Photos: Shredding, smashing, cubing Doraville's GM site

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Photos: Shredding, smashing, cubing Doraville's GM site

Photos: Shredding, smashing, cubing Doraville's GM site

Plans have taken shape to build offices, homes, stores, a movie studio, parks and manufacturing space on the site of the former GM assembly plant in Doraville. The site is near I-285, one exit from Spaghetti Junction.

Towering piles of scrap rise almost as high as some of the former buildings they once were at GM's closed assembly plant in Doraville. MATT KEMPNER / AJC

Office chairs are among the last things to go at GM's former assembly plant in Doraville. MATT KEMPNER / AJC

One of the last structures left on the site of GM's former Doraville assembly plant is a wing of the administration building. MATT KEMPNER / AJC

Site manager Jimmy Penson stands on a bridge once used by GM workers to cross above railroad tracks on the way to the Doraville plant's paint shop. The bridge is one of the few structures slated to remain as the site is redeveloped. The plant's former training center (the brick building visible under Penson's arm) will be expanded into a movie production studio. MATT KEMPNER / AJC

Tangles of rusting metal bars are among the leftovers being recycled as scrap from the former GM assembly plant in Doraville. MATT KEMPNER / AJC

A swarm of heavy equipment being used to pick up and chew up remains of the former GM assembly plant in Doraville. Much of the scrap material is being loaded on rail cars bound for Birmingham. MATT KEMPNER / AJC

Among the items left behind at GM's former assembly plant in Doraville were orange welding machines weighing 6,500 pounds apiece. Site manager Jimmy Penson said some may be turned into sculptures as the site is developed. MATT KEMPNER / AJC

The site where thousands of GM workers were employed has been reduced to mostly a pile of scrap. The plant opened in the 1940s and closed in 2008. MATT KEMPNER / AJC

When GM workers cleared out of the company's Doraville assembly plant, they left behind the trappings of daily work, frozen in the year 2008. MATT KEMPNER / AJC

Don't try calling. Nobody has answered the phone since 2008, when GM closed its assembly plant in Doraville, leaving behind offices and equipment. MATT KEMPNER / AJC

Big cubes of metal are the remains of buildings at GM's former assembly plant in Doraville. MATT KEMPNER / AJC

Demolition began last fall. Giant piles of scrap are all that is left of much of the former GM assembly plant in Doraville. MATT KEMPNER / AJC

A demolition company has chopped, smashed and crushed most of the 3.6 million square feet of buildings at GM's former assembly plant in Doraville. MATT KEMPNER / AJC

Once there was a massive assembly plant here. Now, much of the former GM assembly plant site in Doraville has been scrapped down to pavement and concrete. The parking deck of MARTA's Doraville station is in the distance. MATT KEMPNER / AJC

The sign on a door in part of the administration building of GM Doraville assembly plant says "ADAPT," but in this case, it's slated to get smashed. MATT KEMPNER / AJC

Part of a wing of the former administration building at GM's assembly plant in Doraville is still standing. But only for a little longer. MATT KEMPNER / AJC

An office remains in a wing of the administration building that is already partially demolished. MATT KEMPNER / AJC

Initially, site manager Jimmy Penson needed a flashlight to find his way around inside the vacant buildings on the site of the former GM assembly plant in Doraville. Now, light streams into a partially demolished wing of the former administration building. MATT KEMPNER / AJC

Remnants of the former tiny test track are still visible at the site of GM's former assembly plant in Doraville. Vehicles driven off the assembly line got a minor test run. MATT KEMPNER / AJC

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Plans have taken shape to build offices, homes, stores, a movie studio, parks and manufacturing space on the site of the former GM assembly plant in Doraville. The site is near I-285, one exit from Spaghetti Junction.

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