Travel

Abandoned Industrial Sites of the East Coast (PHOTOS)

1/96
An abandoned building of unknown usage is photographed in Washington, D.C. (Liz Roll)

1/96
An abandoned building of unknown usage is photographed in Washington, D.C. (Liz Roll)

Up and down the East Coast, skeletons of the past remain in the form of crumbling abandoned factories, shuttered for decades. The buildings are used for little else than a canvas for graffiti artists and stomping grounds for urban explorers. One such explorer, photographer Liz Roll, compiled a collection of her images of abandoned industrial sites from Virginia to New Jersey.

While Roll kept some of her locations undisclosed, some of her most captivating images are from the former Hoen Lithograph Building in East Baltimore. The factory once printed everything from baseball cards, to National Geographic maps, to Dr. Seuss books, according to the Baltimore Sun. Last spring, the city began renovations of the building in order to repurpose the site into the Center for Neighborhood Innovation, with hopes that breathing new life into the building will spark growth in the area.

(MORE: Photos Capture the Nostalgia of Abandoned Americana)

Roll also shot photos of an abandoned southern New Jersey glass factory. South Jersey's Pine Barrens, rich with wood, sand, soda ash and silica, is the birthplace of American glassblowing.

Other sites photographed include Carrie Furnace, a derelict former blast furnace in Swissvale, Pennsylvania, Baltimore's abandoned Porcelain Enamel Manufacturing Corporation (PEMCO) and the Old Overholt Rye Whiskey Distillery, left to rot in West Overton, Pennsylvania. Click through the slideshow above to see these abandoned locations and more throughout the East Coast.