Departure
Departure January the 5th.
Destination: American Dream.
Car at the garage for a full review.
House being cleared, and emptied.
Luggage initially promised to be light , keep growing. Unattended ones will be reported.
Maps are on the floor.
The continent seems to be bigger each day.
Or how to embrace the American Dream.
Fasten your seat belt.
Welcome on board.
I wish you all a fabulous BIG New Year Eve with large dreams!
Claire
The Big Lebow
I fell in love with a building in Baltimore a while ago. I went there a few times, tried to find my way in, only to face the abandoned factory closed. The big Lebow factory, located in Greenwood neighborhood, was built on the early twentieth century. Hopefully, this very last day I met Jon who was working there, who let me in. That is the last day before the place will be emptied , and turned into the Baltimore Design School. Or, when serendipity allows the doors to be open right before the end.
Here is the last breath of the Big Lebow. The last hours of more than a century of life.
It is a mighty brick structure, U shaped around the block, still in its juice since 1985 when everybody left. The clothing factory had been there since 1950. People left everything one day , deserting the place in stillness since then. That was 23 years ago.
Among dust, and decay I could feel the presence of what used to be a successful premier man clothing manufacture. Full carts of buttons ready to be sewed on a coat, red threads of cotton, hundred of coat hangers waiting for their suits to be worn by some successful businessmen .
Once an active American Dream after World War II, the Clothing Company is now offering stiff skeletons of raincoats frozen in time in this lethargic space. Everything is in pause mode.
It is a very moving experience to step on these cracking floors. Imagine yourself entering by mistake in your grand mother’s secret attic, with a helmet and a flashlight, finding your way through dust and darkness. There is plenty of room to fantasise about what used to be here. Treasures of memories are sweating through the walls. Several hundred of people used to work here. I can feel their presence. Drawers still full of alphabetical files with the names of clients like Burberry , handwritten shifts schedules, and patterns of clothes are waiting for some gifted hands to take shape. Rusted irons, sewing machines standing like ghost of this economic glory, staring at me.
It is now silent. Except for the workers who are just starting to turn this building into the future Baltimore Design School. This is the very last day before the end of the Big Lebow. These doors were closed almost 25 years ago, sitting in the dark ever since then. These pictures are clearly the last ones shedding some lights on the Big Lebow.
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