Located on Vernon boulevard in LIC, the Paragon paint building is currently an abandoned shell of its former self.
Built in 1931, this four floor industrial building was built of concrete and iron. Paragon manufactured a variety of paints here for decades. Even towards the end in the 1990s, they employed at least fifty factory workers. The company soon closed after the 2004 death of its owner.
Ever since then, the property has sat abandoned, and has been threatened with redevelopment. A series of developers hiding behind LLCs (one of which called themselves ‘anable beach LLC’ – in reference to the small waterway abutting the rear of the property) has owned the paint factory since 2006.
I’m in the process of researching this company further, and will eventually follow up with a longer write up. If you worked here, or had relatives who did, I’d love to hear from you in the comments below.
Meanwhile, let’s see what was left in this factory after they closed.
Much of what team LTV does happens under the cover of darkness. It’s a little hard to not be seen sliding under a fence in broad daylight, thus the witching hour always provides an opportune time to avoid encounters with Johnny Lawman or hero civilians who are prone to dialing 911 over anything they believe to be more nefarious than it actually is.
This night was no different. Sometime in late 2014, Me and Timmy waited for a nice time to get on the property and were most pleased to find the rear door wide open.
While most of the building was empty, the top two floors contained some amazing relics.
For example, these colorful numbered tanks once contained various paints ready for canning.
On the next floor, we found the real motherload.
A full manufacturing line was still present. This was an incredibly find for an NYC abandoned factory. By and large, all of the machinery is usually sold off or tossed out for scrap once a company closes. In nearly every one of the 100+ abandoned factories I’ve visited, rarely have a found a full production line. Somehow everything was left in place. It wasn’t just that the machinery was here. It was all coated in various layers of paint. Colorful drips and splatters covered the machinery and floors. As an explorer this is gold. Your chances of finding this anywhere else around NYC in 2014 is zero.
Unsurprisingly, it seems some of the workers took inspiration from all the paint they worked with and did a little bit of art on some of the machines.
We ended the night on a rear rooftop, taking in the unique view, and knowing that someday, someone with way too much money and a Maserati will probably be paying an obscene amount of money to have this same view from their living room windows.
We of course vowed to come on back in daylight and try to shoot everything in a bit more detail. That’ll be the subject of a future article…
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This was supposed to become a night club/bar about 5 or 6 years ago, owned by the same guy that owns a rather popular barge bar on the west side. He passed away and the project fell through.
this was my praternal grandfather’s company
I have an entire history of it
Hi Joseph, do you know if the building is owned as of now?
It is by some developers looking to cash in.
I use to deliver paint cans to them in the late 80s and 90s. What a tough place to get into with a tractor trailer….We had to dedicate a special 40′ trailer with the axles all the way up to get in their. We had to drive on the sidewalk on the other side of the street to be able to turn right to go down their alley way.