This is a literary journalism piece I wrote for advanced reporting class.
Walking the abandoned
I met Robert, whose name has been changed due to the illegal natures of his hobby, in a Palatka diner. We had scheduled the meeting after establishing contact on an internet forum devoted to urban exploration.
He took me on a tour of Palatka, the city where he was raised and works today. I didn't ask Robert to show me the traditional sites of the quaint riverside city, but rather the skeletons, the ashamed and forgotten relics of the past.
As we drove down River Street on a Saturday morning, the St. Johns river sparkled and purred.
"I'm taking you to my favorite site in Palatka, one of the more recently abandoned sites," Robert said.
I had never been to Palatka before my visit that day. Driving to our destination, I didn't think about the ghoulish and taboo feeling most people told me I'd get once crossing the bridge into the city. Instead, I noted the sheer beauty of the riverside and the rustic buildings which lined the surprisingly bustling streets.
It appeared on a hill aside the street and I didn't realize it was where we were going until Robert pulled his 1994 white Jeep Grand Cherokee under a carport that stood in the parking lot.
"It barely looks abandoned at first glance," I said.
"Yeah, this is the old Florida Furniture Industries factory, it's only been abandoned for about ten years," Robert said.
Ten years, I thought. That is kind of a long time. Robert quickly reminded me that Palatka has been around a long time and has seen the birth and death of many structures.
Climbing out of the Jeep, Robert carefully eyed the street in both directions and made his way up the hill where the factory sits.
"One of the benefits of having an old, beat up Jeep is that people think its a work truck when they drive by," Robert said. "So I can simply park it right in front of the structure."
Following Robert, the feeling that we were doing something illegal kicked in. My heart raced and my adrenaline pumped. It was exciting. Taking a final look around, Robert hopped a jagged brick structure that once stood 20 feet above the foundation and served as the east wall of the factory. All around us, hundreds of bricks sat in 10-foot high piles. Below us, a cement slab that once served as the factory floor sat in excellent shape. Steel rods curled and stabbed the sky from what remained of the structure's walls.
The factory closed when Florida Furniture Industries went of out business in 2003. The business was owned by two families: the Gardners and the Rions. The factory on River Street once employed 350 workers, according to Howard Gardner III, president at the time the business fell under.
Gardner III, now a real-estate agent at Watson Realty in St. Augustine, said the business failed because of, "Too much competition from imports. It started in the pacific rim, with Taiwan and then the Philippines and ultimately China. They were manufacturing wooden furniture over there."
Continuing on, we scurried behind the main facade of the building, out of the view of the street.
"How do you feel right now?" I asked Robert.
"I feel sad," Robert said. "And lonely, even though you are here. When I was a kid, this thing was functioning and I remember driving by it quite frequently. It once employed many people that I knew."
We continued walking the corpse of the factory. I picked up a brick and examined the lettering on it. Robert quickly told me to drop it.
"One thing that we as urban explorers hold to is to visit the abandoned while making as little an impact as possible," Robert said. "We are not vandals, we are here to observe and take nothing but photographs and leave nothing but footprints."
I heeded his request and quickly dropped the brick with an apology, feeling like a novice. Robert, like most urban explorers, are shepherds of the abandoned. They tend and care to their flock and weep when their sites are altered or hurt by others.
Robert's head darted toward the north wall of the factory, his eyes gleaming. He looked cautious and attent, his stance wide.
"This is a site that I would usually explore at night because of the residential neighborhood in sight over there," Robert said. "Sometimes people will call the police because they are suspicious and get spooked by people. A camera and a hard hat can serve as a good disguise."
I soon realized that there is a definite etiquette that urban explorers follow and strictly adhere to. Their hobby is illegal but their passion for the abandoned exceeds the risk of interaction with law enforcement. In Florida, trespassing is a misdemeanor. Unless you are carrying a weapon, then the charge becomes "armed trespass", a felony.
Officer Todd Bryant of the Palatka Police Department said the department gets a call once in awhile concerning the factory address. Usually neighbors of the factory or people driving by call because of suspicion.
"We've gotten a couple of calls from people who saw or thought they saw someone in the factory," Bryant said. "Usually its nothing."
Moving on, we reached the first intact portion of the factory - the business and executive offices. Looking through the doors, I could see that the inside of the offices were very much still intact. However, the door was locked and wouldn't budge. Looking inside, I had a large desire to go in - to explore and I was annoyed that I couldn't. Robert looked at me, smiled and nodded his head.
"Give it time," he said.
I remembered what Robert told me about taking only photographs and leaving only footprints. We could have easily put a foot into the lock and busted into the building. However, Robert has too much respect for the building. That doesn't mean he won't wait around for someone else to break in.
"Someone will eventually get in there, then we can have our way," he said.
City of Palatka City Clerk, Betsy Driggers, worked at the factory for 12 years. During her first six years, she worked as a customer service coordinator, where she oversaw customer calls and helped route the million dollar truck routes. Driggers worked in the portion of the factory that Robert and I could not gain access to.
"It was a fun place to work and it was like a family," Driggers said. "Where I worked my last six years, on the upper floor in the executive suite, we used to call it the ivory tower.
Driggers said the factory was a busy place with a close knit customer base.
"It was a fast paced, busy, busy, busy, place," Driggers said. "You worked all day but it was a fun place to get up and go to work to."
When she drives by the factory today, Driggers often feels nostalgic.
"I can remember and see where I used to park, the office where I worked in," Driggers said. "You used to see their [FFI] trucks all over the road."
Skipping the offices, we headed toward the wheel house, where much of the factory's mechanics are held. When we stepped under the roof of the structure, I felt uneasy. The rusted steel supports and rotten wood columns looked as if they could give way with one harsh gust. Robert assured me it was safe.
Looking into the gear house, I saw something that amazed me. A massive steel wheel about 30 feet in diameter sat unmoved in a slot, half of it below ground. Connected to the wheel sat a huge piston steam engine. The engine once thrust back and forth, powering the wheel, which in turn powered the factory. All around, fuse and electrical boxes were opened and stripped of their components.
"Looks like scrappers have been here recently," Robert said. "Thats why I don't do this alone."
I asked Robert what a scrapper was. He told me that they are vagabonds who visit abandoned sites to strip them of their valuable materials like copper, steel and other materials used to create control boxes and other specialized devices.
"They can be nasty people, like anyone you find out here," Robert said. "I've never encountered one, but I've heard accounts of people being aggressive."
"What other types of people do you typically see while exploring?" I asked.
"Homeless people, drug addicts, vagabonds, kids looking for a place to smoke pot, all types of people," he said. "The thing around here you have to watch out for are meth labs."
Robert doesn't smoke but said he carries cigarettes wherever he goes so he can offer something to people who become aggressive. He told me to remember that sometimes when you enter an abandoned, you are entering someone's home. And sometimes, you aren't welcomed.
It was hard for me to imagine this place as a thriving factory To me, it looked like a decaying corpse that surrendered to the womb of nature long ago. However, in its prime, the factory churned out millions of dollars of furniture each year.
"During the peak years, around 1997 or 1998, we put out 55 million dollars of wholesale furniture in a year," Gardner said.
So what happened to the 350 workers who lost their jobs with the factories closing?
Nancy Jo Southwell used to be a secretary at the factory. She now works at Smith's Product Company in Palatka. She said many former employees have yet to find jobs and not all the employees were reabsorbed into the job market.
"When I pass by there today, I feel sad because it [factory] employed 350 people in Putnam County," Southwell said. "Many of them had no education but were hard workers and the most dedicated people, you could count on them every day."
Robert and I ventured into another room past the wheal house. Inside was another structure that truly amazed me. It was the factory's furnace. It stood high above the machinery floor, almost grazing the ceiling. A massive chimney emptied out from the top of it, thrusting through the roof and into the sky. This structure once powered the steam engine.
"Hey, come over here, stick you head in there," Robert said.
I followed his voice and found the loading window there the furnace workers used to put the wood fuel into. The cavity inside the furnace was still laced with thick, grey ash.
"I'd rather not put my head in there," I said.
Then I did something arguably pretty stupid. Attached to the furnace was a steel ladder that led all the way up to the roof. So I started my ascent.
"That doesn't look very safe, Robert said.
"You know what to do if I fall," I said.
He laughed and shook his head as I smiled down on him, getting higher off the ground with each step.
"Yeah, leave, call the police, and tell them I heard screams from inside the factory as I was walking by," he said.
I thanked him for reminding me that we were doing something illegal and right now, it was every man for himself if one of us chose to do something stupid. Which I was. But I eventually reached the top and snapped a cool photograph of sunlight pouring into the factory through the roof. All in all, it definitely was not worth the risk.
We were almost ready to leave the structure when we saw a small opening on the north side of the factory. That particular wall of the factory was made of red brick and was covered in tentacles of green ivy. Peering inside the opening, we saw hundreds of pounds of wood chips.
"Looks like this is where they kept the fuel," Robert said.
As we were looking around, we noticed a car stopped across the massive lot with a man looking at us o his telephone. Calmly, Robert suggested that we leave and come back another time. I agreed. I knew this wasn't the last time I'd see this structure.
As for the future of the building, Normand Juteras, the property owner, could not be reached. However, Thad Crowe, the planning director for Palatka, said Juteras plans on potentially doing a few things with the property.
"I heard they may try and bring back furniture industries," Crowe said. "I also heard they might turn the place into a residential block, or condominiums."
When Robert heard about the potential plans, he sneered and said he has better ones.
"If I had an absurd amount of money, I'd keep the old structures and turn this place into a paintball arena," Robert said. "Wouldn't that be awesome?"
Word Count: 2080
