Guarding Neville Island Shit Holes

Old Dravo Products rear View

 After the Affordable Furniture detail For CPP  I ended up down on Neville Island  in the middle of Ohio River  Named after General Neville a Revolutionary War Hero .
Once all fertile Farms  and is now the Eastern half  all industrial  Plants  and other a mix of residential and small business.
Home to Dravo Corporation and PDM Pittsburgh Demoine Steel
and a large Cement manufacturing facility.  There all closed and gone now Victims of the steel mill demise.  The Island exploded with plants during the wars and the Dravo Boat yard made LST  Landing Ship Tanks there during the war , which required a pass to even get on the island .Back then no pass and you could have been shot.

Old Dravo Products

I worked 3 posts on the Island and still work on the island to this day as I provide Alarm and Electrical services to several of the small company's which opened up where Dravo and PDM where once located.

My first post was at the Dravo Products  Building a 3 block long complex which was at one time the Graham Nut & Bolt Company which closed during the depression . 
They made Steel Grating for cat walks  here and outlying buildings held a truck terminal and a repair and refurbishment shop for American Lafrance  Fire trucks which closed along with the terminal.

Guard Shack I sat in Vulcan Materials 

The place was a total shit hole I stopped at the guard shack at the main office to get a radio and keys and then proceeded a 1/4 mile to Dravo Products. This place was big  and you toured it every 2 hours and checked in hourly with the Dravo Guard  on the radio a very large hand held but it was much better than only having one phone to run to if you had a problem. The rats in this place where as big as cats you always had to be mindful of them ,when walking along the river bank.
The place was covered in inches worth of dust from the manufacturing that went on as well as tar where they dipped steel to rust proof it  and  the guard office was a small little office just inside the entry door with a small metal beat up desk .
You walked around the plant with a hard hat ever mindful of all the pipes and such sticking out   and  things where sticking out all over  and protruding from the floors etc. what a mess. No wonder this place closed. They never spent one penny fixing it or updating anything .After walking the plant you went out back thru piles of steel to check the fence line careful you did not trip over a rail road track and then you checked  the Fire Truck place and back.  Some times railroad cars where picked up and dropped off and you had to make sure  railroad workers locked things up. Luckily I never had a problem here but the place was old creaky and cold as hell, roof leaked when it rained   and no heat I always brought a heater with me to plug in to stay warm.  Finally they fixed this big old 3 phase electric salamander  heater for us which sparked when you turned the switch after they got enough complaints.
 Then a couple of weekends I ended up watching the main office post where we worked only weekends as regular Dravo Guards worked that position during the week CPP lost both contracts when the yards went down .  I still work in the yards taking care of fire alarms on some of the river boats that work the repair yard now run by a different company over 2000 jobs where lost down there and now about 50 people work the whole thing the offices where knocked down and replaced by flex warehousing .

The next place I guarded on the Island was Vulcan Materials  they recycled tin cans  and  the place was again very large covering several acres and about 12 different buildings. They would bring the cans in then bath them in a acid bath to get the lining chemicals out of it . They had a mask for us to wear when we walked thru the mists in certain buildings , but it was not  the proper mask and we should not have been sharing a mask in first place . Some workers and guards did not wear a mask talk about stupid asses. I always complained about this and they did nothing about it but back then OSHA was only starting  and they got away with this nonsense. Once again this place was a shit hole leaky roofs and pipes and pumps and just no pride in the workers and how they took care of the place and in the winter time it was treacherous  ice every where I fell one time  and was not able to do the hourly round and called in to tell them and utility guy and supervisor where tied up on other jobs and  I had to skip a round and all I hear from Maurice D. is I should have called some one. I did it was 3am no one answered and no one was coming so I told him to take his job and shove it up his fucking  ass. I had enough of his fucking excuses.
and went to work for McGlenon Detective Agency after  Putting up with this shit hole place and Hepenstall Steel another dangerous shit hole of a place.  Vulcan changed names to ### resources and then closed its now been mostly torn down and is a recycling center. The new owners of these buildings cleaned out the crap fixed the wiring and piping patched and fixed the buildings inside and out and gave them a coat of paint and fixed the roofs  and made them safe to work in. The people who work here now all non union take pride in there company's .