Dispatches Industrial Flea Market

"These foundations are a wonder to behold," says George Trentz wistfully as he stands before a row of crumbling concrete walls, virtually all that remains of the former Kaiser Steel Corp.'s mill in this town, an hour's drive east of Los Angeles. The plant, once 20 stories high and 100 yds. long, has been reduced to a ruin, and as workers with acetylene torches continue their cutting, Trentz watches the factory where he worked for years literally disappear before his eyes. If it were simply another smokestack victim of America's decline in manufacturing, it would just be allowed to sit and...

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