RUBBISHGOESHERE / DUMP

About a month after part of the abandoned Brach’s candy factory complex was blown up for the filming of The Dark Knight (which I have yet to see), some friends and I decided to take a tour of the site and look at the damage done.

“Gotham General Hospital”, September 2007. You can see the remains of the blown up section on the right side of the photo, at the base of the main building.

Up close, what was left of the former office building that was destroyed for the movie.

The guard house, part of the typical security measures at Brach’s. For years the site, which was shuttered in 2004, was sitting wide open.  Just walk right in, or drive your truck in and load it up with stolen scrap metal. With the impending demolition of the complex, fences have been repaired and a guard or two are sort of watching the place now.

Flame cannons. These were filled with gasoline and set up to shoot flames out the windows of the main building to make the explosion appear even more explosion-like.  More fire, bigger flames, etc.  I was surprised to see that these were left behind.

The flame cannons were set up in what was the employee locker room, which looked nothing like this before the explosion.

Boom.

LEFT: A not very good photo of the structure that was blown up, a small office building and walkway that led to the main building. RIGHT: A better photo of the structure that was blown up, after it was blown up.  It’s hard to tell in the photo, but the entire parking lot was resurfaced for the movie.  Before the film crews came, it was all cracked asphalt and weeds.

And that is that.

Of course there is footage of the explosion all over YouTube, for those who enjoy watching crappy low-resolution videos.

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edit 3/6/09:  New photos, and I finally saw The Dark Knight about two months after I wrote this essay.