This was personally facinating to watch. I was a designer on the Interspace, Inc. team; we were responsible for all the interior design of the building - the workspaces. executive suite, cafe, training rooms, admin spaces, etc. - working with Lohan and Associates who designed the building itself. The building was designed/built just as PC's were just being introduced into the workplace; since no one really knew how that would impact work in the long run, one of TRW's goals was that the building be flexible enough to accommodate changes in work for 50 years. The entire building was planned on a 3' module. All the floors in the office areas are raised floor so power and data could be readily adapted as needed without the need for demolition. The offices were made of 3' demountable partitions, again so they could be reconfigured as needed. The workstations were also planned on a 3" module, and the angled worksurfaces specifically designed to support the PCs that they were starting to use. The atrium was designed as a garden that could be used all year round, reflecting the other special gardens on the original Lyndurst Estate where the building was built. . I could go on and on. For me, this was a career changing project.
Thanks, Interesting comment. For whatever reason the space looks very adaptive for Another 50yrs. I'm not sure what modern company could utilize that much SQ. Footage There's enough room for Two headquarters. Too bad they just didn't donate it, contingent upon a profit share if they sell later on.
@@GS-zc4sk Just the upkeep alone would swamp just about any commercial concern you can think of today. Back then things were bigger is better including the giant company that does everything. Now it's all about efficiency where a more broken up and less top heavy approach is preferred. Even the mega factories of Tesla are more application specific than what we had back then.
It’s a waste but I’m not sure there’s an alternative. Fundamentally the building is just too big for anyone to take on. Cleveland Clinic is by far the largest employer in Cleveland and if they don’t want it…
It does speak to how much Americans are overcharged for healthcare when a building that nice can just be torn down and the land sold by a hospital. And it is hard to believe that spending millions to tear it down is the best economical path.
There are a zillion office buildings in the area. Developers in Northeastern Ohio continuously build new office buildings and strip malls and keep the old, unused buildings sitting abandoned for decades. Just the fact that they want to demolish the building is new for us! 🤦🏻♀️ Why they don’t use what’s already there is a mystery…
Unfortunately the "money people" who have control over such things tend to be completely devoid of anything resembling creativity, imagination or vision and are incapable of understanding the intrinsic value of such structures. All they care about or know how to do is create wealth for themselves. That just makes them boring and less than useless as far as I'm concerned. It also doesn't help that there are hoards of power-tripping officious twits on city, county, state and federal payrolls standing in the way of any kind of creative re-use.
The problem with a move-in ready global headquarters built to the absolute highest standard is that the companies and organizations that could afford to buy it would prefer to build their own crappier version to make a statement. It would take a visionary to find a way to spin someone else's leftover HQ as being the amazing accomplishment it is.
@@graywalters8096 Agreed. I think a lot of companies use their buildings to make a public statement. We see this with the tech giants from the 90s to today. While I do not know what TRW execs had in mind when they had this building commissioned in the 80s, considering they were probably not a company well known to the public, they probably did not intend for this to make a public statement, and instead made it suit their needs. In the 90s I worked for a company that had a new headquarters built. The architecture was completely different, but it had a water feature and indoor palm trees. I would say that was the best building I have ever worked in, to this day. I left about 18 months after it was built.
I lost sleep over this video. I've seen dozens and dozens of your videos, they're all great... but they're almost always long-abandoned buildings that need a lot of renovation (at a minimum). But this was a revolutionarily-designed building with timeless style that was in *perfect* condition. For the most part, it was move-in ready and needed nothing. It *kills* me that this building was destroyed. It angers me to no end and while I absolutely understand the economy of maintaining a building like this... it's still such an unbelievably colossal waste.
Welcome to modern government. This was a brand new 450,000 square foot office building with a 4,000 car parking garage. Demolished for tax purposes. All while it cost like $1.4b of tax payers money. The western society is done. Canada and america are straight up insanity level dystopian
The Cleveland Clinic NEEDS the tax write-off to avoid losing their non-profit status, as there are few more entire hospitals they can buy for cash. The board members make millions of dollars each...but we don't need to talk about that.
I'm normally unfazed by the destruction of modern building (sometimes I agree it's a good thing), but this masterpiece of an edifice should have been preserved. The vision and care that went into it's design, and the quality of the construction materials makes it unique - it was a brilliant distillation of 1980s aesthetic and the best that age had to offer (not to mention is was in excellent condition). It's a dark day for architectural history. I'm glad you both went in to to record it before it was demolished.
The city council rocket surgeons in Virginia Beach Virginia had the first Buckminster Fuller geodesic dome in the U.S. (it was a small civic center) demolished in 1994 for no particular reason other than wanting something newer.
In Europe there's a good chance that a building of historic significance would be listed so that it can't be demolished, even if some greedy capitalist wanted to. Beautiful buildings are used and maintained for hundreds of years here. 40 years is not "a good life"!
I did some work as an AV contractor in the theatre there. It has some interesting quirks and features. The coolest thing is that the whole room is covered in lead lathe behind the walls. The idea was that because secret government information was being discussed in there sometimes even if the room was bugged, no radio signal would get out of the room. When I was inside my cell phone has absolutely zero reception.
@@d3fault1420 😂 Best reply ever! Now all I can see in the opening scene is Doug standing near an entrance while the drone pans in and out come the words ^^^^^ Nailed it!
Worked for TRW from 1980 to 2007 (Northrop Grumman after 2002) out in California. Always imagined the Cleveland HQ building to be some drab gray downtown edifice. Then - I got to visit the place. Awe-inspiring every time I visited. Was there one time during a space shuttle launch; they rolled out (down?) giant viewing screens and everybody stopped work and gathered around to watch. Boy does this video bring back some memories - thanks so much!
So did my parents, my dad constantly traveled to Ohio and California. The luxury of these buildings... the money spent... my mother was part of the medical staff for a short time. Lessons learned that high spending companies seem to fail.
@@1978garfield Experian IS the division. TRW bought Credit Data Corporation in 1968 renaming it TRW Information Systems and Services Inc. In 1996, TRW sold off the division AS Experian to Bain Capital and Thomas H. Lee Partners. About a month later, the two firms sold Experian to The Great Universal Stores Limited in Manchester, England. GUS merged its own credit reporting division and a decade later in October 2006, Experian was demerged from GUS and listed on the London Stock Exchange and BAM! Experian as we know it today.
@@1978garfieldit was a pointless and mostly unknown branch of government. It was literally just a conspiracy level experiment/money laundering scheme. They claimed this building cost billions. Than renovated it for another billion. All while he building did nothing and had like 40 employees. Its a scam of corrupt government. And now they destroyed it, again for tax purposes. The building was basically brand now and fully functional. No reason at all to demolish it besides adding to the shill conspiracy tax write off the building was made for in the first place.
@@1978garfieldTheir credit reporting started with ESL and Bill Perry. What I can't find out is who "gave" Perry stealth. It's alluded to in his interviews.
First class companies build first class buildings. TRW spared no expense withe the marble, wood finishes, raised floor system, cafeteria, landscaping, etc. I worked as an engineer in the AE industry for almost 40 years and have worked on a lot of nice buildings across the US. This building is among the best buildings I have seen. It's a shame it has been demolished.
I worked for Gibane Building Company who was the Project Management Company that managed the construction of this building for TRW. I was a field engineer on this building project from the fall of 1984 thru 1985 and attended it’s lavish opening ceremony. Amazing project and I could tell you 100’s of interesting stories about its construction. It sits on a 110 acre property, which was the old Francis Bolton Estate. When we stated construction the property had 5 houses, we used one as a field office. We eventually tore all of them down except the Bolton Mansion, which we remodeled as the TRW guest house. I wish they had filmed the guest house, it was spectacular. What a shame this is being torn down. The building was top notch from top to bottom. Everything was the best of the best and much was custom made. Great memories for me seeing this video.
Yeah, who could’ve predicted back then that less than two decades later Northrop Grumman would come along with $80B and dump the building and its workforce. Money don’t care.
@johnnyrocket1685I've thought the same about a city grade school, say 3 story brick construction. Often has a larger lot, so off-street parking might come with such a place. The closure of these neighborhood schools has been going on for decades.
As a NE Ohio resident, I’m glad you guys went there to document just how beautiful this building was. It’s a shame it is now demolished, but now you both have preserved history once again. You guys are the best!
Wow, you guys have no idea what you did. When futures generations are taxed to the hilt because of trillions in debt, this video will help explain where the money went @@R3TR0R4V3
I worked there for a short while in the early 1990s (I forget exactly which year). I remember three things that I don't see in this video: - Big trees in the atrium. There appear to be pads over where the trees might have been planted in the video. But I saw at least a couple of trees in the architect's scale model. Does anyone else remember big trees in the atrium? - Sun-spectrum lights. I worked late several nights, and as I was leaving, I remember feeling the overhead lights shining down on me like the sun was out and it was 4pm on a summer day. - I worked with the TRW legal department at the time, and while not everyone had these, their phones rang with the sound of a woodpecker. The sound turned out to be less intrusive during meetings, I felt that we were able to pause and resume conversations more easily with that ring tone. If I ever find that same ringtone online, it's going onto my phone - for now I've had to settle for other natural sounds. It's a real shame that the building isn't being used any more. It was one of the more pleasant office experiences i've had working in tech all this time (other than working from home).
very curious about that woodpecker ringtone. Do you recall the maker of the handsets/phones? Brand/name/model or even how it looked? There's a number of very common lines of office phones, I'd be curious which had it.
That sounds so ahead of its time. Drab lighting can completely kill the mood of a building. Sun mimicking lights sound wonderful. Same with the “woodpecker” ring sound. I swear the phone at my job has given me PTSD
Right? What an absolute waste. If nothing else, this could've been made into an amazing residential facility. Maybe even assisted living. But it's gone.
@@Justin-C - No it really couldn't, commercial zoning has way different occupancy codes than residential, it would cost more in renovations to make it legally inhabitable and thus insurable than the actual purchase cost most likely and they'd never make that investment back in 100 years probably. It's a nice idea to save old buildings but codes exist for a reason and you won't get an occupancy permit and thus insurance if you don't meet them. It's why very few abandoned buildings get converted to homeless shelters and such as everyone is always suggesting on here as to make it legal and insurable takes a lot more than adding a few walls and tossing some beds in it, you'd never recover that huge investment. Long term care/assisted living has even more strict codes to meet, if it was cost effective to do the Cleveland Clinic likely would have done so themselves - and they got the building for free.
But it _didn't_ have to be demolished. It was demolished because it was clearly in the hands of morons. Imagine what this sort of idiocy looks like to sane people in other parts of the world!
@@davinp - I didn't mean to say it can't be done at all just that converting commercial or industrial property to residential is very rare as it requires extensive and expensive work as codes are very different from having lots of people visiting for a period during the day to having people living there 24/7. Typically repurposing is from one form of commercial/industrial to another, unless you can get local government on your side to loosen some of the requirements for low income housing or homeless shelters or such which can happen, very rarely - if they sign off on it then they become liable which they don't usually like.
The boxes at 24:15 aren't mailboxes, they are output bins from back in the days of batch processing computing. The computer center would be behind there with at least one (usually IBM) mainframe running. When your job ran, the operator would take the output from your job off of the line printer and put it into your output bin for you to pick up!
I wondered where the mainframe was? looks like it may have been moved or relocated. I recognised the IBM mainframe terminal connection boxes in that one conference room. I thought it interesting that there were lovely Canadian Nortel telephones everywhere!
Bursting was separating the tractor-fed forms, decollating was separating multi-copy forms (duplicate/triplicate) into runs of single layers prior to bursting.
actually it was originally a storage room next to the reprographics center, in 1987 it became a large mailing center with a inserter and labeling machine. There was originally a in house office supply room in the area where the guy was facinated by the IBM typewriter which for three years had a small in house printing press or duplicator.They shut down the printing services outsourced the work. Several years later the original mail room became a storage area and the two rooms became the mail room. @@quietrevelry
Thank you guys for capturing this for posterity. I spent 15 years working Night Security in the UK, and manned a number of high end complexes not to different to this. For me, they look odd with people IN them, as I usually worked alone. The "Burster/Decollator" is a machine that takes old Z-fold paper with perforated edges for Tractor Feed printers, trims the perforations (De-COLLATING them), then Bursts the individual pages from the strip by advancing the paper by 1 page, then stopping the run as the last page continues, causing the pages to separate along the perforated join at the fold. Used for things like bank statements, the post room takes the box of printout, separates the pages, folds them, then inserts them into envelopes, seals them and adds the post mark. Quite mesmeric to watch!
I've operated one of them way back when. Ours was a rudimentary machine which separated huge reports I printed for internal distribution. It was about 4 ft high, a letter A shape with a shelf on either side. You fed the report up through the center of 2 rollers at the top which would separate one copy of the report and drop it on one side and the undecolated copies to the other side. The carbon was caught up and rolled around a special rod at the top of the rollers that I emptied after each pass till all copies were separated. Very dirty job.
Beat me to it! My first job was running THE printer for a medium sized company. While we were very “modern” for 1985, with a terminal on each person’s desk, there was only 1 printer attached to the mainframe in a separate climate-controlled room with raised floors and a halon fire-suppression system. Jobs were batched and the printer ran all day every day, then overnight. To be more efficient and keep up with demand, we used carbon printer paper. I would match the number of carbons to a multiple of the necessary batch size and then decollate the carbons from the paper. Then I would bind the reports into big binders (we’re talking 14 inch or so green-lined paper with holes for the tractors on the side). Executives might get some data on a daily basis, but most positions got weekly reports. We had an on-prem RPG programmer for only about 14 office employees. The company president had a huge walrus mustache with twirled ends. Fun times.
Well, thank goodness this wonderful building was able to have you guys go through and create the last, and probably best, chronicle of its existence. I studied this building for my architectural training and always loved it. This video instantly became my favourite PP video. Building and demolishing a building generates a mind-blowing amount of carbon. But, now that this perfectly-serviceable gem has been torn down, at least the current owner will be able to write off the demolition costs and write down the value of the property to defray property taxes. Fools.
We're not going to learn, are we? We're just gonna keep doing this. We've lost so many unique, stunning, or just beautifully designed pieces of architecture this last 10 years from the 50s right through to the 80s. When they're gone, they're gone forever. What a pity. Thank you for documenting this amazing place before it was gone. There's a quiet dignity to a building like this. Some of the best 80s architecture I've seen. I was gutted to hear it was gone immediately after falling in love with it.
So gather a group together, find the capital, buy it and maintain it. Wait, can’t afford to? Hmmmmm. I sense a pattern. Life moves on, take a picture and build something that’s efficient and maintainable. We’re talking a period of time when environmental requirements were lower and energy costs were radically smaller.
Literally just took down a pretty cool glass office building near me built in 2000. Yes 23 years, only to be demolished. Got to explore it, and I see no reason why it needed to be removed. There is an identical one next to it still being used and updated.
As an architech is a shame a building like this so well looking and so conserved was demolished. Thanks you guys to take it the time to research the architecture history behind the building.Greetings from Mexico
It would have been nice if the place got used again, but I'd rather it be demolished than sit around for decades taking up what would otherwise be a valuable empty lot. A building like that certainly isn't cheap to maintain.
Imagine you are the architect and they tear this masterpiece down. It's beyond sickening how this country demolishes its masterpieces. General populace really doesn t have an eye for beauty. Being an architect can be so unrewarding because you are trying to create beauty and they are trying to demolish it at the same time. Sad.
@@barnmaddo You are absolutely mad. It's like saying the Empire State Building should be demolished because nobody goes to the office anymore. Buildings like these are our cultural heritage. Can't you understand/see that?
People just don't care anymore about art or morale of the people in the workspaces. People spend so much of their time working in these spaces...They want space to be as money efficient as possible. A decay of culture. Really sad :(@@moredistractions
I work in high tech, and as things have progressed over decades, I have to say that it does indeed look dated, but in a nostalgic and pleasant way. This building was astonishingly nice for its time - such a cool place to work compared to many other bland offices of that time. I've worked in much more modern buildings for the last two jobs, at least the interiors. I've also worked in places with old bakelite phones and green vinyl backrests on cold, steel interrogation chairs. Not all of Silicon Valley looks like this vintage of building, but a lot of these are still around. Someone elsewhere said that the card reader looked like it was from around 2004. Those readers were around for a long time, especially in manufacturing settings, but by 2004 there were HID contactless readers in a lot of buildings. As a RUclips expert, I can only remark on my own observations which will vary from others'.
Well TRW was like ranked in the 50's on the Fortune 500 when they built this so you would expect it to be a lot nicer than most offices. Big defense contractors tend to have some pretty sweet offices especially when it comes to global headquarters.
I got to to work for TRW in this building, for several years. It was the most amazing place I've ever worked. The atrium was so cool, especially coming up the stairs from the parking deck. The campus was also fantastic, tucked in the trees. The design, with brown anodized frames and brown reflective glass was reportedly done to help the building blend into the trees, and hide it from the neighboring estates. At four stories, and with the swooping drive, it was short enough to not be seen from Richmond Road (the road where the main entrance is located). I would have loved to have gotten to take one more walk through, with you guys. 22:24 that area used to be the "Health Maintenance Center", aka, the workout room. Did you get into the "daycare center", aka the original half-wing mockup? That building had mirrors at both ends so you could see what the sight lines would look like down one of the wings, and was used to practice the construction and mock up the interior. We used to have RC trucks for running cabling under the raised floors.
Interesting background, thanks for sharing. Can you share with us what corporate functions were housed in this building? Guessing it was the executive (obviously) and core business and functions - sales/marketing, finance, supply chain exec, engineering exec, etc. I instantly recognized IT infra office areas by the windowlessness...
@@runner3033 remember that cc did whatever they did while they owned it, so it wouldn't be exactly the same as when trw owned it. and have you ever seen so much cherry, brass, glass, and marble in one building? the floors on the first floor! every door was cherry, and every cube had cherry accents. someone else who worked there should also chime in and correct me on some of these details, since it's been a while. the waterfall did not operate, at least when trw was there, for more than a few months, because of the water/splash issue. i don't know why it would still smell like anything in the stairs, unless cc was using it. i believe there were only 500 or so employees in the building. i've heard 1500-1800, but i don't think that's even close. the two parking levels would only accommodate about 550 cars. there were plants and trees EVERYWHERE in the building. every cube and every office had either a plant or a tree, and there were big brass planters (some of which made the video) all over. TRW had a team of gardeners from a local nursery to tend to all the plants in the building. first floor was support, reception, food service, HR (for HQ, not for the whole company), the HMC, the doctor/nurse, the auditoriums, and ISS (Information Systems Services, which was more maintenance, some networking, etc. and less about mainframes and servers. there was a lot of IT on the 4th floor) i think 2 was accounting, finance, TRW Automotive. i can't remember if flight was on 2, or not (i think i remember that TRW had five planes, and twelve pilots that flew out of Lost Nation airport, a couple of miles from HQ). travel might have been on 2, also. i think 3 was law, the law library, the executive suites, and i don't remember what else. TRW Credit (now Experian) was there, I think (watch me be completely wrong - it's been a while). 4 - the top floor - only had two wings, west, and south. that's where i was. we were the IT/IS team. We had teams of full-time developers, support, and some consultants building systems that were being used, internally. We had a bunch of servers up there as well, but in the 80's and 90's, servers weren't in big racks, they were stand-alone units, and many of them looked like workstations. Example: we had a number of Sun Sparc II's, running Sybase, that we were using for the back-ends to our applications. Most of the divisions were HQ'd elsewhere, because TRW was a conglomerate, so those divisions had previously been their own firms. Space & Defense, for example, was HQ'd in California.
@@MissMyMusicAddiction Thanks for the detailed response! Got the idea, have worked in subsidiaries of similar corporations where they called it "World HQ" or "Global" (pilots on staff and all). In one case, flew back and forth so much during an SAP implementation that we used to joke about getting to use the company jet. Didn't happen. This was a very well appointed building for sure and while I'm indifferent towards most 80s-on architecture, it's a shame to lose it, a great example of the 80s/90s "campus" style office building. Even leaving the offices out of it, indoor parking for everyone, how cool is that? At the HQ of one place I worked for, if you worked late you would request security escort to your car...
I can't get over these young guys saying, "This is dated" or "That is dated." Oh my God !!!!! 100% of the stuff in that building is SO much more modern than ANY place I have ever worked including currently.
The mantainence and custodial staff of this building under all of the owners need to be commended. It looks like it has been so professionally maintained and cleaned for the whole life of the building. This legacy is just as important as any aspect of the materials and design being lost.
This is absolutely disgraceful for a masterpiece of a building to be torn down "just like that" with no regard to the historical nature and to preserve it. It's one of the absolute most beautiful buildings I have ever seen. As someone who routinely works on repairing and restoring electronics from the 1980s and 1990s, I often come across parts that were manufactured by TRW, many of which were well built. With myself being born in the mid 1980s, this video really hits home in so many ways its indescribable. A big thank you to you guta for capturing this on video for future generations to see just how far society has fallen and continues to doing so.
One of the saddest episodes of abandoned you've done, this time not because of the poor state of the building rather than how this awesome building in good condition still doesn't survive. Its simply criminal the waste of resources that has occurred here, the effort and energy gone into such a creation only to be destroyed a few years later is unacceptable. Again beautifully captured in a respectful video to live on in Proper People's history logs.
@ButterfatFarms The comment isn't about the building being saved. The commenter points out that it's criminal that such a waste of resources has occurred. That seems a very valid topic. Your comment is dismissive of that point.
Totally agree. Could have been repurposed into housing and/or WFH units, hotel accommodation etc. No imagination. There should be a tax on demolition and redevelopment property like this to offset the ridiculous waste of energy and resources and tax breaks for reusing existing structures instead.
I've watched nearly all of your videos and I feel this is once of the sharpest buildings you've done. It's quite timeless, especially the exterior and all the exposed metal on the inside. Thank you for your videos and taking us to these amazing places we wouldn't otherwise see.
Great video tribute to such an amazing building. I worked there for almost 3 years for Cleveland Clinic. It was an amazing building designed to take care of its employees by TRW. It should have never been demolished, that building could never be replicated.
"that building could never be replicated" and it never will be replicated. Because the tenant it was designed and built for is gone. There is absolutely no need for it anymore. Its purpose was fulfilled. And once that purpose no longer existed the property was never fully utilized again. Which is why it's come to be demolished in pursuit of selling the property off to its next use.
This building is literally ready for a tenant to move in. Yes, some things are dated but everything is still pretty nice. The building was definitely ahead of its time. One of the execs at the company I work for told a colleague that he just didn’t understand big business. We always use that phrase when talking about decisions the company makes that don’t make any sense. This would definitely be a “You don’t understand big business” moment.
@@jorgejiminez-rk1uu Can't have you looking out into that atrium when you should be doing work for 100% of the time you are in the building clocked in or not!
yup, just no business that is willing to locate there and take on the maintenance and adaptation of the structure to their needs. Its cheaper to just build new. I foresee this lot remaining undeveloped for some time.
@@jorgejiminez-rk1uuyea I thought my dad had an old building office until I watch nyc diamond sellers having old acs units still lol watch traxnyc and watch the recent short him showing diamonds you'll see how old and poor conditions is everything in there
Whole thing feels like if you were given the keys to a community collage to explore during holiday break... Gosh, Such an incredible structure and usage of it's space.
More reasons why I feel terrible about this: o I attended the groundbreaking ceremony o As an HR executive, my father was involved with the design philosophy and usage policies of the building, and worked there from the opening date until his retirement 14 years later o I ended up working there for several years myself and had a an office with a fantastic view of the “English Garden” in one direction and a golf course the other way o I was involved in winding down TRW's operations there prior to the handover to the Cleveland Clinic o Coincidentally I drove my father to several medical appointments there as he was nearing the end of his life. His doctor’s office was located on the same floor just around the corner from where my father’s office had been, and he was able to visit his old office, nearly untouched, ~20 years after he retired. (I checked on my office but the Cleveland Clinic had reconfigured the space and made 2.5 offices out of what had been my one office.)
I wish they hadn't torn it down. Reading your comments are a glimpse into your memories. Memories are so dear to me. It was amazing how your father's office was the same as he left it. Just cherish the good memories and the good that came from it. A lot of stuff happens that we have no control of that can be very saddening. @@OlsenKirk
The building exuded luxury, style and spaciousness combined with a feeling of coziness and comfort wrapped up in beauty and impressive aesthetics. A masterpiece of architecture if I may say. Hard to believe it was demolished.
I'm an Architectural Engineer who works in Millwork. Bookmatching is actually very common practice in millwork. It's generally considered the "correct" way to lay paneling. Be it stone or wood. There are occasions where book matching isn't used such as the case of flooring where you want to show opposing grain directions as a design element or also wall paneling for a similar purpose, but the general idea is to match the grain as close as possible. Also the building may have been built in the 80's but I would say it was renovated in the 90's judging by all of the blond oak everywhere and a later refresh to the public spaces in mid to late 2000's. The executive suite is also most likely the most recent renovation. Probably within the last 5-8 years. The wooden slat walls are actually a very current trend and they look to be in very good condition, so I wouldn't doubt if they were done recently. The Green marble however is defiantly from the 1980's. It's sad to see such a unique building going to the wrecking ball.
The dining tray design at the 11:57 Mark was introduced by engineers for the purpose of four people to be able to sit together at a square table. The trays aligned that way to optimize the amount of table space needed to hold the trays.
What a gorgeous space. I'd be proud to work there. The natural light, the open spaces, the wonderful scenery outside. What a monumental shame to demolish this place.
Right now, the environmental movement is gaining a lot of traction. Fascinating to me that it hasn't extended to the architectural sphere. Guys, I worked in Silicon Valley for 7 years and would always hear things like "yeah, that building is obsolete", for 30 or 40 year old buildings. I saw entire campuses torn down, trees and everything. Even perfectly usable, in some cases beautiful furniture was tossed out. The amount of waste is ridiculous.
It’s both environmental vandalism as well as cultural vandalism. In the UK, important buildings are listed… i.e. owners are obligated to preserve them if they have cultural importance. It’s a tragedy they don’t have that protection in the US.
The problem here is nobody wants to buy older building as they use A LOT, i mean A LOT MORE energy than modern buildings. The difference is staggering, but that's in Europe. Maybe Muricans can still waste energy if it's cheap. If it starts to become expensive, lots of buildings operational cost skyrockets far above the mortgage itself. That's the problem.
@@HermanWillems Not sure about that since their emphasis in the video was on the fact that it had not been on the market for long, but the owner was getting impatient regardless. Adding new insulation and solar panels seems to be a small price to pay to save a historically significant building, and one that is aesthetically pleasing also. Like the guy said…. Such a waste.
@@HermanWillems ..? Where? Where it's really cold? I really really don't think, with some minor upgrades to the lights, heating and cooling systems, and the installation of some insulation, that it couldn't be turned into something as efficient as a modern building? What's stopping it?
I don't know if this would be appreciated by everyone but being in the trades, I would love to see some of the mechanical rooms in these abandoned buildings. I know there had to have been whole crews of guys proud of their work for projects like this and I wish we could see it one last time.
Indeed. Most urbexers tend to ignore the juicy infrastructure bits that I like to see. _"No need to go in there. It's just a bunch of pipes and valves and mechanical stuff."_ *DOH!!*
Wow! This brings back memories! I worked for CCN (I think around 1997-ish). I worked in the IT department and we had Credit Analysts that created credit scoring models. Our parent company, Great Universal Stores (out of the UK) wanted to get a foot in the door in the US credit market, so they purchased the credit portion of TRW, merged CCN with TRW and named us Experian! It was an interesting time. I didn't stick around long after that as CCN was Australian based company and had Great benefits, well above average of the typical US package of benefits. But when we became Experian, our benefits started to align with the average or below average, so I left there and went to work at BellSouth's Corporate HQ (In the Campanile building in Midtown Atlanta).
Great Universal Stores out of Manchester UK must have got their foot in the credit rating market Because they stopped me from buying a microwave Cause my Mama had a poor credit rating thus it affected my credit rating, I was earning unbelievable money and had just got my first credit card & was not in debt, Great Universal were a catalogue company that dominated the UK for over 70 years, it's all long gone now Thanks to Amazon
I worked at a different TRW facility, but it was also an amazing facility to work in. Really, a whole different America back then. We did all of the most technically challenging work in the industry and TRW drew in all of the best talent to get the work done. Always enjoyed talking with the other engineers and hearing about all of things that went wrong as they figured out how to build the best hardware in the world. That all disappeared when Northrop Grumman took over and we were largely dispersed into where ever we could go. So yeah, this piece talks about this beautiful building being demolished, but this is just a symbol of the bigger tragedy of one of the most advanced companies in the world building all of the hardest stuff to build in the world disappearing into the corporate carpet bagging greed machine and being lost to time as what was there got demolished. A little trivia for you, when I went through Bill Gate's biography many years back, working at TRW was the only time in Bill Gate's life when he had management over him. When I started at TRW, I was the youngest person there by a long shot and I couldn't find anybody else who had started that young at TRW besides Bill Gates. It was an engineering powerhouse and usually they only had college grads there, but at the time there was a shortage of software engineers and I had figured out programming and a fair amount about software engineering in high school, so they brought me on as an intern and then a regular employee.
I had the same experience working for TRW. Really innovative and technically challenging work. Scientists and engineers were given the space to try out new ideas and explore. People of all ages worked on a project and learned from each other. All of that changed when the bean counter mentality of Northrop took over.
Very insightful comment. I am feeling the same currently. Great medium and even large companies are being destroyed. It seems that businesses are making a stock price instead of great products made by great people cared for in great spaces, with the best resources and support. Nth degree wealth doesn’t work to make a beautiful world for people.
Those commercials at the beginning gave me a deep wave of nostalgia for my childhood in the early 80s. TRW and BASF always had weird commercials like that. "...at a company called TRW." And BASF was, "We don't make the products you love. We make the products you love better." Must have been great marketing because I still remember the slogans 40 years later.
BASF has a building here in Berlin which has an interesting design and rad LED patterns, definitely stands out - worth passing by if you nerd out about things like this : )
I'm a mechanic in training and I saw TRW on some parts I was working on the other day. I was so glad I knew what they meant and the history behind them. Thanks for always teaching and educating! It's fascinating and helps me watch the videos with an entirely new level of appreciation.
I worked in this building for TRW from 1998 til we handed the keys to the Cleveland Clinic after Northrop purchased us as part of Ron Sugar's revenge tour against Gorman. I will never forget when I went to interview driving up and seeing the immaculate grounds, stream, and lawn sculptures, not to mention this beautiful building - it was a magical place. There were walking trails around the property - around the Bolton mansion and through where Legacy Village is today. There were literally herds (plural) of deer, turkey, and all kind of wildlife there. From my office I could watch the heron pluck goldfish from the pond.... It's a shame they couldn't have moved Fred Crawford's (the man who made TRW great) collection from the Crawford Auto Aviation Museum to here. Pure and simple, a certain attorney/CEO made some disastrous business and succession decisions that doomed a great company...
Don't you go making fun of Joe Gorman But here's another story for you, since I could watch this one from my office: Joe bought one of the first Lexus's in the US. He had WOIO shoot a puff piece about it on the back roundabout (above the entrance to the parking decks)
Ron Sugar's revenge tour is right. I worked for TRW and for Northrop and can't think of two more incompatible companies if I tried. It's hard to fathom that someone couldn't come up with a way to reuse this building instead of plowing it under.
@@NotSpockToo "Two more incompatible companies": Any good engineering company and Boeing. My wife worked for TRW and then Northrop Grumman in California, then Florida. She was always eternally grateful it wasn't Boeing. NG even kept the legacy pension program from TRW.
This is more than a testament to architecture, it’s a testament to proper engineering! Years on, and the building looks a though it was abandoned yesterday. I watch your channel avidly, there aren’t many explorations like this… where a commercial building still stands, with no adverse environmental effects! This is probably the most beautiful, architecturally sound and well engineered building… you’ll will ever review!?😊
"Years on, and the building looks a though it was abandoned yesterday." If you watched the end of the History section of the video, you'd see that the building was abandoned in 2023...
Very 80’s. The saxophone at the end sealed it! I worked for many companies like that back then. Digital, Compugraphics, etc. The company cafeteria, brewskies in the break room fridge ( for after work, of course), and I bet you could have found a company credit union around there somewhere… People really didn’t believe those times would end and we’d be living in this dystopian hell hole today.
Yep.....that's why after Reagan was president, workers lost everything, mental health facilities closed.....this was the beginning of our decline and the end of the "American Dream."
Being around xmas, and being 1980s corporate office architecture, the private bathroom, even the water feature....I am getting a Nakatomi Tower vibe. Those geese were there to throw Hans Gruber off the roof.
In 2012, I completed my mentorship my senior year of high school with the Cleveland Clinic Wellness Institute, and I remember being in awe of the atrium the first time I entered the building. I had fun pointing out to my partner where I spent part of my senior in the building as you all walked through the various floors. It was a nice stroll down memory lane but really sad and a shame to learn that we've lost such an awesomely beautiful, unique, and still very functional building.
I usually hate corporate architecture no matter how good it is, just not my vibe, but something about this building just really appeals to me. It’s like one degree rotation from a mall, a hospital, and an office building just enough that I like it. I still don’t know if I would like to work in such a large building, but I wouldn’t have minded stopping by. What a shame about it being demolished. It’s one of the most beautiful sites I’ve seen from you guys.
While watching this video I thought the place looked so familiar! Then I realized that I’ve been here plenty of times. I used to be the FedEx driver in Lyndhurst and I had deliveries for this place quite often. The one time I had to find someone to sign for a package and ended up walking around the whole place looking for someone. What an amazing piece of architecture. I’m happy I got to experience it. The fountain was on when I went there lol. NE Ohio has many abandoned places but none that compares to this.
I worked for TRW but much later. From 1995 to 2014. In 2002, we were acquired by Northrop Grumman. I worked in California. I was watching RUclips when this popped up. Brought back memories. I still have some friends, and we get together once a year.
I also worked for TRW, but in Virginia. Really enjoyed my time there until taken over by Northrop Grumman. Still keep in touch with people from that time.
My firm, PHH Interspace was honored to have been selected to create the "Needs Analysis", Interior Design and Furniture installation" for this project. After the Gilbane Construction Company was selected to define the process by Jack Gerhart, Project Director for TRW. He was an Aerospace Leader who had never been involved in the construction of a building and spent a full year touring and interviewing corporations who had recently been through this process of developing a new Corporate HQ. His "lessons learned" became his criteria to organize a team and process to make sure the TRW HQ would be better than any of the sites he visited. This is the prime reason that he selected a Construction Management Firm first. Followed by an Interior design firm to determine the requirements of those who were going to work in the building. Each member of the "team" was asked to participate in the selection of the subsequent members. This was followed by an evaluation each quarter, to evaluate the success of each team member with a report card and subsequent "Bonus".
What is really interesting about TRW HQ was the sequence of assembling the team. Gilbane was first, followed by Interspace Inc who spent 1 year interviewing every employee, then the Architects were interviewed and FCL was selected as the final team member. Major articles were written on the process!@@randyr.cedeno3617
It looks like Jack Gerhart took a Systems Engineering approach to designing and building a world-class HQ building. Systems Engineering was a prime practice and a specialty of TRW.
I pass this building almost everyday and remember how upset my town was when they found out it was being demolished. It was very cool to see the inside of the building! It’s sad to see it demolished now
Great video of a gorgeous building. The unique blue, gold, and chrome color scheme of the cafeteria at 10:33 is identical to the Bell Sound Systems (a Division of Thompson Products, then TRW) model 2420 amplifier and related series of home audio equipment from the 1960s. The TRW logo is prominent on those units. Seems like it was a beautiful nod to their corporate history.
I consider this a Christmas present from you guys. I used to work for TRW in Sydney, Australia and was pulled up the ranks by management. Was the best working days of my life. I remember wanting to visit head office at some point...but instead, I got to meet many upper management and CEO's in training from there. Merry Christmas. 😉
What an absolutely stunning example of 80's corporate architecture, especially that gorgeous main atrium. Some areas give luxurious vaporwave mall lobby, others give Black Mesa and/or Backrooms. Agree with everyone else here that it's a crying shame it got demolished and you guys are doing amazing work by documenting it and editing together this fantastic video!
It sucks that new office buildings or anything for that matter no longer have glass atriums with plant life in the middle. I guess today it’s more about what is functional and Grey
8:38 that pull station and the speaker strobes are newer I wanna say 2010s, The pull station is a Simplex 2099 series and the speaker strobe is a 4906 series. The backbox behind the pull station is older though it definitely had an older system at some point, its still cool though! The older version of the pull station is the Simplex 4251-30!
I agree with you, it is such a waste that they demolished such a beautiful, functional building. On another note, in the 50 years my dad owned his businesses he did a lot of business with TRW and I heard many descriptions about that building and about how fabulous he thought it was. Unfortunately, I never got to see it so I'm glad I got to see this before they tore it down. Thanks so much for that.
It is beyond a tragedy that this was torn down. I am so upset. I literally cried. You cannot duplicate stuff like this. Yeah, a few leaks here and there, but this property was mainly ready to go. It hits differently when it was a building built around when I was born.
Completely agree. You simply cannot rebuild a place like this. There's have to be an egotistical "tweak" here or there. It's beautiful because it's of its time, a time that is long gone, and never to be replicated. It beggars belief that in this day and age, where we understand the impact of these buildings disappearing that we're still allowing this to happen. No doubt the grounds will just be turned into another Amazon fulfilment gulag or some bullshit startup company with a copy and paste "modern" office building that looks identical to all the others. The tragic comedy of the situation is the modern building will probably be steel and glass, which was already there in a much more pleasing, clearly better built form!
@@skyrocketautomotivethen why did you allow it to happen get off your ass and do something to preserve them, find them new tenants, give them new life.
That does remind me of those Star Trek episodes where they encounter a lost and abandoned ship of their own fleet, they beam aboard, the red alert is on, pretty much everything seems to be working, pretty much everything seems to be normal, apart from the red alarm and that there's virtually nobody else aboard. If you turn off all the lights at night and use a camera with longer exposure time, this would make one hell of a location for a horror movie. You never know what will pop up in the next flash! Jumpscare City!
I'm from Kuala Lumpur and I'm not kidding when I say that we have the same exact replica of this building, Prince Court Medical Centre. Literal same vibes. Though what is even funny to me, I used to audit TRW's books for their Malaysian branch. The algo-Gods are fucking good! Love this video.
This is by far my favorite place you've ever explored. The multiple references to Van Der Rohe's work, the attention to detail, the quality of the materials (marble, granite, steel, wood) make this building a true gem! And that atrium is more grand and beautiful than multiple hotel and mall lobbies I've ever seen, it must have felt nice working in such an environment.
this building is still ENTIRELY useable! it blows my mind completely that they are willing to totally erase its existence, and just to make way for "progress" at that!
Well they got it for free didn't they! So they had no skin in the game and didn't want to put any mental effort into thinking about a use, just get it off the books and move on. JIM
It was done because they needed a tax write off. If they kept the building the company would lose their tax free nonprofit status and license to steal money. Couldn't have that happen. The government and the healthcare industry is corrupt. Russia is safer to live in right now. Nothing will be put on that space. It will sit vacant for the rest of your lifetime because the surrounding area is losing population to larger cities and has no investment.
As an 80’s born Ohioan, it’s sad to see this building come to ruins. I’ve personally never seen it other than this video. It is (was) so beautiful. The very first image of the atrium brought back so much nostalgia, memories and vibes of the old school malls and city center.
80's kid here too but not from Ohio. I however go to BMW's technician training program at Ohio Tech in downtown Cleveland and lived in Parma. Had I known about that building I would have loved to have seen it myself. I'd love to come back out of nostalgia and reminisce.
That has to be one of the most beautiful office buildings I've ever seen. I was imagining what it would be like to work there while watching. I REALLY love all the indoor plants and the cool fountain/water feature. What a shame this place got demolished. Great video!!!!
Former TRW Employee in germany here. I was working for TRW from 2015 when they were acquired by ZF Friedrichshafen. Until 2022, we were working in an capus here in Düsseldorf, Germany which was a former factory dating back to ~1899. We now moved to an ordinary office build nearby and the old campus will be demolished soon for housing. It even has the old mansion of the factory onwner on-site :) I remember having these plates in 21:24 here near VPs office as well :) Absolutely stunning video - thanks :)
So glad you guys documented this amazing building. It’s a huge waste that it’s getting demolished, looking like it could have been used for so many things
TRW - My first client when I started my IT carrier. My company was their IT vendor for over 15 years. I joined when the TRW was still independent and before their takeover by ZF group. I have lot of good memories with people working in TRW. My main area was one of the internal application focused on Six-Sigma savings/projects and has clients from their US and Canada region.
As someone born in 1974, this speaks of the time of my own greatest influences in life, and when the United States became such a massive media influence upon the United Kingdom. This is the most 'America in the 1980's' thing I have ever seen, outside a television programme, featuring a Mike Post theme tune. I feel the Proper People have also elevated their production value here to a point where TRW would surely be proud of your coverage, with the era specific video and music inserts giving atmosphere so perfectly related. I wonder if the composer of the 'digital chair dance' intentionally knew he was verging on either copying or closely following bars from Queen's Radio Ga-Ga by the end? Regardless, it would only remain in tribute to the mirror of future versus past we've been given here, as the intention of that song was. I am still stunned at how amazingly well that building has fared since the 80's. In the U.K. we would have the sense to protect and preserve such a building, especially given, as said during the video, that it could be easily transformed to suit any new occupiers. It would be a tragedy and insult to the architect and his Grandson if it were to be torn down indiscriminately. I use that final word as absolutely intended by definition. Great work P.P one of your best yet.
My Father retired from TRW in the late 80s. He worked out of a NYC Skyscraper. I remember my dad always going to Chicago and California for 3 month at a time for "school" . I remembered the floor to ceiling computers and steams of paper falling so neatly in carts I had my own secretarial desk with a name plate for days I went to work with him. We were the first family in our little NJ neighborhood to have an electric typewriter.
The story behind the TRW building and who designed it should have made it a historic building to be preserved. Now it's a pile of debris created out of greed and the hopes to make a quick buck. Thank you for capturing its final days of glory and sharing the story. By far one of my favorite yet depressing documentary videos from the Proper People.
This facility is reminding me a great deal of "Bell Works", an office complex used by AT&T/Lucent for a number of years that was built out in Homdel, New Jersey.. Similar early 80's style architecture. Fortunately, Bell Works hasn't been demolished but was converted for commercial use and is still open to the public. My father used to work there and I remember visiting there decades ago. The facility was actually used in the series "Severance" which was very cool to see. My father has since passed, but my aunt and uncle and I still like to visit Bell Works for nostalgia.
When i saw this building and then you said the architects name and his relationship to Mies van der Rohe...i was like "yep". The influence is very clear. That atrium in its 80s hey day looked absolutely stunning. Shame its now being left to rot. Kinda sad as well that TRW didnt go bust or anything, they were just bought by a bigger fish and then snuffed out. At least the automotive arm was spun out and still exists today.
I love these older 1980s buildings, they look so cool and you could imagine the people who worked their, a simpler time. Great work as always and love the lighting too and just the overall design and vibe of the place
Damn, I thought dead and abandoned malls were aesthetic, but I think I just found the pinnacle of the genera. If I had been born a few decades earlier, and had more engineering know-how, working here might have been my dream job. Anyway, thanks for such an amazing video and tour!
How incredibly sad to see this great piece of architecture destroyed. Thanks for taking us inside guys. Amazing documentary on this beautiful facility. 😢
Yep and the outro was sweet too had a very 80's-esque feel with the synth music and sax I bet this place looked amazing with the setting sun shining through the glass atrium A shame to know something that had so much care and talent put into its construction is now gone
I always think it’s crazy how much work was done on a normal day and how activity that place was when it was fully operational and 300 people doesn’t seem nearly enough to fill that place
To give an idea of just how large this space is for 350 (the number mentioned in the video) people, an average architectural design standard for office buildings is about 250 square feet per person. At 480K square feet, with 350 people working in it, yields over 1300 square feet per person. That is close to the square footage of some houses. This building's space utilization design was truly decadent...unless it was designed to accommodate massive expansion. In theory, it should be able to support almost 2000 employees (@ 250 square feet/per).
@@neonnoodle1169 there were only 350 people working there at the time Northrop Grumman acquired them. According to the encyclopedia of Cleveland history, around 1800 employees worked there when the building first opened.
I was fortunate to have worked for TRW for a year before they were bought out and held TRW stock as a perk of my employment. TRW was probably one of the best companies I had ever worked for. It was like a family. My operating sector was kept and became "Northrop Grumman Mission Systems". Despite working with and around the same people, you could tell that the entire corporate culture had changed, and not for the better. The first clue was the promised 1:1 stock exchange was quickly reneged and we got a fraction of the shares of NG stock we were promised. Then, the benefits changed. In the following two years with Northrop Grumman, it jist felt different... detached. Then, NG lost the project on which I worked and that was it. I left for the new company, ESP, Inc., which was another great company with which to work. I still remember TRW as a great company with a long and distinguished history.
I really love the historical footage for TRW and the IBM typewriter! It's so interesting to see the contrast of the decay of the building to when it was brand new. I always wanted to see more images to the specific old technology/furniture found inside, or even just a voiceover telling more information y'all found about it. However, The Proper People never disappoint.
Wow, This really brought me back to the 1980s! I have worked in these kinds of buildings for aerospace and hi tech companies. I got shivvers looking at the coffee maker and the cafeteria the sudden memory flashbacks that brought. You guys have a great video here. Hats off for saving, at least, in video, a piece of American corporate history.
I worked for TRW in Aston, Birmingham UK. We was essentially a R&D site, but when the product was signed off, we became a production facility. AAA Automation from Dayton Ohio, installed the lines, and it worked well. However, as we ramped up, the quality couldn't be maintained, and rework was tough to schedule. EPAS units from 2001 to 2004. I believe they closed the site in 2007. Good times.
Your production value is just exceptional! Love the choice of music here, goes really well with the vibe of the building. Fantastic work guys, keep it up 😊
I worked at CCF main campus and was sent to that building a couple times for training classes. A handful of IT people worked there. It was like a lavish ghost town. People said deer would walk right up to the cafeteria windows and peer inside. It doesn’t seem like it by pictures but it was within walking distance of a shopping center. I grabbed a coffee over there and walked back. Everyone thought the building was cool. It’s a crying shame to tear it down.
Fantastic video & beautiful building. Just a small fun fact: the elevators and escalators in this building were installed by Westinghouse. That bell you heard when riding down is nicknamed the dinner bell. I love mechanical elevator bells. Also, when you pointed out early in the video that it was a different elevator sitting open is a feature called peak up. The controller probably moves elevators at random. It's a relatively ordinary function in settings such as this.
Ahh yes back when Westinghouse made quality before the MBA's sold it down the river and ripped it up for parts. Now it's just a ****ty brand for chinese crap-level electronics.
It's such a shame that this remarkable piece of history was demolished, but you've done a fantastic job preserving its memory. By the way, the part where you included the TRW ad with the building, accompanied by that great music, was particularly outstanding. Hats off! Thank you.
I'm from NE Ohio and know of this building. Just last week, I saw drone pictures of all wings torn down and just the center left. It's so sad to see stuff like this disappear. Nice video like always, guys.
God this place IS the Aesthetic. It even touches on some elements of mall design from the same period of the era. And while I understand the respect to leave things as they are, I would kill for some of the furniture you came across. You don’t see this architecture anymore, it’s so grounded in the era it comes from yet it easily transcends itself.
I worked here for several months with Cleveland Clinic International Operations before they sold the property. So cool seeing my old office, and great video! 4:08 was seating for our Legal team. 17:34 I took that elevator every single day to my desk! 30:36 That was my boss's office! That's his handwriting, but not his Pac Man haha. 31:04 The room beyond the ladder to the right was our break room. Thanks for the nostalgia trip.
This was personally facinating to watch. I was a designer on the Interspace, Inc. team; we were responsible for all the interior design of the building - the workspaces. executive suite, cafe, training rooms, admin spaces, etc. - working with Lohan and Associates who designed the building itself. The building was designed/built just as PC's were just being introduced into the workplace; since no one really knew how that would impact work in the long run, one of TRW's goals was that the building be flexible enough to accommodate changes in work for 50 years. The entire building was planned on a 3' module. All the floors in the office areas are raised floor so power and data could be readily adapted as needed without the need for demolition. The offices were made of 3' demountable partitions, again so they could be reconfigured as needed. The workstations were also planned on a 3" module, and the angled worksurfaces specifically designed to support the PCs that they were starting to use. The atrium was designed as a garden that could be used all year round, reflecting the other special gardens on the original Lyndurst Estate where the building was built. .
I could go on and on. For me, this was a career changing project.
Thanks, Interesting comment.
For whatever reason the space looks very adaptive for Another 50yrs.
I'm not sure what modern company could utilize that much SQ. Footage There's enough room for Two headquarters.
Too bad they just didn't donate it, contingent upon a profit share if they sell later on.
Ok, so go on then. This looked like it was an astonishing place to work in.
@@GS-zc4sk Just the upkeep alone would swamp just about any commercial concern you can think of today. Back then things were bigger is better including the giant company that does everything. Now it's all about efficiency where a more broken up and less top heavy approach is preferred. Even the mega factories of Tesla are more application specific than what we had back then.
@@GS-zc4sk They did donate it, to cleveland clinic. it was never a good fit for them. cc eventually relocated the personnel that were in there.
Wow, huge props to you and the rest of the design team, the interior is truly beautiful!
You both are so correct. What a waste to have destroyed such a functional and architecturally interesting building.
Yea really is such a waste
Wish it could have been forcible given to a community college or university to turn into classrooms.
It’s a waste but I’m not sure there’s an alternative. Fundamentally the building is just too big for anyone to take on. Cleveland Clinic is by far the largest employer in Cleveland and if they don’t want it…
It does speak to how much Americans are overcharged for healthcare when a building that nice can just be torn down and the land sold by a hospital. And it is hard to believe that spending millions to tear it down is the best economical path.
cant let anything nice trickel down on the cheap
@@Alexlfm
The fact that nobody found a use for such a beautiful and interesting modern looking building is absolutely mind blowing. It's a shame really
There are a zillion office buildings in the area. Developers in Northeastern Ohio continuously build new office buildings and strip malls and keep the old, unused buildings sitting abandoned for decades. Just the fact that they want to demolish the building is new for us! 🤦🏻♀️ Why they don’t use what’s already there is a mystery…
Unfortunately the "money people" who have control over such things tend to be completely devoid of anything resembling creativity, imagination or vision and are incapable of understanding the intrinsic value of such structures. All they care about or know how to do is create wealth for themselves. That just makes them boring and less than useless as far as I'm concerned. It also doesn't help that there are hoards of power-tripping officious twits on city, county, state and federal payrolls standing in the way of any kind of creative re-use.
The problem with a move-in ready global headquarters built to the absolute highest standard is that the companies and organizations that could afford to buy it would prefer to build their own crappier version to make a statement. It would take a visionary to find a way to spin someone else's leftover HQ as being the amazing accomplishment it is.
@@graywalters8096
Agreed. I think a lot of companies use their buildings to make a public statement. We see this with the tech giants from the 90s to today. While I do not know what TRW execs had in mind when they had this building commissioned in the 80s, considering they were probably not a company well known to the public, they probably did not intend for this to make a public statement, and instead made it suit their needs.
In the 90s I worked for a company that had a new headquarters built. The architecture was completely different, but it had a water feature and indoor palm trees. I would say that was the best building I have ever worked in, to this day. I left about 18 months after it was built.
new construction creates GDP. its always in the governments interest to incentivize new construction@@kellyl7688
I lost sleep over this video. I've seen dozens and dozens of your videos, they're all great... but they're almost always long-abandoned buildings that need a lot of renovation (at a minimum). But this was a revolutionarily-designed building with timeless style that was in *perfect* condition. For the most part, it was move-in ready and needed nothing. It *kills* me that this building was destroyed. It angers me to no end and while I absolutely understand the economy of maintaining a building like this... it's still such an unbelievably colossal waste.
Welcome to modern government.
This was a brand new 450,000 square foot office building with a 4,000 car parking garage.
Demolished for tax purposes.
All while it cost like $1.4b of tax payers money.
The western society is done. Canada and america are straight up insanity level dystopian
Yeah, I agree. Imagine this being your home wish someone bought it, but things happen sadly
If I lived close to it, I would use it as an office
IF the people in these companies were as "about saving the planet" as they claim to be....they would reuse what we already have.
The Cleveland Clinic NEEDS the tax write-off to avoid losing their non-profit status, as there are few more entire hospitals they can buy for cash.
The board members make millions of dollars each...but we don't need to talk about that.
I'm normally unfazed by the destruction of modern building (sometimes I agree it's a good thing), but this masterpiece of an edifice should have been preserved. The vision and care that went into it's design, and the quality of the construction materials makes it unique - it was a brilliant distillation of 1980s aesthetic and the best that age had to offer (not to mention is was in excellent condition). It's a dark day for architectural history. I'm glad you both went in to to record it before it was demolished.
The city council rocket surgeons in Virginia Beach Virginia had the first Buckminster Fuller geodesic dome in the U.S. (it was a small civic center) demolished in 1994 for no particular reason other than wanting something newer.
its like everyone want to destroy our old relics...
The good news is that it was used continuously for about 40 years. It had a pretty good life.
In Europe there's a good chance that a building of historic significance would be listed so that it can't be demolished, even if some greedy capitalist wanted to. Beautiful buildings are used and maintained for hundreds of years here. 40 years is not "a good life"!
@@jonathanmelhuish4530 i started to think that U.S doesn't have that kind of body, or if it has, it is corrupt as f.
I did some work as an AV contractor in the theatre there. It has some interesting quirks and features. The coolest thing is that the whole room is covered in lead lathe behind the walls. The idea was that because secret government information was being discussed in there sometimes even if the room was bugged, no radio signal would get out of the room. When I was inside my cell phone has absolutely zero reception.
@Doug Demuro
@@RobsNeighbor "thissssssssssssssssssss is the trw company theatre"
@@d3fault1420 😂 Best reply ever! Now all I can see in the opening scene is Doug standing near an entrance while the drone pans in and out come the words ^^^^^ Nailed it!
Thought # 1 - E.T. Can't Phone Home.
Thought # 2- You're not dealing with AT&T, MCI, Sprint, T-Mobile, etc.
It was quite commonplace to EM proof such place actually, still is
Worked for TRW from 1980 to 2007 (Northrop Grumman after 2002) out in California. Always imagined the Cleveland HQ building to be some drab gray downtown edifice. Then - I got to visit the place. Awe-inspiring every time I visited. Was there one time during a space shuttle launch; they rolled out (down?) giant viewing screens and everybody stopped work and gathered around to watch. Boy does this video bring back some memories - thanks so much!
So did my parents, my dad constantly traveled to Ohio and California. The luxury of these buildings... the money spent... my mother was part of the medical staff for a short time. Lessons learned that high spending companies seem to fail.
@@krisone63 TRW didn't fall so much as get split up.
Their credit reporting division is still profitable as is their automotive and aerospace units.
@@1978garfield Experian IS the division. TRW bought Credit Data Corporation in 1968 renaming it TRW Information Systems and Services Inc. In 1996, TRW sold off the division AS Experian to Bain Capital and Thomas H. Lee Partners. About a month later, the two firms sold Experian to The Great Universal Stores Limited in Manchester, England. GUS merged its own credit reporting division and a decade later in October 2006, Experian was demerged from GUS and listed on the London Stock Exchange and BAM! Experian as we know it today.
@@1978garfieldit was a pointless and mostly unknown branch of government. It was literally just a conspiracy level experiment/money laundering scheme.
They claimed this building cost billions. Than renovated it for another billion. All while he building did nothing and had like 40 employees. Its a scam of corrupt government. And now they destroyed it, again for tax purposes. The building was basically brand now and fully functional. No reason at all to demolish it besides adding to the shill conspiracy tax write off the building was made for in the first place.
@@1978garfieldTheir credit reporting started with ESL and Bill Perry. What I can't find out is who "gave" Perry stealth. It's alluded to in his interviews.
First class companies build first class buildings. TRW spared no expense withe the marble, wood finishes, raised floor system, cafeteria, landscaping, etc. I worked as an engineer in the AE industry for almost 40 years and have worked on a lot of nice buildings across the US. This building is among the best buildings I have seen. It's a shame it has been demolished.
I worked for Gibane Building Company who was the Project Management Company that managed the construction of this building for TRW. I was a field engineer on this building project from the fall of 1984 thru 1985 and attended it’s lavish opening ceremony. Amazing project and I could tell you 100’s of interesting stories about its construction. It sits on a 110 acre property, which was the old Francis Bolton Estate. When we stated construction the property had 5 houses, we used one as a field office. We eventually tore all of them down except the Bolton Mansion, which we remodeled as the TRW guest house. I wish they had filmed the guest house, it was spectacular. What a shame this is being torn down. The building was top notch from top to bottom. Everything was the best of the best and much was custom made. Great memories for me seeing this video.
please, tell us more.. lots more :)
Yeah, who could’ve predicted back then that less than two decades later Northrop Grumman would come along with $80B and dump the building and its workforce. Money don’t care.
I think someone lives in the house. That's why they couldn't film it.
Thanks for sharing!
It’s beautifully futuristic.
It’s actually infuriating they demolished this place. What an absolutely gorgeous building. Inside and out.
@johnnyrocket1685 Could easily cost $500k/year just to keep it from collapsing.
It's hideous.
Concrete fortress
@johnnyrocket1685I've thought the same about a city grade school, say 3 story brick construction. Often has a larger lot, so off-street parking might come with such a place.
The closure of these neighborhood schools has been going on for decades.
@johnnyrocket1685 Very well said and very true. I was thinking the same.
@@SK-lt1so Wrong.
As a NE Ohio resident, I’m glad you guys went there to document just how beautiful this building was. It’s a shame it is now demolished, but now you both have preserved history once again. You guys are the best!
yea, and nowadays, newer buildings just dont feel the same and too "emo"
@@ThuanTexasToo much thought into space saving and materials efficiency.
So this building has already been destroyed?
Emo? More like bland. This had style.
Unfortunately, yes this is already demolished. :/
Wow, you guys have no idea what you did. When futures generations are taxed to the hilt because of trillions in debt, this video will help explain where the money went @@R3TR0R4V3
I've never seen a cooler 80's office building in my life and they tore this gem down!???? Makes you want to shed a tear. What a tragedy!!!
I worked there for a short while in the early 1990s (I forget exactly which year). I remember three things that I don't see in this video:
- Big trees in the atrium. There appear to be pads over where the trees might have been planted in the video. But I saw at least a couple of trees in the architect's scale model. Does anyone else remember big trees in the atrium?
- Sun-spectrum lights. I worked late several nights, and as I was leaving, I remember feeling the overhead lights shining down on me like the sun was out and it was 4pm on a summer day.
- I worked with the TRW legal department at the time, and while not everyone had these, their phones rang with the sound of a woodpecker. The sound turned out to be less intrusive during meetings, I felt that we were able to pause and resume conversations more easily with that ring tone. If I ever find that same ringtone online, it's going onto my phone - for now I've had to settle for other natural sounds.
It's a real shame that the building isn't being used any more. It was one of the more pleasant office experiences i've had working in tech all this time (other than working from home).
I remember the large trees in the Atrium and the annual and perennial plants in the planters around them. Beautiful.
very curious about that woodpecker ringtone. Do you recall the maker of the handsets/phones? Brand/name/model or even how it looked? There's a number of very common lines of office phones, I'd be curious which had it.
That sounds so ahead of its time. Drab lighting can completely kill the mood of a building. Sun mimicking lights sound wonderful. Same with the “woodpecker” ring sound. I swear the phone at my job has given me PTSD
Someone else in the comments said they think the phones were made by Nortel
We had Nortel at TRW Space Park, but I don't think our phones in Lyndhurst were Nortel (I worked at both locations).
What an absolute shame this had to be demolished. You guys never disappoint.
Right? What an absolute waste. If nothing else, this could've been made into an amazing residential facility. Maybe even assisted living. But it's gone.
@@Justin-C - No it really couldn't, commercial zoning has way different occupancy codes than residential, it would cost more in renovations to make it legally inhabitable and thus insurable than the actual purchase cost most likely and they'd never make that investment back in 100 years probably.
It's a nice idea to save old buildings but codes exist for a reason and you won't get an occupancy permit and thus insurance if you don't meet them. It's why very few abandoned buildings get converted to homeless shelters and such as everyone is always suggesting on here as to make it legal and insurable takes a lot more than adding a few walls and tossing some beds in it, you'd never recover that huge investment.
Long term care/assisted living has even more strict codes to meet, if it was cost effective to do the Cleveland Clinic likely would have done so themselves - and they got the building for free.
But it _didn't_ have to be demolished. It was demolished because it was clearly in the hands of morons. Imagine what this sort of idiocy looks like to sane people in other parts of the world!
@@jongrey1916 there have a been a few malls that were repurposed instead of being demolished
@@davinp - I didn't mean to say it can't be done at all just that converting commercial or industrial property to residential is very rare as it requires extensive and expensive work as codes are very different from having lots of people visiting for a period during the day to having people living there 24/7.
Typically repurposing is from one form of commercial/industrial to another, unless you can get local government on your side to loosen some of the requirements for low income housing or homeless shelters or such which can happen, very rarely - if they sign off on it then they become liable which they don't usually like.
The boxes at 24:15 aren't mailboxes, they are output bins from back in the days of batch processing computing. The computer center would be behind there with at least one (usually IBM) mainframe running. When your job ran, the operator would take the output from your job off of the line printer and put it into your output bin for you to pick up!
I wondered where the mainframe was? looks like it may have been moved or relocated.
I recognised the IBM mainframe terminal connection boxes in that one conference room.
I thought it interesting that there were lovely Canadian Nortel telephones everywhere!
Bursting was separating the tractor-fed forms, decollating was separating multi-copy forms (duplicate/triplicate) into runs of single layers prior to bursting.
@@tekvax01 Probably relocated entirely and no longer even in the building.
@@tekvax01 There was a brief glimpse of networking gear at 29:12 but I'd love to see more of their telecom room...
actually it was originally a storage room next to the reprographics center, in 1987 it became a large mailing center with a inserter and labeling machine. There was originally a in house office supply room in the area where the guy was facinated by the IBM typewriter which for three years had a small in house printing press or duplicator.They shut down the printing services outsourced the work. Several years later the original mail room became a storage area and the two rooms became the mail room.
@@quietrevelry
Thank you guys for capturing this for posterity. I spent 15 years working Night Security in the UK, and manned a number of high end complexes not to different to this. For me, they look odd with people IN them, as I usually worked alone.
The "Burster/Decollator" is a machine that takes old Z-fold paper with perforated edges for Tractor Feed printers, trims the perforations (De-COLLATING them), then Bursts the individual pages from the strip by advancing the paper by 1 page, then stopping the run as the last page continues, causing the pages to separate along the perforated join at the fold. Used for things like bank statements, the post room takes the box of printout, separates the pages, folds them, then inserts them into envelopes, seals them and adds the post mark. Quite mesmeric to watch!
Interesting. Thanks for the excellent description.
Ha, I remember manually tearing off the edges on homework. It was a tedious task - it makes sense that they fully automated it at scale.
I've operated one of them way back when. Ours was a rudimentary machine which separated huge reports I printed for internal distribution. It was about 4 ft high, a letter A shape with a shelf on either side. You fed the report up through the center of 2 rollers at the top which would separate one copy of the report and drop it on one side and the undecolated copies to the other side. The carbon was caught up and rolled around a special rod at the top of the rollers that I emptied after each pass till all copies were separated. Very dirty job.
@@MOE-gm3siI remember the days of using carbon paper in TypeWriters. Blue hands :-). Youngsters will be having a WTF moment about now! :-).
Beat me to it! My first job was running THE printer for a medium sized company. While we were very “modern” for 1985, with a terminal on each person’s desk, there was only 1 printer attached to the mainframe in a separate climate-controlled room with raised floors and a halon fire-suppression system.
Jobs were batched and the printer ran all day every day, then overnight. To be more efficient and keep up with demand, we used carbon printer paper. I would match the number of carbons to a multiple of the necessary batch size and then decollate the carbons from the paper. Then I would bind the reports into big binders (we’re talking 14 inch or so green-lined paper with holes for the tractors on the side).
Executives might get some data on a daily basis, but most positions got weekly reports. We had an on-prem RPG programmer for only about 14 office employees. The company president had a huge walrus mustache with twirled ends. Fun times.
Absolutely insane that they demolished this incredible building. One of my favorite videos you guys have produced.
Well, thank goodness this wonderful building was able to have you guys go through and create the last, and probably best, chronicle of its existence. I studied this building for my architectural training and always loved it. This video instantly became my favourite PP video.
Building and demolishing a building generates a mind-blowing amount of carbon. But, now that this perfectly-serviceable gem has been torn down, at least the current owner will be able to write off the demolition costs and write down the value of the property to defray property taxes. Fools.
Same. Watching a second time now. Added to my Favorites and Downloads. Please do more locations like this, guys.
Agreed in my top #3 favorite from them no question. Amazing Job guys.
I retired YEARS ago. I worked in office buildings like this for 50 years. I am 76 now. I was an electrical engineer. I cried all through your video.
What a shame to take a space like this people spent so much of their lives in and just destroy it.
@@Louis-wp3fqI mean it was just used like 15 years I don't think that's much but it is a lifetime of someone
This was tragic.
Just the concept of the money, time, hard work and effort gone just like that.
that's the story of this country anymore its going to do us in too @@Louis-wp3fq
@@nexustom5823 ..do you think the 1980s was 15 years ago ?
We're not going to learn, are we?
We're just gonna keep doing this. We've lost so many unique, stunning, or just beautifully designed pieces of architecture this last 10 years from the 50s right through to the 80s.
When they're gone, they're gone forever. What a pity.
Thank you for documenting this amazing place before it was gone. There's a quiet dignity to a building like this. Some of the best 80s architecture I've seen. I was gutted to hear it was gone immediately after falling in love with it.
This building is a marvel of the 80's, it should never have been demolished.
Well, those who earn are never going to learn.
So gather a group together, find the capital, buy it and maintain it. Wait, can’t afford to? Hmmmmm. I sense a pattern.
Life moves on, take a picture and build something that’s efficient and maintainable. We’re talking a period of time when environmental requirements were lower and energy costs were radically smaller.
@@c1ph3rpunk what a biblical quantity of shit talk.
Literally just took down a pretty cool glass office building near me built in 2000. Yes 23 years, only to be demolished. Got to explore it, and I see no reason why it needed to be removed. There is an identical one next to it still being used and updated.
My dad worked at this building in the 2000s. I visited once. It was truly amazing.
It's beautiful
As an architech is a shame a building like this so well looking and so conserved was demolished. Thanks you guys to take it the time to research the architecture history behind the building.Greetings from Mexico
It would have been nice if the place got used again, but I'd rather it be demolished than sit around for decades taking up what would otherwise be a valuable empty lot. A building like that certainly isn't cheap to maintain.
Imagine you are the architect and they tear this masterpiece down. It's beyond sickening how this country demolishes its masterpieces. General populace really doesn
t have an eye for beauty. Being an architect can be so unrewarding because you are trying to create beauty and they are trying to demolish it at the same time. Sad.
@@barnmaddo You are absolutely mad. It's like saying the Empire State Building should be demolished because nobody goes to the office anymore. Buildings like these are our cultural heritage. Can't you understand/see that?
That office looks 20 times nicer than any office I’ve ever worked in.
Same here, it seems like about 90% of office buildings are featureless boxes.
Exactly. But these two young guys keep saying....this is dated....or that is dated. FUNNY !
People just don't care anymore about art or morale of the people in the workspaces. People spend so much of their time working in these spaces...They want space to be as money efficient as possible. A decay of culture. Really sad :(@@moredistractions
I work in high tech, and as things have progressed over decades, I have to say that it does indeed look dated, but in a nostalgic and pleasant way. This building was astonishingly nice for its time - such a cool place to work compared to many other bland offices of that time. I've worked in much more modern buildings for the last two jobs, at least the interiors. I've also worked in places with old bakelite phones and green vinyl backrests on cold, steel interrogation chairs. Not all of Silicon Valley looks like this vintage of building, but a lot of these are still around. Someone elsewhere said that the card reader looked like it was from around 2004. Those readers were around for a long time, especially in manufacturing settings, but by 2004 there were HID contactless readers in a lot of buildings. As a RUclips expert, I can only remark on my own observations which will vary from others'.
Well TRW was like ranked in the 50's on the Fortune 500 when they built this so you would expect it to be a lot nicer than most offices. Big defense contractors tend to have some pretty sweet offices especially when it comes to global headquarters.
I got to to work for TRW in this building, for several years.
It was the most amazing place I've ever worked.
The atrium was so cool, especially coming up the stairs from the parking deck.
The campus was also fantastic, tucked in the trees. The design, with brown anodized frames and brown reflective glass was reportedly done to help the building blend into the trees, and hide it from the neighboring estates. At four stories, and with the swooping drive, it was short enough to not be seen from Richmond Road (the road where the main entrance is located).
I would have loved to have gotten to take one more walk through, with you guys.
22:24 that area used to be the "Health Maintenance Center", aka, the workout room.
Did you get into the "daycare center", aka the original half-wing mockup? That building had mirrors at both ends so you could see what the sight lines would look like down one of the wings, and was used to practice the construction and mock up the interior.
We used to have RC trucks for running cabling under the raised floors.
Interesting background, thanks for sharing. Can you share with us what corporate functions were housed in this building? Guessing it was the executive (obviously) and core business and functions - sales/marketing, finance, supply chain exec, engineering exec, etc.
I instantly recognized IT infra office areas by the windowlessness...
Address? State?
@@runner3033 remember that cc did whatever they did while they owned it, so it wouldn't be exactly the same as when trw owned it.
and have you ever seen so much cherry, brass, glass, and marble in one building? the floors on the first floor! every door was cherry, and every cube had cherry accents.
someone else who worked there should also chime in and correct me on some of these details, since it's been a while.
the waterfall did not operate, at least when trw was there, for more than a few months, because of the water/splash issue. i don't know why it would still smell like anything in the stairs, unless cc was using it.
i believe there were only 500 or so employees in the building. i've heard 1500-1800, but i don't think that's even close. the two parking levels would only accommodate about 550 cars.
there were plants and trees EVERYWHERE in the building. every cube and every office had either a plant or a tree, and there were big brass planters (some of which made the video) all over. TRW had a team of gardeners from a local nursery to tend to all the plants in the building.
first floor was support, reception, food service, HR (for HQ, not for the whole company), the HMC, the doctor/nurse, the auditoriums, and ISS (Information Systems Services, which was more maintenance, some networking, etc. and less about mainframes and servers. there was a lot of IT on the 4th floor)
i think 2 was accounting, finance, TRW Automotive. i can't remember if flight was on 2, or not (i think i remember that TRW had five planes, and twelve pilots that flew out of Lost Nation airport, a couple of miles from HQ). travel might have been on 2, also.
i think 3 was law, the law library, the executive suites, and i don't remember what else. TRW Credit (now Experian) was there, I think (watch me be completely wrong - it's been a while).
4 - the top floor - only had two wings, west, and south. that's where i was. we were the IT/IS team. We had teams of full-time developers, support, and some consultants building systems that were being used, internally. We had a bunch of servers up there as well, but in the 80's and 90's, servers weren't in big racks, they were stand-alone units, and many of them looked like workstations. Example: we had a number of Sun Sparc II's, running Sybase, that we were using for the back-ends to our applications.
Most of the divisions were HQ'd elsewhere, because TRW was a conglomerate, so those divisions had previously been their own firms. Space & Defense, for example, was HQ'd in California.
@@GoPoundSalt of this building? 1900 Richmond Road, Lyndhurst, Ohio
@@MissMyMusicAddiction Thanks for the detailed response! Got the idea, have worked in subsidiaries of similar corporations where they called it "World HQ" or "Global" (pilots on staff and all). In one case, flew back and forth so much during an SAP implementation that we used to joke about getting to use the company jet. Didn't happen.
This was a very well appointed building for sure and while I'm indifferent towards most 80s-on architecture, it's a shame to lose it, a great example of the 80s/90s "campus" style office building. Even leaving the offices out of it, indoor parking for everyone, how cool is that? At the HQ of one place I worked for, if you worked late you would request security escort to your car...
I can't get over these young guys saying, "This is dated" or "That is dated." Oh my God !!!!! 100% of the stuff in that building is SO much more modern than ANY place I have ever worked including currently.
They're total dorks
@@lannlann says the dude with a ww2 plane 😂
@lannlann and it's a crosshair
Keep crying
@@lannlann No they're not. Their just young.
The mantainence and custodial staff of this building under all of the owners need to be commended. It looks like it has been so professionally maintained and cleaned for the whole life of the building. This legacy is just as important as any aspect of the materials and design being lost.
I'd expect nothing less from a company that started by making the vary screws holding the building ...your vary right expert class techs
Electricity still turned on
This is absolutely disgraceful for a masterpiece of a building to be torn down "just like that" with no regard to the historical nature and to preserve it. It's one of the absolute most beautiful buildings I have ever seen.
As someone who routinely works on repairing and restoring electronics from the 1980s and 1990s, I often come across parts that were manufactured by TRW, many of which were well built. With myself being born in the mid 1980s, this video really hits home in so many ways its indescribable.
A big thank you to you guta for capturing this on video for future generations to see just how far society has fallen and continues to doing so.
masterpiece is a great word. I am sad that the architect and TRW global are not around to hear these compliments.
It keeps on happening in this country. It makes you sick. They really don't have an eye for architecture.
One of the saddest episodes of abandoned you've done, this time not because of the poor state of the building rather than how this awesome building in good condition still doesn't survive. Its simply criminal the waste of resources that has occurred here, the effort and energy gone into such a creation only to be destroyed a few years later is unacceptable. Again beautifully captured in a respectful video to live on in Proper People's history logs.
You should have taken up a collection and save the building.
@ButterfatFarms The comment isn't about the building being saved. The commenter points out that it's criminal that such a waste of resources has occurred. That seems a very valid topic. Your comment is dismissive of that point.
Totally agree. Could have been repurposed into housing and/or WFH units, hotel accommodation etc. No imagination.
There should be a tax on demolition and redevelopment property like this to offset the ridiculous waste of energy and resources and tax breaks for reusing existing structures instead.
Completely agree. I couldn’t watch because of the sheer waste.
@@slartibartfast7921 no you couldn't watch because you're an overly emotional snowflake about it. I mean let's be real.
I've watched nearly all of your videos and I feel this is once of the sharpest buildings you've done. It's quite timeless, especially the exterior and all the exposed metal on the inside.
Thank you for your videos and taking us to these amazing places we wouldn't otherwise see.
Yeah, it really is. Would love to see a longer uncut version.
Great video tribute to such an amazing building. I worked there for almost 3 years for Cleveland Clinic. It was an amazing building designed to take care of its employees by TRW. It should have never been demolished, that building could never be replicated.
Well it's still up right now but they're definitely starting demolition.
@@Ovahlls As of Spring 2023 it was partially demolished, I'm sure it is nearly complete by now. What a shame.
that's a real company...I worked 4 years in IBM Portugal and I had to buy an external monitor for my laptop since they didn't provided one.
Yep. I agree. Another of the many damn injustices when it comes to buildings being demolished when they shouldn’t be.
"that building could never be replicated" and it never will be replicated. Because the tenant it was designed and built for is gone. There is absolutely no need for it anymore. Its purpose was fulfilled. And once that purpose no longer existed the property was never fully utilized again. Which is why it's come to be demolished in pursuit of selling the property off to its next use.
This building is literally ready for a tenant to move in. Yes, some things are dated but everything is still pretty nice. The building was definitely ahead of its time. One of the execs at the company I work for told a colleague that he just didn’t understand big business. We always use that phrase when talking about decisions the company makes that don’t make any sense. This would definitely be a “You don’t understand big business” moment.
Was, Its gone now
@@mathewrussell1533 dang
@@jorgejiminez-rk1uu Can't have you looking out into that atrium when you should be doing work for 100% of the time you are in the building clocked in or not!
yup, just no business that is willing to locate there and take on the maintenance and adaptation of the structure to their needs. Its cheaper to just build new. I foresee this lot remaining undeveloped for some time.
@@jorgejiminez-rk1uuyea I thought my dad had an old building office until I watch nyc diamond sellers having old acs units still lol watch traxnyc and watch the recent short him showing diamonds you'll see how old and poor conditions is everything in there
Whole thing feels like if you were given the keys to a community collage to explore during holiday break... Gosh, Such an incredible structure and usage of it's space.
its space. its its its its its its its its its
Community collage? Like a giant shared work of art?
@@jasonvaughn3478 Cheers to you my guy! I laughed my ass off. I can't believe I didn't catch that. 🤣
I worked there for six wonderful years. Such a fantastic place! Amazing that Cleveland Clinic didn't want it after we gave it to them!
More reasons why I feel terrible about this:
o I attended the groundbreaking ceremony
o As an HR executive, my father was involved with the design philosophy and usage policies of the building, and worked there from the opening date until his retirement 14 years later
o I ended up working there for several years myself and had a an office with a fantastic view of the “English Garden” in one direction and a golf course the other way
o I was involved in winding down TRW's operations there prior to the handover to the Cleveland Clinic
o Coincidentally I drove my father to several medical appointments there as he was nearing the end of his life. His doctor’s office was located on the same floor just around the corner from where my father’s office had been, and he was able to visit his old office, nearly untouched, ~20 years after he retired. (I checked on my office but the Cleveland Clinic had reconfigured the space and made 2.5 offices out of what had been my one office.)
I wish they hadn't torn it down. Reading your comments are a glimpse into your memories. Memories are so dear to me. It was amazing how your father's office was the same as he left it. Just cherish the good memories and the good that came from it. A lot of stuff happens that we have no control of that can be very saddening. @@OlsenKirk
The building exuded luxury, style and spaciousness combined with a feeling of coziness and comfort wrapped up in beauty and impressive aesthetics. A masterpiece of architecture if I may say. Hard to believe it was demolished.
Exactly how I would describe it. It has a certain vibe that just can’t be beat
I'm an Architectural Engineer who works in Millwork. Bookmatching is actually very common practice in millwork. It's generally considered the "correct" way to lay paneling. Be it stone or wood. There are occasions where book matching isn't used such as the case of flooring where you want to show opposing grain directions as a design element or also wall paneling for a similar purpose, but the general idea is to match the grain as close as possible. Also the building may have been built in the 80's but I would say it was renovated in the 90's judging by all of the blond oak everywhere and a later refresh to the public spaces in mid to late 2000's. The executive suite is also most likely the most recent renovation. Probably within the last 5-8 years. The wooden slat walls are actually a very current trend and they look to be in very good condition, so I wouldn't doubt if they were done recently. The Green marble however is defiantly from the 1980's. It's sad to see such a unique building going to the wrecking ball.
They wrecked all that marble.
The dining tray design at the 11:57 Mark was introduced by engineers for the purpose of four people to be able to sit together at a square table. The trays aligned that way to optimize the amount of table space needed to hold the trays.
so glad someone else had those trays stand out to them as well . very eye catching
That fucking chair commercial was unhinged.
I loved it.
If David Lynch directed a Devo video:
...and I love it too!
That shit had me trippin...
Where can we find the full version? I loved the song at the animated part
@@Barton_Motors_LtdHere you go, it’s from 1984 from Herman Miller for their Equa Chair:
ruclips.net/video/NTsU-rC2PyQ/видео.html
@@Barton_Motors_Ltd ruclips.net/video/NTsU-rC2PyQ/видео.html
What a gorgeous space. I'd be proud to work there. The natural light, the open spaces, the wonderful scenery outside. What a monumental shame to demolish this place.
Right now, the environmental movement is gaining a lot of traction. Fascinating to me that it hasn't extended to the architectural sphere. Guys, I worked in Silicon Valley for 7 years and would always hear things like "yeah, that building is obsolete", for 30 or 40 year old buildings. I saw entire campuses torn down, trees and everything. Even perfectly usable, in some cases beautiful furniture was tossed out. The amount of waste is ridiculous.
Cheap money makes all of this waste possible.
It’s both environmental vandalism as well as cultural vandalism. In the UK, important buildings are listed… i.e. owners are obligated to preserve them if they have cultural importance. It’s a tragedy they don’t have that protection in the US.
The problem here is nobody wants to buy older building as they use A LOT, i mean A LOT MORE energy than modern buildings. The difference is staggering, but that's in Europe. Maybe Muricans can still waste energy if it's cheap. If it starts to become expensive, lots of buildings operational cost skyrockets far above the mortgage itself. That's the problem.
@@HermanWillems Not sure about that since their emphasis in the video was on the fact that it had not been on the market for long, but the owner was getting impatient regardless. Adding new insulation and solar panels seems to be a small price to pay to save a historically significant building, and one that is aesthetically pleasing also. Like the guy said…. Such a waste.
@@HermanWillems ..? Where? Where it's really cold? I really really don't think, with some minor upgrades to the lights, heating and cooling systems, and the installation of some insulation, that it couldn't be turned into something as efficient as a modern building? What's stopping it?
I don't know if this would be appreciated by everyone but being in the trades, I would love to see some of the mechanical rooms in these abandoned buildings. I know there had to have been whole crews of guys proud of their work for projects like this and I wish we could see it one last time.
Indeed.
Most urbexers tend to ignore the juicy infrastructure bits that I like to see.
_"No need to go in there. It's just a bunch of pipes and valves and mechanical stuff."_
*DOH!!*
Yeah, like the plant rooms for the air-cons and electrical systems. I love to see that stuff too.
@@bigbrostevo And elevator machine rooms.
100% the operational aspects of such a building are just as interesting.
As an hvac tech I agree. Love to see mechanical rooms!
Wow!
This brings back memories!
I worked for CCN (I think around 1997-ish). I worked in the IT department and we had Credit Analysts that created credit scoring models. Our parent company, Great Universal Stores (out of the UK) wanted to get a foot in the door in the US credit market, so they purchased the credit portion of TRW, merged CCN with TRW and named us Experian!
It was an interesting time. I didn't stick around long after that as CCN was Australian based company and had Great benefits, well above average of the typical US package of benefits. But when we became Experian, our benefits started to align with the average or below average, so I left there and went to work at BellSouth's Corporate HQ (In the Campanile building in Midtown Atlanta).
Great Universal Stores out of Manchester UK must have got their foot in the credit rating market Because they stopped me from buying a microwave Cause my Mama had a poor credit rating thus it affected my credit rating,
I was earning unbelievable money and had just got my first credit card & was not in debt, Great Universal were a catalogue company that dominated the UK for over 70 years, it's all long gone now Thanks to Amazon
That was a gorgeous building. Really sucks they decided to demolish it.
The waste a single generation of humans produces is completely mind blowing. I don’t see how humans can exist more than a few 100 more years.
@@NealDprobably won’t ..100 years from appx 1960
@@NealDthis is why people need to stop breeding.
How else was Amazon supposed to build a huge warehouse complex
@@jimbo992
Fortunately, fewer people in first-world nations are reproducing. But I am not certain how that keeps these buildings around any longer.
I worked at a different TRW facility, but it was also an amazing facility to work in. Really, a whole different America back then. We did all of the most technically challenging work in the industry and TRW drew in all of the best talent to get the work done. Always enjoyed talking with the other engineers and hearing about all of things that went wrong as they figured out how to build the best hardware in the world. That all disappeared when Northrop Grumman took over and we were largely dispersed into where ever we could go.
So yeah, this piece talks about this beautiful building being demolished, but this is just a symbol of the bigger tragedy of one of the most advanced companies in the world building all of the hardest stuff to build in the world disappearing into the corporate carpet bagging greed machine and being lost to time as what was there got demolished.
A little trivia for you, when I went through Bill Gate's biography many years back, working at TRW was the only time in Bill Gate's life when he had management over him. When I started at TRW, I was the youngest person there by a long shot and I couldn't find anybody else who had started that young at TRW besides Bill Gates. It was an engineering powerhouse and usually they only had college grads there, but at the time there was a shortage of software engineers and I had figured out programming and a fair amount about software engineering in high school, so they brought me on as an intern and then a regular employee.
I had the same experience working for TRW. Really innovative and technically challenging work. Scientists and engineers were given the space to try out new ideas and explore. People of all ages worked on a project and learned from each other. All of that changed when the bean counter mentality of Northrop took over.
Very insightful comment. I am feeling the same currently. Great medium and even large companies are being destroyed. It seems that businesses are making a stock price instead of great products made by great people cared for in great spaces, with the best resources and support. Nth degree wealth doesn’t work to make a beautiful world for people.
Those commercials at the beginning gave me a deep wave of nostalgia for my childhood in the early 80s. TRW and BASF always had weird commercials like that. "...at a company called TRW." And BASF was, "We don't make the products you love. We make the products you love better." Must have been great marketing because I still remember the slogans 40 years later.
I still remember the BASF commercial that had the Mystichrome Mustang driving through what I think was the salt flats.
BASF has a building here in Berlin which has an interesting design and rad LED patterns, definitely stands out - worth passing by if you nerd out about things like this : )
I'm a mechanic in training and I saw TRW on some parts I was working on the other day. I was so glad I knew what they meant and the history behind them. Thanks for always teaching and educating! It's fascinating and helps me watch the videos with an entirely new level of appreciation.
I worked in this building for TRW from 1998 til we handed the keys to the Cleveland Clinic after Northrop purchased us as part of Ron Sugar's revenge tour against Gorman. I will never forget when I went to interview driving up and seeing the immaculate grounds, stream, and lawn sculptures, not to mention this beautiful building - it was a magical place. There were walking trails around the property - around the Bolton mansion and through where Legacy Village is today. There were literally herds (plural) of deer, turkey, and all kind of wildlife there. From my office I could watch the heron pluck goldfish from the pond....
It's a shame they couldn't have moved Fred Crawford's (the man who made TRW great) collection from the Crawford Auto Aviation Museum to here. Pure and simple, a certain attorney/CEO made some disastrous business and succession decisions that doomed a great company...
Don't you go making fun of Joe Gorman
But here's another story for you, since I could watch this one from my office:
Joe bought one of the first Lexus's in the US. He had WOIO shoot a puff piece about it on the back roundabout (above the entrance to the parking decks)
Ron Sugar's revenge tour is right. I worked for TRW and for Northrop and can't think of two more incompatible companies if I tried. It's hard to fathom that someone couldn't come up with a way to reuse this building instead of plowing it under.
@@NotSpockToo "Two more incompatible companies": Any good engineering company and Boeing. My wife worked for TRW and then Northrop Grumman in California, then Florida. She was always eternally grateful it wasn't Boeing. NG even kept the legacy pension program from TRW.
Y’all just made my night. I’ve been going back and rewatching old videos and I’m so glad you guys are still making new, amazing content.
I never felt sad for a building before this is such a shame this place got so much potential it's gorgeous
1980s Atrium architecture is absolutely remarkable
This is more than a testament to architecture, it’s a testament to proper engineering! Years on, and the building looks a though it was abandoned yesterday.
I watch your channel avidly, there aren’t many explorations like this… where a commercial building still stands, with no adverse environmental effects!
This is probably the most beautiful, architecturally sound and well engineered building… you’ll will ever review!?😊
"Years on, and the building looks a though it was abandoned yesterday."
If you watched the end of the History section of the video, you'd see that the building was abandoned in 2023...
@@bennemann It was honestly in bad shape considering how recent had been abandoned.
Very 80’s. The saxophone at the end sealed it! I worked for many companies like that back then. Digital, Compugraphics, etc. The company cafeteria, brewskies in the break room fridge ( for after work, of course), and I bet you could have found a company credit union around there somewhere…
People really didn’t believe those times would end and we’d be living in this dystopian hell hole today.
Love your last sentence. How true. I'm 57.
@@elliotdryden7560 i mean you guys are the ones that sold out
Agree 100%, 64 yo here that worked in Aerospace in Florida starting in '84. This building is way nicer than anything we had on Kennedy Space Center.
Entirely fitting that it was a "heathcare" company that committed this act of vandalism.
Yep.....that's why after Reagan was president, workers lost everything, mental health facilities closed.....this was the beginning of our decline and the end of the "American Dream."
Being around xmas, and being 1980s corporate office architecture, the private bathroom, even the water feature....I am getting a Nakatomi Tower vibe. Those geese were there to throw Hans Gruber off the roof.
Yes! totally
I was thinking exactle the same thing!
In 2012, I completed my mentorship my senior year of high school with the Cleveland Clinic Wellness Institute, and I remember being in awe of the atrium the first time I entered the building. I had fun pointing out to my partner where I spent part of my senior in the building as you all walked through the various floors. It was a nice stroll down memory lane but really sad and a shame to learn that we've lost such an awesomely beautiful, unique, and still very functional building.
I usually hate corporate architecture no matter how good it is, just not my vibe, but something about this building just really appeals to me. It’s like one degree rotation from a mall, a hospital, and an office building just enough that I like it. I still don’t know if I would like to work in such a large building, but I wouldn’t have minded stopping by. What a shame about it being demolished. It’s one of the most beautiful sites I’ve seen from you guys.
I can't believe that nobody wanted this place, it's absolutely amazing inside and out!
I can tell from the production quality and the upbeat music that you guys really respect this place.
Yeah... those are the indicators. What a clown.
As one should. The little inclusions of the animations really adds to it.
The future happened yesterday.
Why they are the proper people to report on it.
@@rovhalgrencparselstedt8343 Intact? It's gone.
While watching this video I thought the place looked so familiar! Then I realized that I’ve been here plenty of times. I used to be the FedEx driver in Lyndhurst and I had deliveries for this place quite often. The one time I had to find someone to sign for a package and ended up walking around the whole place looking for someone. What an amazing piece of architecture. I’m happy I got to experience it. The fountain was on when I went there lol. NE Ohio has many abandoned places but none that compares to this.
I worked for TRW but much later. From 1995 to 2014. In 2002, we were acquired by Northrop Grumman. I worked in California. I was watching RUclips when this popped up. Brought back memories. I still have some friends, and we get together once a year.
I also worked for TRW, but in Virginia. Really enjoyed my time there until taken over by Northrop Grumman. Still keep in touch with people from that time.
My dad worked for Space Park in CA.
Bryan Weissman and Michael Berindei
My firm, PHH Interspace was honored to have been selected to create the "Needs Analysis", Interior Design and Furniture installation" for this project. After the Gilbane Construction Company was selected to define the process by Jack Gerhart, Project Director for TRW.
He was an Aerospace Leader who had never been involved in the construction of a building and spent a full year touring and interviewing corporations who had recently been through this process of developing a new Corporate HQ. His "lessons learned" became his criteria to organize a team and process to make sure the TRW HQ would be better than any of the sites he visited. This is the prime reason that he selected a Construction Management Firm first. Followed by an Interior design firm to determine the requirements of those who were going to work in the building. Each member of the "team" was asked to participate in the selection of the subsequent members.
This was followed by an evaluation each quarter, to evaluate the success of each team member with a report card and subsequent "Bonus".
Very interesting, thanks for sharing.
I didn’t know Gilbane was the GC
What is really interesting about TRW HQ was the sequence of assembling the team. Gilbane was first, followed by Interspace Inc who spent 1 year interviewing every employee, then the Architects were interviewed and FCL was selected as the final team member. Major articles were written on the process!@@randyr.cedeno3617
Sounds and looks like it was built with love..makes me wonder why he would ever sell the company off
It looks like Jack Gerhart took a Systems Engineering approach to designing and building a world-class HQ building. Systems Engineering was a prime practice and a specialty of TRW.
I pass this building almost everyday and remember how upset my town was when they found out it was being demolished. It was very cool to see the inside of the building! It’s sad to see it demolished now
Great video of a gorgeous building. The unique blue, gold, and chrome color scheme of the cafeteria at 10:33 is identical to the Bell Sound Systems (a Division of Thompson Products, then TRW) model 2420 amplifier and related series of home audio equipment from the 1960s. The TRW logo is prominent on those units. Seems like it was a beautiful nod to their corporate history.
I consider this a Christmas present from you guys. I used to work for TRW in Sydney, Australia and was pulled up the ranks by management. Was the best working days of my life. I remember wanting to visit head office at some point...but instead, I got to meet many upper management and CEO's in training from there. Merry Christmas. 😉
What an absolutely stunning example of 80's corporate architecture, especially that gorgeous main atrium. Some areas give luxurious vaporwave mall lobby, others give Black Mesa and/or Backrooms. Agree with everyone else here that it's a crying shame it got demolished and you guys are doing amazing work by documenting it and editing together this fantastic video!
It sucks that new office buildings or anything for that matter no longer have glass atriums with plant life in the middle. I guess today it’s more about what is functional and Grey
Don't know if you watched it, but Silo has a very similar vibe.
yes if something is like black mesa.. it is TRW Lyndhurst, just look their unreal ad films :) and they have even backrooms =)
The building's story was really interesting and quite sad. Learning more about the buildings is one of my favourite parts of this channel! Great work!
8:38 that pull station and the speaker strobes are newer I wanna say 2010s, The pull station is a Simplex 2099 series and the speaker strobe is a 4906 series. The backbox behind the pull station is older though it definitely had an older system at some point, its still cool though! The older version of the pull station is the Simplex 4251-30!
I agree with you, it is such a waste that they demolished such a beautiful, functional building. On another note, in the 50 years my dad owned his businesses he did a lot of business with TRW and I heard many descriptions about that building and about how fabulous he thought it was. Unfortunately, I never got to see it so I'm glad I got to see this before they tore it down. Thanks so much for that.
It is beyond a tragedy that this was torn down. I am so upset. I literally cried. You cannot duplicate stuff like this. Yeah, a few leaks here and there, but this property was mainly ready to go. It hits differently when it was a building built around when I was born.
Completely agree. You simply cannot rebuild a place like this. There's have to be an egotistical "tweak" here or there. It's beautiful because it's of its time, a time that is long gone, and never to be replicated.
It beggars belief that in this day and age, where we understand the impact of these buildings disappearing that we're still allowing this to happen.
No doubt the grounds will just be turned into another Amazon fulfilment gulag or some bullshit startup company with a copy and paste "modern" office building that looks identical to all the others.
The tragic comedy of the situation is the modern building will probably be steel and glass, which was already there in a much more pleasing, clearly better built form!
@@skyrocketautomotivethen why did you allow it to happen get off your ass and do something to preserve them, find them new tenants, give them new life.
That does remind me of those Star Trek episodes where they encounter a lost and abandoned ship of their own fleet, they beam aboard, the red alert is on, pretty much everything seems to be working, pretty much everything seems to be normal, apart from the red alarm and that there's virtually nobody else aboard.
If you turn off all the lights at night and use a camera with longer exposure time, this would make one hell of a location for a horror movie. You never know what will pop up in the next flash! Jumpscare City!
i remember that episode
Great reference
Omg yes
I'm from Kuala Lumpur and I'm not kidding when I say that we have the same exact replica of this building, Prince Court Medical Centre. Literal same vibes. Though what is even funny to me, I used to audit TRW's books for their Malaysian branch. The algo-Gods are fucking good! Love this video.
This is by far my favorite place you've ever explored. The multiple references to Van Der Rohe's work, the attention to detail, the quality of the materials (marble, granite, steel, wood) make this building a true gem! And that atrium is more grand and beautiful than multiple hotel and mall lobbies I've ever seen, it must have felt nice working in such an environment.
this building is still ENTIRELY useable! it blows my mind completely that they are willing to totally erase its existence, and just to make way for "progress" at that!
Fully agreed, they probably want to replace it with an Amazon distribution center
@@Tokaisho1 😤🙄🙄
Well they got it for free didn't they! So they had no skin in the game and didn't want to put any mental effort into thinking about a use, just get it off the books and move on.
JIM
It was done because they needed a tax write off. If they kept the building the company would lose their tax free nonprofit status and license to steal money. Couldn't have that happen. The government and the healthcare industry is corrupt. Russia is safer to live in right now.
Nothing will be put on that space. It will sit vacant for the rest of your lifetime because the surrounding area is losing population to larger cities and has no investment.
As an 80’s born Ohioan, it’s sad to see this building come to ruins. I’ve personally never seen it other than this video. It is (was) so beautiful. The very first image of the atrium brought back so much nostalgia, memories and vibes of the old school malls and city center.
80's kid here too but not from Ohio. I however go to BMW's technician training program at Ohio Tech in downtown Cleveland and lived in Parma. Had I known about that building I would have loved to have seen it myself. I'd love to come back out of nostalgia and reminisce.
I come back to this video every few months. This building is so vivid in my mind. It feels like its still standing.
That has to be one of the most beautiful office buildings I've ever seen. I was imagining what it would be like to work there while watching. I REALLY love all the indoor plants and the cool fountain/water feature. What a shame this place got demolished. Great video!!!!
Yeah, water, fountains and marble is peak 80s, wonderful.
Former TRW Employee in germany here. I was working for TRW from 2015 when they were acquired by ZF Friedrichshafen. Until 2022, we were working in an capus here in Düsseldorf, Germany which was a former factory dating back to ~1899. We now moved to an ordinary office build nearby and the old campus will be demolished soon for housing. It even has the old mansion of the factory onwner on-site :) I remember having these plates in 21:24 here near VPs office as well :) Absolutely stunning video - thanks :)
So glad you guys documented this amazing building.
It’s a huge waste that it’s getting demolished, looking like it could have been used for so many things
TRW - My first client when I started my IT carrier. My company was their IT vendor for over 15 years. I joined when the TRW was still independent and before their takeover by ZF group.
I have lot of good memories with people working in TRW. My main area was one of the internal application focused on Six-Sigma savings/projects and has clients from their US and Canada region.
As someone born in 1974, this speaks of the time of my own greatest influences in life, and when the United States became such a massive media influence upon the United Kingdom. This is the most 'America in the 1980's' thing I have ever seen, outside a television programme, featuring a Mike Post theme tune. I feel the Proper People have also elevated their production value here to a point where TRW would surely be proud of your coverage, with the era specific video and music inserts giving atmosphere so perfectly related. I wonder if the composer of the 'digital chair dance' intentionally knew he was verging on either copying or closely following bars from Queen's Radio Ga-Ga by the end? Regardless, it would only remain in tribute to the mirror of future versus past we've been given here, as the intention of that song was. I am still stunned at how amazingly well that building has fared since the 80's. In the U.K. we would have the sense to protect and preserve such a building, especially given, as said during the video, that it could be easily transformed to suit any new occupiers. It would be a tragedy and insult to the architect and his Grandson if it were to be torn down indiscriminately. I use that final word as absolutely intended by definition. Great work P.P one of your best yet.
My Father retired from TRW in the late 80s. He worked out of a NYC Skyscraper.
I remember my dad always going to Chicago and California for 3 month at a time for "school" . I remembered the floor to ceiling computers and steams of paper falling so neatly in carts I had my own secretarial desk with a name plate for days I went to work with him.
We were the first family in our little NJ neighborhood to have an electric typewriter.
Maybe he can go kiss the proper peoples ASS for a real kick back retirees fund for making money OFF BREAKING THE LAW.
Bryan Weissman and Michael Berindei
@@Sam-nh5xb You're a damaged man, aren't you Sam.
The story behind the TRW building and who designed it should have made it a historic building to be preserved. Now it's a pile of debris created out of greed and the hopes to make a quick buck. Thank you for capturing its final days of glory and sharing the story. By far one of my favorite yet depressing documentary videos from the Proper People.
You should have started a charity campaign to raise the money to save and preserve and restore the building. Too bad you didn't.
The demolition crew lol'd while they hit it with the wrecking ball.
This facility is reminding me a great deal of "Bell Works", an office complex used by AT&T/Lucent for a number of years that was built out in Homdel, New Jersey.. Similar early 80's style architecture. Fortunately, Bell Works hasn't been demolished but was converted for commercial use and is still open to the public. My father used to work there and I remember visiting there decades ago. The facility was actually used in the series "Severance" which was very cool to see. My father has since passed, but my aunt and uncle and I still like to visit Bell Works for nostalgia.
When i saw this building and then you said the architects name and his relationship to Mies van der Rohe...i was like "yep". The influence is very clear. That atrium in its 80s hey day looked absolutely stunning. Shame its now being left to rot.
Kinda sad as well that TRW didnt go bust or anything, they were just bought by a bigger fish and then snuffed out. At least the automotive arm was spun out and still exists today.
I love these older 1980s buildings, they look so cool and you could imagine the people who worked their, a simpler time. Great work as always and love the lighting too and just the overall design and vibe of the place
It doesn't look "80s" to me. More or less what every big company corporate HQ in Silicon Valley looks like.
@@redgrant4897 It didn't look dated really
Absolutely crazy how good of condition that building was in
Damn, I thought dead and abandoned malls were aesthetic, but I think I just found the pinnacle of the genera. If I had been born a few decades earlier, and had more engineering know-how, working here might have been my dream job. Anyway, thanks for such an amazing video and tour!
How incredibly sad to see this great piece of architecture destroyed. Thanks for taking us inside guys. Amazing documentary on this beautiful facility. 😢
I've been subscribed to this channel for years and I think that was the best inro ever, It really gives the building character to know its history.
Yeah I love this episode so much.
Yep and the outro was sweet too had a very 80's-esque feel with the synth music and sax
I bet this place looked amazing with the setting sun shining through the glass atrium
A shame to know something that had so much care and talent put into its construction is now gone
I always think it’s crazy how much work was done on a normal day and how activity that place was when it was fully operational and 300 people doesn’t seem nearly enough to fill that place
To give an idea of just how large this space is for 350 (the number mentioned in the video) people, an average architectural design standard for office buildings is about 250 square feet per person. At 480K square feet, with 350 people working in it, yields over 1300 square feet per person. That is close to the square footage of some houses. This building's space utilization design was truly decadent...unless it was designed to accommodate massive expansion. In theory, it should be able to support almost 2000 employees (@ 250 square feet/per).
@@neonnoodle1169 there were only 350 people working there at the time Northrop Grumman acquired them. According to the encyclopedia of Cleveland history, around 1800 employees worked there when the building first opened.
They sold to northrop for billions amd put in 17 years of work its impressive though they got the use out of it made it worth it
I was fortunate to have worked for TRW for a year before they were bought out and held TRW stock as a perk of my employment. TRW was probably one of the best companies I had ever worked for. It was like a family. My operating sector was kept and became "Northrop Grumman Mission Systems". Despite working with and around the same people, you could tell that the entire corporate culture had changed, and not for the better. The first clue was the promised 1:1 stock exchange was quickly reneged and we got a fraction of the shares of NG stock we were promised. Then, the benefits changed. In the following two years with Northrop Grumman, it jist felt different... detached. Then, NG lost the project on which I worked and that was it. I left for the new company, ESP, Inc., which was another great company with which to work. I still remember TRW as a great company with a long and distinguished history.
I really love the historical footage for TRW and the IBM typewriter! It's so interesting to see the contrast of the decay of the building to when it was brand new. I always wanted to see more images to the specific old technology/furniture found inside, or even just a voiceover telling more information y'all found about it. However, The Proper People never disappoint.
I always loved working with IBM Selectrics, the Ferrari of Typewriters! :-)
@@stevehageman6785 That’s so cool!!Hearing you describe it that way really puts its quality in perspective!
Wow, This really brought me back to the 1980s! I have worked in these kinds of buildings for aerospace and hi tech companies. I got shivvers looking at the coffee maker and the cafeteria the sudden memory flashbacks that brought. You guys have a great video here. Hats off for saving, at least, in video, a piece of American corporate history.
I dig the addition of old commercials relevant to the innards of these buildings.
I worked for TRW in Aston, Birmingham UK. We was essentially a R&D site, but when the product was signed off, we became a production facility. AAA Automation from Dayton Ohio, installed the lines, and it worked well. However, as we ramped up, the quality couldn't be maintained, and rework was tough to schedule. EPAS units from 2001 to 2004. I believe they closed the site in 2007. Good times.
That's interesting, I live in Dayton.
Your production value is just exceptional! Love the choice of music here, goes really well with the vibe of the building. Fantastic work guys, keep it up 😊
Nice name and pfp
@@TheOriginalBubsterThanks 😁
@@forfoxsake7972 Indeed a nice username and pfp, the proper guys didn't acknowledged your donation, tho
I worked at CCF main campus and was sent to that building a couple times for training classes. A handful of IT people worked there. It was like a lavish ghost town. People said deer would walk right up to the cafeteria windows and peer inside. It doesn’t seem like it by pictures but it was within walking distance of a shopping center. I grabbed a coffee over there and walked back. Everyone thought the building was cool. It’s a crying shame to tear it down.
The place is big. You can see it from the highway but you can’t really see it from the street. Beachwood mall is down the street.
Fantastic video & beautiful building. Just a small fun fact: the elevators and escalators in this building were installed by Westinghouse. That bell you heard when riding down is nicknamed the dinner bell. I love mechanical elevator bells. Also, when you pointed out early in the video that it was a different elevator sitting open is a feature called peak up. The controller probably moves elevators at random. It's a relatively ordinary function in settings such as this.
Ahh yes back when Westinghouse made quality before the MBA's sold it down the river and ripped it up for parts. Now it's just a ****ty brand for chinese crap-level electronics.
and there is air blown (over pressure) in to the shafts for emergency (fire) use. That is why they are working during the fire alarm
Oh hey Alex, didn't expect to see you here too lol. Yea, it's a real shame... those westys were running and looking beautiful :(
@@ShowMeStateElevators You got that right. I love this channel.
It's such a shame that this remarkable piece of history was demolished, but you've done a fantastic job preserving its memory. By the way, the part where you included the TRW ad with the building, accompanied by that great music, was particularly outstanding. Hats off! Thank you.
I'm from NE Ohio and know of this building. Just last week, I saw drone pictures of all wings torn down and just the center left. It's so sad to see stuff like this disappear. Nice video like always, guys.
Love that you are putting more and more historical tidbits in your videos! Makes them so much more entertaining and educational even!
God this place IS the Aesthetic.
It even touches on some elements of mall design from the same period of the era.
And while I understand the respect to leave things as they are, I would kill for some of the furniture you came across.
You don’t see this architecture anymore, it’s so grounded in the era it comes from yet it easily transcends itself.
I wonder if any of the furniture and kitchen equipment was salvaged prior to demo.
I worked here for several months with Cleveland Clinic International Operations before they sold the property. So cool seeing my old office, and great video!
4:08 was seating for our Legal team.
17:34 I took that elevator every single day to my desk!
30:36 That was my boss's office! That's his handwriting, but not his Pac Man haha.
31:04 The room beyond the ladder to the right was our break room.
Thanks for the nostalgia trip.