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Abandoned Motorola Headquarters (2020)

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Re: Abandoned Motorola Headquarters (2020)

#11

Post by derekp7 »

tomkat0789 wrote: post #4

Even stranger is the abandoned Motorola complex built way out among the farmlands in Harvard, Illinois. Motorola has fallen far! When I started a job at a big company in a Chicago suburb, they actually asked for a show of hands "who's from Motorola" and like 17/20 people raised their hands!

So that Harvard facility -- from what I heard (when I worked for Moto) was that it was built for the main purpose to give to one of the Galvin family members to manage. They built it as an engineering and manufacturing center, and was expecting a bunch of engineers that worked at Libertyville to move out there. Problem is that was during the dot-com boom and people would rather get a different job then relocate to the middle of a corn field (actually a lot of people bought out in Crystal Lake, causing a housing boom there, which later collapsed when the Harvard building was shut down).

Then they outsourced manufacturing (the phones were no longer bullet proof after the outsourcing / offshoring). So they made Harvard a distribution center. They were hoping to also be able to pull workers from Rockford, but that didn't really work out either.

At one point, after Moto sold the building, an investor was going to turn it into the worlds largest indoor water park. That never panned out either.

Re: Abandoned Motorola Headquarters (2020)

#13

Post by vikramkr »

sonograph wrote: post #2

It is being demolished now. The company doing the demolition must be very proud of destroying things, because they make drone & time-lapsed videos of it: https://johlerdemolition.com/portfolio-items/motorola-schaum... Edit: I meant this in a positive tone, not a negative. I'm glad they take pride in their work.

Why shouldn't they take pride in their work? Its honest and important work. Not every building can/should be preserved, tearing down these structures is important to remove dilapidated safety hazards and/or build something new

Re: Abandoned Motorola Headquarters (2020)

#15

Post by _eht »

geodel wrote: post #9
Swizec wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s their job to destroy things, why wouldn’t they be proud? I’m proud too when I refactor bad code.

Deleted 5000 lines of code from a project yesterday! And I am feeling very good about it :)

I, too, delete entire projects!

Re: Abandoned Motorola Headquarters (2020)

#16

Post by pfdietz »

blunte wrote: post #10

Fascinating. Motorola has been part of some very significant things in history (not just because I'm multi-Amiga owner). From my outsider view, it seems the companies who really invest in R&D make the best things happen. Unfortunately the best doesn't always mean the most long term successful (depends on many many more factors than just the quality of the product). I would love to see a world where it was fashionable…

Motorola couldn't do software very well. And software became increasingly important in all the fields they competed in.

It turned out to be easier to take a company that was great at software, and turn it into a cellphone company, rather than trying to take a cellphone company and make it great at software.

Re: Abandoned Motorola Headquarters (2020)

#17

Post by jameshart »

I love the tone of this, it’s like the musings of an explorer who discovered a jungle city abandoned by a mysterious civilization.

“there were old wall slogans inside that must have been added to motivate and inspire the employees” … “ the tall building had several brick structures on the lower main level. He suspected that those structures probably had plants and ferns in them so that important business clients and employees would be met with a pleasing sight upon entering.” … “Martin Gonzalez also noticed pictures of people using Motorola products that had been left on the walls of the building.”

Indeed, the ways of the people of the Motorola civilization of around 2011CE are mysterious and strange to us. Perhaps the central atrium served some kind of ritual purpose? Were prisoners perhaps thrown off the upper balconies as a sacrifice to their gods? We will never really know.

Re: Abandoned Motorola Headquarters (2020)

#18

Post by vidanay »

selfsimilar wrote: post #6

I grew up in a neighboring suburb to Schaumburg, and in junior high or high school in the late 80's early 90's I remember taking a field trip to the Motorola campus (as well as McDonald's Hamburger University!). Mostly I remember a showroom museum of sorts, where much of the early tech, military field radios I remember mostly, was on display. At the time I was underwhelmed, I think in part because I knew Motorola as…

Grew up in Arlington Heights a few years ahead of you. (RMHS '89). Heady days indeed.

Re: Abandoned Motorola Headquarters (2020)

#20

Post by pfdietz »

jameshart wrote: post #17

I love the tone of this, it’s like the musings of an explorer who discovered a jungle city abandoned by a mysterious civilization. “there were old wall slogans inside that must have been added to motivate and inspire the employees” … “ the tall building had several brick structures on the lower main level. He suspected that those structures probably had plants and ferns in them so that important business clients and…

Archaeologists have found inscriptions referring to the cult of "Six Sigma", which is hypothesized to be a primitive form of ritual statistical magic.
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