Excellent story and pictures. Americana history, another piece fades away ....

Must not be much left of Motorola any more. We had a huge Fab plant just down the street from my work for many years. Got knocked down a couple of years ago and now a business park takes up the space where thousands used to work.

There doesn't seem to be much of any manufacturing left here anymore....!
That's what a global marketplace will get 'ya.

What vintage is that building? From the architecture it doesn't look real old, maybe early 1960s?

Was it used as Motorola corporate HQ? It seems hard to believe that the company that today makes fairly crummy cellphones in China and runs a Japanese-themed advertising campaign once built fairly substantial TV sets in America's heartland. I have had 3 Motorola cellphones since 2000, thinking that I would try to support a North American company with some history, but they have all been lousy (maybe all cellphones are, I dunno).

Wow. What a great blog. Too bad I missed it? Even Western Electric in Chicago has better documented history than the Motorola - Quasar - Panasonic phenomenon. In the 1960s CEO Mr. Galvin and Motorola were the subject of a court hearing that created the EEOC due to unfair hiring practices, etc. It made national news. Reads like a soap opera. In the 1970s Matsushita purchased the company from Motorola (then located at Franklin Park). Mass exodus of the middle management. Japan was not welcome in this country.. yet. My parents met at the Augusta Blvd location in the 1950s. They met in the company choir! Can you believe the company's HR department organized a huge employee choir? What company does that today? Dad became the Director of Engineering in the 1970s. He died at work in 1983 from a heart attack. Sorry to say the pictures remind me of his last moments. He gave his ALL to "work". (Damn work ethic) If only he could have lasted as long as those TV sets. I still have my TV set from 1983, it was my graduation present and it still works!!!

If the cost of cargo ship fuel keeps going up like it has lately, they may have to go back to making stuff in the USA. After kicking and screaming first...

Thanks for the pictures. The front view reminds me of the Polaroid building, another formerly great American company that has turned into something else. I wonder if any of the future inhabitants of those "lofts" will realize the history of that place.

Thanks for bringing this thread back. I didn't see it first time. Wonder how the lofts are going? How cool would it be to live there with gear that was made there?

That Motorola Quasar box is in incredible condition.
 

I saw a box like that on a scene in The Rockford Files that I think was filmed about '75. It was the same style box but with tape covering some of the words.

Dear Old TV Nut.. who are you? well, don't reveal your identity. Maybe a few clues? If you worked in the "plant" you had a hard work day. I heard a lot about the supervisors on the line. ...

I'd like to know why the building was vacant for so long! (at least 15 years).
Anyone?:scratch2::scratch2:

Great read, I too hail from Quincy IL. Born and raised and still drive by the old Motorola plant a few times a week. Loved the pics of the Chicago burb plant, that must be where my Motorola portable was built.
Dan

Great post! I have several Motorolas from that plant. Thanks for the history, too bad all things like this are disappearing, or moving to china.

Hmmmm, would be cool. BTW, maybe you'll see railroads to ship things come back as well, you can ship more on a gallon of diesel than you can by truck or worse, by air (although planes use jet fuel). Sorry for the OT statement, but I hear that airlines will be cutting 60 to 90 million seats between now and Christmas due to fuel. Even with the higher gas prices now, it is cheaper to drive than go by air.

Still, I wonder why no one else brought up USA manufacturing again but with the costs of fuel, it might happen. BTW, I think Hyundai opened up a plant in Alabama so even foreign companies are making factories here to be closer to the demand.

Another OT comment(based on above). If fuel prices remain as high as they are or go higher, I think a lot of airline traffic and almost all long haul trucking are doomed. The economics(vs trains) just makes no sense. Of course a decent passenger train system will need to be put in place(as it already is in a few parts of the US) to replace the airlines.

On topic-I have several Motorolas from the plant also. It is nice to know where they were made. I used to work for Motorola. and would have liked to have visited their museum in Chicago-but never got to. With all of their recent financial troubles, I am not sure if it is still open.

From reading this forum and from other sources, I get the impression that Chicago and the northeast US used be home to most US electronic manufacturing, but no more. What electronic manufacturing that is left (other than IBM in New York) is in the south and west. I say this as I work in the semiconductor industry and the remaining US fabs that I am aware of (other than IBM) are in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Oregon, and California. Of courrse, I am most familiar with semconductor manufacturing, others might have a different view.

Well, I might ask the same thing... as well as who was your dad?

No, I didn't work in the plant - I was in engineering and advanced development from 1966 (out of school) until I left and went to Zenith in 1975.