RE: Kodak shriks with changing times
I am glad to be in this part of history when we used films and photographic paper. Soon we will have to explain to children what film means. We will tell them excitingly how we used films, and they will give us a strange look. Dave > -----Original Message----- > From: John Cremati [mailto:johnjohnc@core.com] > Sent: Tuesday, October 02, 2007 9:03 PM > To: alt-photo-process-l@usask.ca > Subject: Kodak shriks with changing times > > > Find this article at: > > > http://www.buffalonews.com/businesstoday/localbusiness/story/1 > 74464.html > > > ROCHESTER - As mainstream photography turns digital, the > mammoth film-manufacturing hub that George Eastman opened > here in 1891 is swiftly shrinking. > > > A decade ago, when it stretched across 1,600 acres, Kodak > Park was easily the biggest industrial complex in the > Northeast. By year-end, when Eastman Kodak Co. wraps up a > drastic, four-year digital overhaul, its miles-long perimeter > will encompass a mere 700 acres. > > > The factories where film, paper and other chemical-based > products were made by generations of Kodakers are > disappearing just as fast. > The company used explosives to implode three cavernous > buildings this summer and has sold big tracts to developers, > most recently a 330- acre plot anchored by a 2.1 > million-square-foot warehouse. > > > Robert Burley, a photography professor at Ryerson University > in Toronto, felt a tremor in his heart when Building 50- a > four-story paper products plant built in 1918 - was reduced > in seconds to a pile of rubble on an overcast morning in > mid-September. > > > "It's a very significant time in the history of photography, > and the implosion of that building really made the point very > strongly," > Burley said. > > > The transition to a world without film is occurring at > lightning pace. An estimated 67 percent of U.S. households > had digital cameras in 2006, up from 20 percent in 2002, > according to market research group InfoTrends. > Even as revenues in its traditional businesses tumble, Kodak > is still leaning hard on high-margin film to generate the > profits needed to see it through the most painful passage in > its 126-year history. > > > More than 200,000 employees have passed through its gates. > But only about 100 buildings will be left this winter, down > from 212 in the 1990s. Kodak's work force also is > contracting: its global payroll will soon slide to 34,000, > half what it was five years ago. In Rochester, there will be > fewer than 10,000 employees - versus 60,400 in 1983. > > > C 2007 The Buffalo News. > > >
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