, breweries, abattoirs, sewage, etc., back in oh, say, 1890 or so? As for the locomotive house you mention, I don't think that building would have been able to accommodate even the steam locomotives of that era. I didn't look at the map, so I may be wrong. But I can't see the length of a locomotive fitting in there. Power house? Don't know. But I get a kick out of trying to figure it out. Nice viewing. Tks
ReplyDeleteI agree that it seems like a small building for locomotives, but the map labels it "locomotive house" and has train tracks leading into it. I suspect they were small, railyard engines that would push around small numbers of cars around the complex.
ReplyDeleteYou're right, the smell must have been interesting.
Ok, I took a look at the map, which I should have done in the first place. So I think you're right about the smaller scale of the locomotives used on the property. I had forgotten about that type. On another note, it's rather astonishing that so many of the buildings remain. With regards to the smell, I wonder if people realize how much the regulations of the last half-century or so reduced or eliminated not only the smell, but the nasty, toxic crap--which probably caused the stench in the first place--which went up the stack or down a pipe to the river.
ReplyDeleteI agree that a lot of people probably take our relatively clean air quality for granted. There's definitely no coal rains any more like used happen back in the day, or soot blackouts.
ReplyDeleteI think every Lemp building does remain, except for the houses that once sat along Broadway. I saw a recent demolition permit for "Building 20" but I don't know which one that is.
Hmmm...well, if you go by the letters of the alphabet as numbers, and since the letter "T" is the 20th letter, then it appears that the Bottle Wash building is to be razed. Not "T1", which is the much larger building to the, what, east? I guess that demo by neglect thing has really caught with property owners. "Oh, oh, the roof has collapsed, now the whole structure is unsafe!""Um", we may ask, "so why didn't you repair the roof five years ago by at least throwing some tar on it? Or something. You douche."
ReplyDeleteI don't think it's Building T that they wanted demolished; I was inside that building and it's an operating antique business. I'm wondering if the demolition if merely of interior fixtures and not of the actual building.
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