Although Tacony doesn’t share any borders with Frankford, we’re covering Hidden City’s Exhibit over at the Disston Saw Works anyway. It was definitely worth the trip. Now I’m pissed I waited so long to check out one of the installations until the last weekend, cause I’d have liked to check out the others. But it was really something getting into a working factory and seeing what industry really means. While I was going to Drexel, I used to live in Tacony at Edmund and Longshore so I’ve known about the similarities between Tacony and Frankford for quite a while. Both were titans of Philadelphia commerce and literally workshops of the world. And while I’ve had the phenomenal opportunity to get into Frankford’s Globe Dye Works to document it’s resurection, Disston’s Saw Works is still churning out product as Disston Precision.
The Disston facility was big as balls, and there were two different buildings open for viewing, one was the machine shop, apparently where most of precision stuff is made, and other was the art installation. John Phillips and Carolyn Healy really did a nice job.
Here’s Disston Precision:
And here’s the exhibit:
and of course, rafters.
[link] http://www.disstonprecision.com/
[link] http://www.hiddencityphila.org/events/Disston_Saw_Works
