First IBM Building
Endicott, NY - March 20, 2010 In 1906, a company that manufactured time recorders was established at Endicott, a neighboring village to the city of Binghamton in upstate New York. It was called, "International Time Recording Company" (ITR). In 1911, the company merged with three other local companies to form "Computing-Tabulating Recording Company" (CTR). In 1924, CTR changed its name to IBM. For this reason, Endicott became known as "the birthplace of IBM".

For a long time, IBM's R&D and manufacturing took place at Endicott. Products later included electronic data processing machines and some of the processors for IBM's flagship mainframe architecture at the time, the S/370. (S/370 has been replaced by S/390.)

Then in 2002, IBM abandoned the plant "after a large area of Endicott was found to be contaminated with volatile organic compounds". It now leases the buildings to local firms.

Last weekend, our daughter took me and my wife to Endicott to show us the historic IBM buildings there. I was surprised to see the buildings still bear inscriptions of "International Business Machines" and its one word slogan, "Think". I thought that was swell and wondered why I don't remember seeing it in New York State's glossy tourism publications.

I was also surprised that for such a remote village the streets were bustling with cars and pedestrians. I remember having to wait for what seemed like forever for traffic to clear before I can take my shots. I also remember people stopping to my side to wait for me to finish my shot before continuing to walk in front of my tripod-mounted camera.

I asked my daughter where all these people were going and she said, "I guess just usual Saturday stuff."

While my wife was taking closeup shots of the building (she likes taking close-ups while I roam around taking panoramic landscape shots -- we're a perfect team :)) a cop in his patrol SUV pulled by and asked why she was taking pictures. My wife said because it was historic and asked if there was a problem.

I was actually nearing the end of my photography so seeing the SUV in the distance I hurriedly walked towards them. Still in his SUV, the cop said he was just wondering if there was any particular reason we were taking pictures and if we were affiliated with something.

I remember his words being very vague. I can sense he didn't know what to make of us. Our son, daughter, and our daughter's friend were with us along with our new kitten in our daughter's arms. We can't possibly have any harmful intent. So I said we're just husband-and-wife photography hobbyists. I added that our daughter went to Binghamton University.

And this is where my wife and son have conflicting recollections as to what the cop said next. Mind you, the cop wasn't at all intimidating in his presence -- I'd say he was actually homey it felt like chatting with a fellow parent at a kids' soccer league.

According to my wife, the cop said, "We don't normally let people take pictures of the buildings."

But according to our son, the cop said, "We don't normally see people take pictures of the buildings."

In any case, he drove off with what I would say was a confused look. Sort of like what you sometimes see in movies where a small town sheriff doesn't know what to make of strangers swaggering into town. He seemed to drive off with a foreboding sense that he had just turned his back on unfinished business.

I and my wife trusted our son's recollection more only because he felt surer than my wife. But whatever the cop said, we still could only come up with one explanation -- we ruffled some feathers and someone called the cops.

Maybe the village of Endicott just isn't used to seeing tourists. I would think, however, that any far off small town would be excited to see tourists. I remember in Scranton last year, a cop with a big childish grin on his face drove out of a parking lot so he can give me a clear shot at an old building.

I considered the possibility that the cop may actually be jumping for joy at the prospect that we might be photographers for a magazine. But then my wife and I agreed that if so then the cop would have quickly answered, "No, not at all," when she asked if there was a problem instead of him taking his time to answer.

The brief encounter with the cop at Endicott is to us pretty mysterious.

And the mystery only deepened when later I searched online and found the IBM buildings at Endicott blurred on Google's satellite maps.

On wikianswers, someone asked, "Why is IBM Endicott blurred out on google maps?" The answer was, "To make people in the Southern Tier forget how IBM, the company the region gave birth to, abandoned them."

The "Southern Tier" is that part of western New York State bordering with Pennsylvania. Endicott, with its population of 13,000, is in the Southern Tier.

I am hoping that our experience is no more than a quirk. But after reading all that, I can't help but think, what a sad little town.

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