Abandoned Allied Extruders Factory

Published on: April 21st, 2016 | Last updated: July 30, 2018 | Written by: Bad Guy Joe

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The end of the line for one of LIC’s last large manufacturers. When tehy closed up shop, they left behind an abandoned factory space bereft of hints to its past.

History
Allied Extruders was founded by Norman Rabenstein in 1969, making a home for itself next to the Greenpoint Aveune Bridge. Located next to the ‘Lower montauk’ branch of the LIRR, the factory received freight cars of plastic pellets right up onto it was closed.

Spinning Fire With Timmy V

In 2003, the company was still family owned and focused on growth: “As Allied grew, Rabenstein bought the factories and empty lots next door, stringing together four plants that now house 22 blown-film lines. This unplanned growth resulted in a somewhat inefficient manufacturing layout. So one of the firm’s challenges now is to rethink the manufacturing space. Allied plans to build a modern plant on a neighboring lot to hold up to eight film lines with up-to-date technology.”

In 2007, Allied was sold to Sigma plastics – here’s a clip from their press release:

Allied Extruders LIC operates one plant in Long Island City with a roughly 80,000-square-foot facility and more than 60 employees.

“We just see opportunities for consolidation,” said Andrew Teo, who will serve as chief financial officer of the newly formed Allied Plastics Holdings. “Allied is a good fit for the Sigma Plastics Group.”
Allied was founded in 1969. It makes custom monolayer and coextruded polyethylene films. Those films are used in specialty food packaging, laminations, stand-up pouches, and produce and coffee films, to name a few applications.

Print this out and circle those words: “opportunities for consolidation”. In other words, Sigma was keen to buy up a competitor and shut down the factory.

The factory kept humming along right up until the summer of 2014. The silos behind the building were quickly torn out and all manufacturing equipment inside was either removed or scrapped out.

Rail

Allied Extruders siding (to the left) as seen in the winter of 2008 (during shooting for Brooklyn Queens Freight)

Allied was one of the largest rail freight customers left in LIC at the time of their closure, though this hasn’t resulted in the tracks becoming disused. The new Wheelspur terminal is just down the line, and Waste Management opened a facility a few months after allied shut down, becoming one of the largest rail freight shippers in LIC in at least 20 years.

Adventure
Getting in here wasn’t all that hard. The buildings though, were completely empty. We used the space for some light painting & fire spinning.

We weren’t the only people to make use of this open factory space: the buildings were also used as a mock weed-grow house in the Jessica Jones netflix series.

Today
The buildings and rail siding remain, though you won’t be seeing any manufacturing at this location anytime soon. A scaffold company has since rented out the space, filling the space with stacked scaffold supports and wooden beams.

Comments

NOTE: It sometimes takes a short while for comments to be approved - unfortunately there's a lot of spam comments that come in. I absolutely love when y'all share personal stories of friends relatives etc who worked in these places. It really helps capture what these places were like before they closed up shop.

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