Category: NYC Industrial Ruins

History
This building was originally constructed as the Lewis Steel Products factory in the late 1930s. After Lewis Steel moved out, it became the S & S Corrugated Box Machine factory. S & S made “Machinery for making corrugated paper, paper boxes, and machinery for combining, treating, fabricating, cutting and slotting” of all varieties of such paper. S & S also had a sordid history with the neighborhood, and after they went out of business, this factory building became artist studios and a lampshade outlet.

In 2007 plans were made to convert it into high priced loft apartments. The building would be rebranded as the ‘Steelworks Lofts”. From 2007 to 2011 ownership of this building changed hands several times, with each group of owners having slightly different plans for it. As of this writing (June, 2013) the building is actively being converted into apartments again.

Adventure
After raiding this building overnight, I was up early and itching to get back inside during daylight hours.

The streets of many parts of NYC are dead on Sunday mornings. I parked right outside of the door and walked in, just as we had a few hours before. Today I was flying solo though. It’s hard to keep up with me when I get this obsessed with a building.

Inside a found a very deserted first floor. At the rear of the building was a very long hallway running east and west through the entire length of the building. I later found that this was a railroad siding connecting to the nearby BEDT terminal. It is unclear if Lewis Steel or S & S ever received or shipped rail cars from here – though it seems likely that Lewis did at some point.

Upstairs was a lounge – perhaps an illegal bar? as well as various artist studio spaces. I had to stop and goof off a little at the one photographers studio that was left behind.

After an hour or three of shooting I simply walked out the front door again. The few people on the street at the time had no idea that I had no business being in there. if you look like you belong, no one thinks twice.

Buildings like these are just too rare in NYC anymore. it is a pathetic shame that our industrial history is not better saved and documented. Hopefully when it is redeveloped they’ll at least put a plaque on the outside or in the lobby explaining it’s significance. I kinda doubt it they will though. The building is being rebranded as the ‘Steelworks lofts’ – no mention of S & S and what they did to the neighborhood.

So me & S are bored to death and decide to go for a ride around town and see what’s been changing on the street landscape. It seems like every time I drive around anywhere with her looking to break into something we get lucky. Tonight would be no different.

By chance we drive down an industrial street checking on an abandonment/development site we did last year. Directly across the street sits another large factory building that has no lights on. A closer look reveals a few windows broken out, and the roll down gates on the truck bays are not looking too healthy. Sure enough there’s a way in, and in we go.

For the size and scale of this place, much of it was empty. The first floors were all factory, the top seemed to have artist lofts with eviction notices still on the doors. These were huge lofts. Whoever lived here surely lost out when they were kicked out.

Curiosity satisfied, we depart. Fixated though, I decide to check this place again in the morning.

Original Writeup:
This building, formerly the home of Gotham container corp, is basically just another quick example of the shit going down in northwest Brooklyn. Any and all small one story industrial buildings are being smashed. Crushed and redeveloped, this location will no doubt soon contain a poorly constructed, overpriced and very ugly building of ‘oh-so-hip apartments for rent or sale. You know, just in time for the housing market downturn spreading across this country.

And what of the small business that once occupied this building? They’ve been forced out or gone out of business, their jobs either gone or relocated. What was once a building contributing jobs to the area is now only going to be lining the pockets of of greedy developer.

Getting inside this place was super easy. The construction fence was wide open. Inside though, little was left over. The entire building was being ripped apart and readied for its date with the bulldozer.

Update, April 2013
It turns out ‘Gotham container corp‘ seems to have moved their business over to New Jersey. Their old building was completely bulldozed and replaced with a combination condo building and hotel (sort of like a combination pizza hut and taco bell, only slightly different. This intermixing of living accommodations even received a writeup in the NY Times.

While whatever jobs associated with Gotham have moved across the river, new jobs at the hotel have come into play – so at least in that regard the new buildings are not just housing. I would imagine workers for either make more or less the same cash. A real win here would have been a building that delivered better paying gigs, but what can you do… I’ll take jobs still in the economy over none.

Assuming this is a well designed, constructed and cared for building, the result here are positive, and my original curmudgeon assessment was spot on wrong. Hey, I can admit it.

History
In 1973, the entire block of North 4th street between Bedford and Berry was the scene of protests and destruction dealt by the scandalous hands of then NYC Mayor Lindsay. Lindsay forcefully evicted families from their homes to make way for a huge expansion of the S & S corrugated box company factory.

NYC was once a very middle class manufacturing city. Over 1 million people worked here in jobs building everything from staples to light switches. S & S corrugated made machines for constructing corrugated boxes. They employed 600 people in a factory just across the street (on 4th btw Berry & Wythe) – and in 1973, NYC was losing thousands of such jobs per year. When S & S went to City Hall and told the mayor they needed to expand their factory in order to stay in Brooklyn, they devised a plot to simply kick out everyone living on the block just east of their present factory in order to build a huge new wing. The mayor, likely paid off to do so, went right along with this plan.

The mayor and S & S likely did not realize that the 94 families whose homes were slated to be demolished would not go quietly. They organized. When their voices were not heard, they blocked traffic on the BQE during rush hour (this became a favorite tactic of local political activists). Such protests were just plain unheard of at the time.

They blocked traffic on the BQE during rush hour (this became a favorite tactic of local political activists).

Eventually the Mayor ‘compromised’ by agreeing to build replacement homes just across N. 3rd street. These homes still exist today. It begs the question though – if that property was available, why the hell didn’t S & S just build their factory there?

Some protested right up until the very end: “Seven cops couldn’t push me off the stoop of one house, even with the glass flying all over” Frank Kulikowski, a hulking man who is the neighborhood’s friendly grouch, said last week”.

S & S did indeed expand their operation and for several years survived. At some point in the 1980s or 90s though, S & S closed down, leaving their brand new factory building empty and obsolete. For a short while it was rented out by a company that maintained arcade games. In the end, throwing all of those families out of their homes proved to be a complete waste of time, money and strife.

Today, (June 2013) the entire neighborhood is better known for trendy loft apartments and stores than manufacturing. This building remains exactly as it was when we explored it in 2007: a large empty completely abandoned shell of a building. It is rather amazing that it has been allowed to sit in this condition for so long. The exterior walls were used as a legal graffiti canvas in the early 2000s. Whatever becomes of it, it most certainly will never be a factory again.

Adventure
There’s something inherently funny about walking up the front stairs of a building and looking out onto the street below (because there are no walls up here anymore) – especially when that street is full of people going about their lame ass boring lives. There was but a sheet of plywood between us and them, but when you think about it, it may as well have been the great wall of china. This is the barrier between those who explore and those who will never understand the pleasures of crossing lines, physically and mentally.

Beyond the thrill of the location, this building offers absolutely nothing.

Original writeup, July 8, 2007 under the title ‘barging in on bedford’. History added June 11, 2013

Sources:
NY Times: A Battle leads to a New Northside: August 20, 1974
People Power: Grass Roots Politics and Race Relations By Judith N. DeSena

History
There’s not a whole lot about these buildings online. The whole block consisted of one story tall, flat brick buildings with no signs on the front. They were simply too small to be used in any major manufacturing. I did get a hit on one of the addresses: 205 N9th street. Apparently a business located here was shut down by the feds during the 1920s prohibition for selling kits to create your own alcohol.
If you have more information about the history of the any of these buildings that were on N9th street, by all means comment below.

Adventure
So I’m driving down this street when we realize all of the the buildings on it are about to be boarded up… which is typical really. I drove by here last weekend and there were no boards. Hell,  there was a roll down gate a little ways up that we tried to slide open only to find another gate behind it… and here we are a week later with sure signs of impending demo/redevelopment.

So we park and start shooting the block. A quick look at one of the doors shows it’s as open as your mom on prom night, and the hallway and interior doors look inviting, so in we go…

But what a god damned tease that was, for there is nothing in here worth the time to even look at, except maybe a stinky smell and piles of trashbags.

Turns out the place must have been used by some armoured car company at some point, as there was a big empty vault and signs to suggestion that cash from banks and betting operations came in here…

Within a week, this entire row of buildings was bulldozed.

History
Colonna & Company was a supplier of Marble, located in Long Island City just north of the ‘Big Allis’ power plant on Vernon Blvd.
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