Then came the heavy, sweet, acrid bloom of naphthalene and machine oil—the 1970s. The air thickened. The software rendered stressed silhouettes, men in short-sleeved shirts with loosened ties, supervisors shouting over the roar of the looms. The JMY vents had carried their anxiety, their cortisol-laced breath, out into the Carolina dusk.
The first layer, a thin, sharp spike of peppermint and camphor, was from the 1960s. His software visualized it: ghostly figures of women in hairnets, laughing as they passed a tin of throat lozenges down the line. The ventilation had carried their relief, their shared moment of human warmth. jmy ventilation
In the sweltering heart of a Carolina summer, the old James-McKinnon-Yates (JMY) textile plant sat like a rusted, sleeping giant. For fifty years, it had exhaled a low, rhythmic hum, the breath of a thousand looms. But now, the looms were silent. The plant was abandoned, its only occupants ghosts of cotton dust and the occasional scurry of feral cats. Then came the heavy, sweet, acrid bloom of