Standing within the immense turbine hall at the defunct Richmond Generating Station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania an ear drum pounding sound filled the gargantuan space which houses the school bus size turbines laying lifeless like a trio of freshly poached elephants murdered across the African savannah. The sound though, it repeated again and again; clearly that of metal-on-metal smashing and bashing nonstop, echoing and reverberating up as the sound waves pierced through the fragile cement ceiling above, the vibrations sending chunks of cement crashing to the ground below only adding the the smash, crash symphony of music. I let my ears guide me, like a blood hound's nose, closer and closer to the origin of the sound. As I got nearer the smashing and pounding became overly tremendous, rattling the booger-like earwax right out from within my impacted eardrums. Just ahead I spotted a gentleman standing atop the edge of the furthest most turbine from my presence. I watched him bashing relentlessly at the iron plate covering the slain industrial elephant. Like a windmill equipped with blades of sledgehammers, the man pounded and pounded at the steel encasing covering the turbine, going at it with near sexual intensity. Then, "CLANGGGG", the heavy steel cover fell off from the turbine as it plummeted into the ground below sending a slight shockwave across the metal grating beneath my boots shaking bits of jagged rust pieces to the ground like a gritty iron rain. And just like that, the price of the man's hard work was revealed in the form of the precious spools of intertwined copper wiring glowing like ivory, yet easily exposed. And so is the story of how the industrial elephants lost their tusks from the poacher. Yet their carcasses remain still to this day, rotting and rusting away as one of the greatest industrial kills known to man, littered with smoke bomb shell maggots. (Fun Fact: There are actually two people pictured sitting within this photo; spot them and you'll win the mere satisfaction of having accomplished something with your life).
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