The Lunch Room

There is something especially enjoyable about taking the bus to the plant. And something about visiting the plant in bad weather: cold, and a heavy load of fresh snow is preferable. The more you have to suffer to attain something, or survive the journey to your destination (and back), the sweeter it is.

As of this writing, I have taken the bus three times, though I am about to embark on #5 this morning.

• 5/14/21
  • RG to loop: MD-W
  • loop to South Shore: ME
• 5/21/21
  • RG to loop: MD-W
  • loop to South Shore: ME
• 7/23/21
  • RG to loop: MD-W
  • loop to South Shore: Divvy (cycling)
• 1/1/22
  • RG to loop: MD-W
  • loop to South Shore: Red line

I don’t know why this is more fun to do during the week, or why it would NOT be as delightful on a Saturday. I guess I am just set in my ways. I have now taken a number of methods to get to the South Shore (where I can pick up bus# 71). The Red Line is the most direct, this also allows for taking the entire bus route, end to end (69th St to 112th) which is satisfying in it’s own way. Taking the Metra to downtown is most convenient as I can walk to the station but the Blue Line (reachable via the Cumberland station, via car or Pace #331) is more direct. The Metra Electric line deposits you just a block from a bus stop (at 71st and Exchange), but it is a lengthy walk through the loop to get to Millennium Station or Van Buren from Union Station.

It took about 2 1/2 hours door to door, but via this method it was probably less than 2 blocks of walking total. For reference, this would be about a 35 mile drive. And you can’t beat the price!

Once the bus gets south of 106th Street, I don’t think I have ever seen anyone else remain onboard but me. Today the driver even asked where I was going – he couldn’t believe that I’d possibly want to continue. I pointed out the plant and said “that’s where I’m going”.

This was my 34th trip to the plant, with this visit I have surpassed 50 hours on site. It’s funny how after so many times, sometimes something will suddenly stand out to you, and you need to have another peek. Today I was focused on the electric shop. That naming convention needs some qualification as it was ‘an’ electric shop, sort of a backup to the ‘real’ electric shop which was adjacent to the main shop. Those buildings were down the road from the storehouse, toward the coal handling office, but both were demolished in 2007. Originally, this building was a cafeteria – where they actually had a kitchen and cooks. By the early 1970s, that operation was no more and eventually it was used for storage and when enough electrical components were accumulated….alas, the electric shop

This building is just north of the gatehouse and is more than half way collapsed. You can head up the stairs to a precipice that doesn’t offer much besides a view of Torrence Ave, as the floor otherwise has collapsed below along with the roof. There is one small room east of the stairwell that is partially accessible, but that’s it. Or is it?

For some reason I was drawn to climb around on the wreckage. I have often thought about what loot might be hiding under the thousands of pounds of lumber and brick. I peeked this way and that, and noticed an area that I thought I could crawl under. I saw something colorful about 10′ in, so of course I got on my belly and snaked my way in there.

The colorful stuff I saw was binders for some random non-coke plant specific equipment (motors, transformers, etc) but I did find a huge thermometer, brand new and still in the box. How on earth did it survive so long?

So into my pocket that went, a worthy relic to bring home. I continued to dig but all the binders I found were just more boilerplate manuals. I smashed open the black box in the center of the photo (didn’t take much force) and it contained yet more garbage binders. Finally, I did spot a black Acme binder which was partially frozen to the earth and partially obstructed by other frozen junk. So there is laid, flat on my gut, punching and ripping at some ice blocks of what was most likely unredeemable trash, left for more than 20 years in the wild. All the while under an umbrella of rotten timber and rusted steel, while I wondered if the very binder I was picking at was the rib bone connected to the leg bone connected to the thing that held it all up. But out it came, shortly after so did I, surely never to return!

Thank god it was viable documentation! Time sheets for hourly employees for this very building. The pages had absorbed some moisture but 18 months of archeology of similar things have taught me to differentiate between what will dry out and what won’t – and this will. The binder is in good shape but the back cover is badly warped as the medium inside was bulged with moisture. I packed it in my bag and carried on with the day’s missions and plan to address these issues later.

I creeped around the east side of the wreckage, closer to the fence line and Torrence Ave, then turned left around the north edge of the building. There is a large glass block window which is of course partially smashed. Suddenly I had a revelation. For a couple seconds I was confused and wasn’t sure what part of the building I was peering into. But I spotted something colorful – yellow and green – and knew I had not seen that before. The window sill is only about 3′ off the ground so I cleared the broken glass and snow away and inside I went.

I knew at that moment that I had not only never been in this room, but that somehow I did not know it had existed. When I saw the unbroken window in the green and yellow door, as well as in the window to the door’s right, I knew that few others had been in here either. No graffiti anywhere to be seen. I was in the lunch room.

The door could not close as some lumber was in the doorway. There is another huge glass block window in the east wall (I came in through the north window). The room was filled with rubbish and the drop ceiling was partially caving in. But alas it is only thin plywood. A florescent fixture was hanging by its flexible conduit and another long stretch of the same hung a few feet away. Using my knife and elbow grease I tore down both, along with a huge stretch of the drop ceiling. I fed all this junk through the door way into the landfill outside. I started grabbing all the broken glass block and chucking it out the window or the door. Before long I started unearthing the things you’d expect to find in such a room: silverware, Tuppeware, coffee mugs, cups. I found a coffee pot and a basket from a drip machine as well as what I think is most of a coffee grinder. I cleaned out the cupboard in the west wall and started putting it all away.

I worked like this for 10-15 minutes until the room was pretty well cleared out. On my hands and knees looking for signs of the past I came across some chess pieces. At first I thought it was just a couple but I found more quickly, and more still in the corner of the cupboard. When I was done, I was only short a knight and a couple pawns on the black side. I remembered a 2×12 I had forced through the window so I extracted it for a board.

I put the pieces in a coffee can and deposited it in the cupboard. I knew this would make a hell of a clubhouse for future visits. This summer when I stop by for another night shift I know where I’ll be posted up.

I knew I needed a chair to sit on and maybe a table to hold some beers or other loot. Well I knew where the table was – I rescued it from battery #2 long, long ago and hid it in the remains of a small building in the ovens department. It would be a hell of a walk but that’s my idea of fun.

Around the same time I found my standing desk in the BP office (which continues to serve me well) I found a similar items laying in the wreckage of battery #2. It is built from inferior materials, and doesn’t have some of the fancier bits mine does (like a drawer). Worse for wear from sitting in the elements, I assume this was at one time inside the coal bunker, probably bench level and thrown out the door by some idiot. I carried it to the HKC shack and deposited it there more than a year ago. Should I need it, it would at least stay dry. So I went for a walk south and carried it back. I remember the hell of carrying my (much heavier) standing desk in the opposite direction, I took about 10 breaks on that walk and still thought I might have a cardiac event. But this one is much lighter. My right arm still feels like jelly as I type this about 12 hours later but I survived the ordeal.

I found a solid bucket (with lid!) which makes for a great seat. And for now, my office is fully furnished for future visits. With that done, I went around looking for more fun activities in the area, which I had neglected for so long. The pump house is a very simple rectangular brick building closer to the gate house and the fence line. It has a door on the NW corner which is totally impacted by debris from the collapse of the electric shop. So like any other well adjusted 44 year old, I got down on my hands and knees in the freezing temperatures and started digging like a gopher. First I had to dislodge a massively long 2×6 (full of rusty nails, of course), then a large piece of plywood (reinforced with 2×4). Both were partially frozen to the ground, each other, and some unknown other rubbish but finally I worked them free and cast them aside. Then came the bricks – lots of bricks. A hundred pounds I figure. They don’t freeze to things as well as porous wood so this went pretty fast. And pretty soon, the door swung open for the first time in more then a decade, I am sure.

Some bricks at the SW corner have collapsed (you can see the light coming through this void in the photo above) so it is possible to crawl inside but I never bothered. Walking inside I wasn’t disappointed with the lack of things inside, I was already aware after peeking in the broken window long ago. A jackpot was never the incentive.

I got home after a long drive and took apart my binder to begin it’s rehabilitation. First up was to remove all the pages and leave them out to dry. I was further delighted to find how little these were damaged, this is quite salvageable. I don’t know that I will scan these or add to the Document Archive; my goal is to leave the entire binder intact and add it to my library.

The binder was another story. Certainly some rust on the rungs but mechanically it snaps pleasingly open and closed. Hopefully once I replace the pages it will snap one last time, then never again. I put a ton of weights on the back cover to flatten it out, hopefully this works. I’ll check Monday morning, after about 36 hours.

The contents of this binder for which I labored not only to attain, but also to re-animate are a bit dull to be honest. In my more lucrative era in the main office, I probably would have done a catch and release on this type of content. But this binder came at substantial personal risk – I would not recommend crawling into the area which birthed this item to me. It will make a hell of a trophy on my shelf. Hopefully future weeks can occasionally be as rewarding. If not with artifacts, then with the even more priceless experiences.

After leaving the binder under weights for 36 hours it flattened out pretty well. I separated the pages one by one once they were plenty dry. I ended up only putting 2 years worth back into the binder – this was way over stuffed. I did scan a small pile of them but not for the daily time logs – the notes on the back were far more interesting. You can find them in the Document Archive (“Maintenance Dept Daily Logs”)

[UPDATE: With the help of my friend Steve Buckner, we very swiftly located the owner of the chess set! Expect more from Bill very soon!]