Tour of the Kodak Factory - on youtube

[avb]

"NegativeFeedback" posted this on youtube if you're interested. Here is the Link:


I'm amazed at the size of the campus. Wish I could see a video of the factory during the height of film production, too.

 

[Photo Engineer]

BTDT. You should have seen it in the past.

The plant was enormous. The right facing west was all paper including the paper mill and paper manufacturing. The left facing west was all film coating. The film support making was about 2 miles west of there in another branch of Kodak Park, called KP west.

The original Research Labs sat between them in the center, but the new labs were about 1/2 mile North. This was a brutal walk in the midst of a Rochester winter when you had a meeting there.

My Office was always in B-59, the original KRL. There were coating machines on virtually every floor of KRL, devoted to different tasks.

Have fun.

PE

 

[Prof_Pixel]

There used to be a lot more buildings in Kodak Park. Here's a short video clip I made of the implosion of the building
complex I spent much of my career at Kodak in.

 

[AgX]

I'm amazed at the size of the campus.

Have a look at the major Agfa plant in Antwerp. That plant is huge and still a fraction of what Kodak Park once was.

Also the Big Three all had several plants.
All in all the photochemical industry once employed hundredthousands of people.

 

[twelvetone12]

When I visited KP recently I was amazed by two things: 1) the size of the campus. They even have a private railway with Kodak-colored locos! 2) What is not there anymore. The overhead tubing outside from time to time would do a turn and delimit the perimeter of an ex building. In any case what is still there is impressive. I hope they will post some shots of B38. The quantity of technology and the sheer dimension there is truly stunning. The last thing that impressed me is the huge, empty and closed parking lot.

 

[AgX]

They even have a private railway with Kodak-colored locos!

Quite some of the big plants of the photochemical industry had railways connections.
And the the Agfa Wolfen plant also had own locomotives and the respective shebang.

 

[Sal Santamaura]

That piece perfectly conveys the challenge facing Eastman Kodak. Although one of those visitors was using what appears to be a Mamiya 7, loaded with what's likely (based on his still images' appearance) Portra, the whole thing was shot on video, not Vision stock. Never mind the almost total elimination of cinema print film with digital projection, even origination is largely digital.

 

[Photo Engineer]

I'll have to amend my post. B59 was the second research building. When Dr. Mees was hired, they established research in B3 but moved it to B59 which was constructed in several stages to complete the building of 8 floors in an "O" shape with a center atrium which was not really used.

In one of Mees books he shows a diagram of one floor of B59 which is titled 1st floor. In actuality, it is the 5th floor.

In the video of the implosion of the 2 buildings, I was there over by the fence. I was with Bob Shanebrook.

PE

 

[Lee Rust]

I've lived in Rochester now for almost 35 years and have never actually been inside the Kodak plant, even back when they gave public tours. The closest I've gotten is inside the Kodak Theatre which was featured in the video. Oh, well..

Back in the day, I cannot imagine that Eastman Kodak would ever have allowed such a motley crew of casual tourists to wander about, even accompanied by a staffer as they were. Now, it appears that nobody really cares all that much. The technology is mature and obsolete, the processes are well known and they have been intimately documented by retired EK photo engineers like Ron, Bob and Fred. Manufacturing still goes on, but at a very low level compared to what the systems were designed for and everything is staffed by a skeleton crew. The random video glimpses of ancient buildings, desolate snow-swept infrastructure, empty rooms and vacant spaces left me with a sad feeling that the remains of Kodak Park are now little more than an industrial museum, a gigantic and irreplaceable relic. It's been a swift transition here in Rochester. Just fifteen years or so. It seems like only yesterday that the vast parking lots were jammed with cars, the Park hummed with three daily shifts and the giant stacks belched steam, coal smoke and methylene chloride 24 hours a day.

So Fuji is mostly getting out of film. That's good for Kodak, I guess, because every little bit of market share helps. Unfortunately, the old EK machinery and plumbing won't last forever... the whole system needs to be totally re-configured and re-built on a much smaller scale if these unique products are going to continue to be produced in coming decades. If not, then Ilford and a handful of others in Europe, Russia and China will be the last ones standing in chemical photography.

 

[canuhead]

is that Matt S. giving the tour ?