The Longaberger Company once stood as a billion-dollar basket-weaving powerhouse, with more than 8,000 employees at its height. In 1997, the company built its Newark, Ohio, headquarters to resemble a giant basket, complete with two oversized handles rising above a glass atrium roof. After sales declined, however, Longaberger filed for bankruptcy in 2018, and the now-famous Basket Building has remained vacant for years and is currently on the market.
Photographer Ryan Miller, who worked at Longaberger in 2014, watched the company slip deeper into financial trouble. He said he saw the effects firsthand as payments became increasingly delayed or were missed altogether, and he learned the company was having difficulty paying many of its contractors, himself included.
“After countless late and missed payments, I learned they were struggling to pay many of their contractors, myself included,” Miller told me. “That glass ceiling? Well, it turns out that the handles would gather moisture and ice pretty frequently in the winter and when it broke free, it had only one place to come crashing down. Eventually, they didn’t even bother to get it repaired, and I vaguely remember some tarp and tape holding it together during my final days there.”
