A 12-acre trash yard in Atco, New Jersey, called Wade’s Salvage has every type of scrap ranging from old aircraft to old bus parts This has made it an attractive source of props for apocalyptic or action scenes in film and television that are based on the East Coast. As a result, it has also become a popular destination for vintage car connoisseurs, scrap collectors, and movie fanatics.
Klaus-Peter Stratz, an Untapped New York insider and photographer, toured the yard and captured photos of stacked old cars and auto parts against the lush background, rows of abandoned tires, scattered electronic pieces, and much more.
Wade’s Salvage was established by Ed Wade decades ago after he returned from serving in World War II. Although it began as a thriving auto-body shop, it transitioned into a salvaging business as the amount of scrapped auto-motive parts gradually increased. He began to sell the pieces to local scrap metal markets and soon after started to purposefully search for items that he could fix up and then sell to local flea markets.
Wade’s son Andrew joined the business in the early 80s at the age of 17, collaboratively bidding on surplus government material with his father. Andrew collected their first aircraft pieces when he purchased two wrecked airplanes for only $40, and the pair continued to discover decommissioned planes. The aircraft in the salvage can range from jet engines that were repurposed as planters to Korean War fighter planes.
Into the late 80s, the business began collecting scrap metal from the public to melt down into raw materials. The parts that aren’t melted down however, are often sold to TV and film crews in the search for props. These kinds of ventures began when a location scout for the 80s movie Eddie and The Cruisers chose the yard as a setting for their story about a misfit rock band.
Following the success of the film, Wade’s Salvage became a popular spot in the industry for its unique items and features, and over the years they have provided pieces for numerous productions including The Invasion, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, The Walking Dead-Dead City, Manifest, and The Blind Spot. They’ve even provided materials for a runway during New York Fashion Week, and the background props for the Bon Jovi 2019 European tour.
Their connections to the entertainment business and the New Jersey Film Commission seems to only be expanding, as several film and TV studios are projected to be built in the state, along with a Netflix facility in Monmouth County.
These industrial and mechanical props might be showing up much more frequently on our screens now.
