Between Darkness & Light | Greenwich-Mohawk Industrial Site

The former Greenwich-Mohawk site in Brantford, Ontario, is why I enjoyed exploring the Indiana Army Ammunition Plant. While G-M is far smaller in scale than INAAP, they are both massive industrial sites that sat empty for decades and have become symbols of almost the city’s industrial decline. It also gave a post-apocalyptic vibe. I never actively sought sites with such a vibe, but I enjoyed the ones that did. I only visited the site once, and the best part was that the visit was legal, but we still got into trouble.

The industrial growth on this site encompasses not one but three different companies on the same parcel of land. But all three and the industrial growth of Brantford as a whole is thanks to the Grand River Navigation Company. Founded in 1832, GRNC was one of many companies formed to construct canals and make many rivers running through Ontario navigable. The trouble with the area is that it was also home to a large community of Mohawk peoples who had been granted this land in the 18th Century for services to the Crown during the American Revolution. When the canal through the area was completed, the English settlers received ample compensation, whereas the Six Nations received nothing. The opening of the canal in 1848 and the arrival of the railway in 1854 began the rapid transformation and industrialisation of the city. The rich surrounding agricultural industry would spur the manufacturing of farm equipment. By the 1870s, Allison Harris & Son and Brantford Plow Works would begin to dominate the manufacturing of these implements. Both companies grew quickly; Harris & Son would outgrow their original location and, in an 1891 merger, form Massey-Harris and relocate to a massive new plant on Greenwich Street, while the Brantford Plow Works would incorporate in 1882 becoming Cockshutt Plow Works Inc. and would construct a new headquarters and factory on Mohawk in 1903, and eventually convince the Adams Wagon Company to relocate to Mohawk as well in the first decade of the 20th Century. Massey-Harris and Cockshutt quickly grew to become the major employers in the city. Both would provide manufacturing might for the Canadian War Effort in the First and Second World Wars, producing ammunition, plane parts, trucks and tanks. Each would help the city weather the worst of the Great Depression, providing continued employment even on the darkest days. But the post-war would bring some changes; Massey-Harris would merge with another company, becoming Massey-Harris-Ferguson, eventually dropping the Harris, leaving only Massey-Ferguson and Cockshutt would merge into Whites Farm Equipment with the Cockshutt name being dropped in the 1970s.

Adams Wagon Company would also soldier on, becoming part of Cockshutt and later Whites. However, the late 1970s and into the 1980s brought a decline in the manufacturing industry in Ontario. The site also became a hotbed for environmental action as, in 1979, industrial waste had been detected in the local water, especially on the Six Nations reserve nearby. It was only a short time until the downturn’s effects reached Brantford. Massey-Ferguson and Whites would close within years of each other, leaving some 7,000 unemployed in the city and starting a domino effect into the 1990s. The former Adams plant was the last to close. The massive factories were shuttered and left abandoned, but the site saw some legal and illegal activities. The first fire ripped through a recycling facility in 1992, spurring an environmental assessment. Testing revealed high levels of heavy metals, solvents, petroleum hydro-carbons, PCBs, and asbestos levels. But before any cleanup occurred, a second fire involving illegally dumped tyres burned in 1997. It wasn’t until a third fire in 2005 that the city took action and seized the property in 2007. The grand plan was for a complete cleanup and adaptive reuse into a mixed-use neighbourhood with residential and commercial buildings, a community centre, and using the 1903 Cockshutt offices as a home for the Industrial Heritage Centre. However, the movement was slow, and the city dumped its initial partner in 2011. Protection of the Cockshutt offices came in 2012 to prevent demolition, as clean-up started in 2013. The damage to the site was extensive, and almost every building would be knocked down. Sadly, the Cockshutt offices, having been left far too long, were also knocked down in 2014, leaving only some of the elements of the front facades. The land languished in limbo until January 2023, when efforts again began to start up to see a revitalisation and hopefully a restart of the remediation and creation of the Mohawk Lake district.

I only visited the site twice. The first time I came near the spot was on a dark night coming in from Hamilton to check out a ‘new’ location. We had successfully gotten in to the Cockshutt section of the plant, I do have photos but they were never uploaded, but I have them and they are pretty terrible. So we wanted to get access to the other section and approached from the other side of the site, trying to find a way past the fence, and came across a group of three teenagers. One had decided to punch through a window to try and get access and ended up with a rather nasty cut across his hand. He tried to stop the blood with a plastic bag. I stopped the car and got out to assist. I wasn’t alone and had other friends with me, so I would not have bothered. After getting him stabilised, I called 911 and got paramedics out to check him out, as he was pretty sluggish and pale at that point. Then, I drove him to the hospital for further assistance, as the ambulance ride would not be covered by OHIP because it was a non-emergency. It was only recently that I realised that we did manage to get into the Cockshutt side of the area after I found some old photos in a folder labelled Cockshutt. Then, a year or so later, I learned that the site was opened up for a tour on a single day, so I headed out on a rather wet and overcast Saturday. I wanted to get there as early as possible, and by the time I arrived, a large group had already gathered. The site is vast, so it wasn’t too bothersome. Once the gates opened, we signed the waivers, checked in, and were told we could go outside and inside any open building. And by open, the organisers explained, was an open door or hole in the wall. Nice and easy. That’s where the trouble started; I got into the first building with no problem, then a second. In the second one, security approached us and told us we were trespassing and to get out. I informed them of the criteria, and they said the building had been secured. Sure enough, across the massive garage door, I walked through, and there was now tape and a big keep-out sign. The visit turned into a game of cat-and-mouse as we tried to stay one step ahead of security while they tried to stay one step ahead of us. Eventually, after a few hours, I got tired of being kicked out and threatened. As I left, I complained to the organisers about this, and the truth came out: they had secured only partial permission, but a second group had brought in another security firm that had been dogging the group. While it did damper the trip, I still had much fun. Because in UrbEx, sometimes it is just as fun to get permission. Sadly, there never was a second trip, as by 2012, the site had been slated for demolition, remediation, and redevelopment.

I wish I could have had at least one or two more trips to this location or a longer time with more gear with my single trip. But those are my wishes, and having looked at these photos again, I am still happy with these results even after taking them in 2011. The one nice thing about having these shots in 2011 is that it was post-Montreal in 2010, a key point in my photographic journey that helped me figure out what I like in a photo. I use classic composition techniques, such as flat compositions, leading lines, and doors and windows. But I don’t stick with only these; there are also some detailed shots of old electrical infrastructure, and not being afraid of including some people in my photos. The people I had little choice to include because there were a lot of other folks photographing and exploring the site. And even in some of my leading line shots, I had the lines leading off-centre. While most of my work here is with the ultra-wide lens, I did go with the 50mm lens in a few shots, even for the big-empty photo style. But my favourites from the trip are my Rolleiflex in black & white. Even in 2011, I was still mainly shooting in colour film, but I can probably say that this was the start of using more black & white film in my explorations than colour.

The story of the Greenwich-Mohawk is a snapshot of what Brantford went through during the many years of deindustrialisation. The scars are still present in the city if you wander further into the downtown. While some have come back, you can see it everywhere: large swaths of urban blite, empty land, and the unhoused receiving assistance from the downtown churches and community support. While the city has come back slightly, you can get a better picture by watching the film Silent Hill, partly filmed in downtown Brantford to represent the titular town before any efforts were made to restore the downtown. At this point, all I can hope for is that rebuilding the site into modern and affordable residential units can move forward because the city, if not the province, needs it. You can look through all my photos over in the Flickr Album.

Glossary of Terms
Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs): A highly carcinogenic organochlorine compound, formerly used in industrial and consumer products such as carbonless copy paper, heat transfer fluids, and as dielectric and coolant fluids for electrical equipment. Production of PCBs was banned in the United States by the Toxic Substances Control Act in 1976 and internationally by the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants in 2001.

Petroleum Hydrocarbons (PHCs): Petroleum hydrocarbon (PHC) contamination is one of the most common environmental issues encountered by environmental professionals. The complete restoration of sites with petroleum contamination in soils and groundwater is challenging because PHCs in the form of light non-aqueous phase liquids (LNAPLs) can become trapped in soil pores as an immobile, residual phase; and some of the chemical compounds in LNAPL can transfer out of the residual LNAPL and migrate along potential exposure pathways in groundwater, soil, sediment, and air. Fortunately, most PHC constituents can biodegrade either in aerobic or anaerobic environments, making PHC contaminated sites somewhat easier to remediate than typical chlorinated solvents or metals contaminated sites.

Asbestos: Asbestos is a group of naturally occurring, toxic, carcinogenic and fibrous silicate minerals. Used to create flexible objects that resist fire, including napkins, but, in the modern era, companies began producing consumer goods containing asbestos on an industrial scale. The risk of asbestos has been recognized; the use of asbestos is completely banned in 66 countries and strictly regulated in many others.

Heavy Metals: Chromium, arsenic, cadmium, mercury, and lead have the greatest potential to cause harm on account of their extensive use, the toxicity of some of their combined or elemental forms, and their widespread distribution in the environment. Hexavalent chromium, for example, is highly toxic as are mercury vapour and many mercury compounds. These five elements have a strong affinity for sulfur; in the human body they usually bind, via thiol groups, to enzymes responsible for controlling the speed of metabolic reactions. The resulting sulfur-metal bonds inhibit the proper functioning of the enzymes involved; human health deteriorates, sometimes fatally. Hexavalent Chromium and arsenic are carcinogens; cadmium causes a degenerative bone disease; and mercury and lead damage the central nervous system.