View allAll Photos Tagged Refuse
EZ Pack Goliath, on a Mack MRU chassis
Aspen, CO
see my video of a sampling of MRI's fleet by clicking here
A new International semi-tractor with 75 cubic yard refuse transfer trailer operated by the Cleveland Heights, Oh Public Works Dept.
3-yard Front Load Dumpster
Royal Refuse
Eugene, OR
May 2014
©Bryn Erdman. All Rights Reserved.
One of Broxtowe Borough Council's refuse trucks collecting recycling materials on 31st December 2010.
Avignon, France. The streets in this area of Avignon are very narrow and twisty. That accounts for the small size of this refuse truck.
I would appreciate information on the make and model of the truck.
Built 1909-1910 in Halifax St. Formal opening of destructor 19 Dec 1910 to incinerate refuse from city & nearby suburbs, closed 1954 when Wingfield dump opened.
“The work of erecting the refuse destructor for Adelaide will shortly be put in hand. The machinery is expected to arrive from England at the end of this month. . . The site of this new activity, will be the block now occupied by the old Enterprise shoe factory in Halifax street. . . to abolish the present objectionable and obsolete system of refuse tips in the city. All the tips, with the exception of two, have been closed, and those, which are in the park lands at Hilton road and North Adelaide will be done away with so soon as the machinery is ready to treat the waste material. . . The house refuse of the city comprises chiefly ashes, floor and yard sweepings and dust, vegetable, fruit, and food scraps, and cinders, with smaller quantities of garden refuse, rags, bags, bones, paper, leather scraps, glass and crockery, tins, scrap iron, wood, brickbats, and stones. The, average daily collection amounts to about 30 tons, apart from three tons of paper, and a small but increasing quantity of other inflammable trade refuse. Street sweepings of which about 40 tons are collected daily, may also be incinerated. . . The refuse will be subjected to a heat of something like 2,000 deg. Fahr. Mills and flag making plant will be provided to deal with the clinkers, which will be utilized, among other things, for the manufacture of concrete slabs for paving footpaths.” [Register 18 Jun 1909]
“The old buildings in Halifax street formerly known as the Enterprise Boot and Shoe Factory, which have been standing idle for several years, are now being partially demolished and adapted for the reception of the corporation refuse destructor. The heavy slate roof has been removed . . . and a start has been made to reduce the height of the walls. About 10 ft. of the stonework is to be removed down to the wallplate of the top floor, which will leave a height of 35 ft. As soon as this has been completed a galvanized-iron roof will be fitted, and the installation of the destructor machinery will be begun.” [Register 30 Jul 1909]
“The. Metropolitan Company were supplying the whole of the locally made bricks required for the chimney stack (150,000), and Messrs. Hallett the remainder, but they only guarantee delivery of'6,000.weekly though they promise to supply as many more as possible.” [Express & Telegraph 8 Nov 1909]
“During the municipal visit to the refuse destructor works in Halifax street on Friday afternoon Ald. Wells recalled an interesting incident in the life of the old building, which, over half a century ago, was the mammoth structure of Adelaide, and has in turn served as a fiourmill, vinegar works, and boot factory. 'Fifty-four years ago,' said the Alderman, 'the Government gave a ball to the officers of a visiting fleet. The top floor was arranged as the ballroom, and another floor was fitted up as a banqueting room. It was the largest place obtainable at the time. The edibles were cooked on the premises by steam, and the late John Hughall, of Hindley street, was the caterer.” [Register 19 Mar 1920]
“Adelaide's refuse destructor was primarily obtained to deal with the increasing quantities of household Garbage, which hitherto has been dumped in various parts of the park lands and on other low-lying areas. . . But the provision of this machinery has opened up several avenues of profit. When the refuse is shovelled into the furnaces it is incinerated by a heat of 2,000 deg. Only clinker remains, and that is put into a mill, ground, and converted into concrete paving slabs for footways. . . Even the old tins and wrap iron which are collected with the garbage can be turned to good account, for by putting them in an hydraulic press and baling them they can be shipped to Germany and made to yield a handsome return. . . the solder obtained pays for the cost of the recovery of the tin. It is the tin which is valuable, but there is no waste. The iron is used for leeching purposes in connection with copper mining. Then from the furnaces considerable electrical energy can be generated, and in addition to driving the flagmaking and tinbaling plants and lighting the works there will be surplus power to dispose of, which is calculated to yield £2,000 a year. The destructor will work two shifts, and will employ 10 men in one and five in the other.” [Register 25 Jun 1910]
“The ceremony of formally handing over to the Corporation of Adelaide the refuse destructor installed in Halifax street by Heenan & Froude, Limited, of Manchester, took place in the exchange room of the Town Hall, on Monday afternoon. Mr. F, K. Steanes, on behalf of the contractors, said Adelaide had probably the most up-to-date destructor in the world, certainly in Australasia. By the completion of the work the capital of South Australia was absolutely the most sanitary city in the Commonwealth.” [Register 20 Dec 1910]
“Many residents of Adelaide wanted the Halifax street rubbish destructor removed. . . if the plant was obsolete it should be closed and land obtained in the noxious trades area at Wingfield, not only to dump rubbish and compost it but if necessary in future to erect a destructor.” [Advertiser 24 Jan 1950]
“the Halifax street Incinerator had been removed.” [Advertiser 16 Jul 1954]
THE SITE
Location of William Henry Clark’s brewery from 1844 and mill built 1853. Large rooms of mill were used for public events, church services & a free school. Later smelting works and tobacco manufactory. John Hunter’s boot factory opened 14 Jan 1891 and the refuse destructor 1910-1954. Now housing complex adjacent to chimney.
“Mr. W. H. Clarke is building on the land contiguous to his Brewery in Halifax-street, a massive structure, 40 feet by 80 street, and intended to be five stories in height. The ground-floor space, which is 12 feet high, will contain four large ovens "and steam machinery for the manufacture of ship-biscuit; and it is said there will not only be a steam flour-mill on the premises, but extensive granaries and a malting establishment. The walls are more massive than anything we have seen in the colony, and the excellent masonry exhibits to great advantage the fine building-stone of the Glen Osmond quarries.” Adelaide Observer 26 Nov 1853]
“There was a grand reunion of brothers and friends of the various Lodges of Oddfellows in connection with the Manchester Unity on Tuesday, May 31, in the spacious building known as Clark's Mill, Halifax-street. The first floor of that building was arranged tastefully as a ball-room, and on the second floor the dinner was served. His Excellency Sir Richard MacDonnell presided, supported on his right by Major Freeling and on his left by Police Inspector Hamilton. . . The dinner, which was got up in superior style, commenced about 4 o’clock, that early hour having been selected to admit of the banquet being followed by a ball. When the cloth was removed, there being then about 500 persons present.” [Register 1 Jun 1859]
“The Union Brewery . . . of Mr. J. Primrose, in Rundle street . . . although extensive, have been found not extensive enough. . . The whole of the malting and the chief part of the drying is performed at the building known as Clark's Mills, Halifax-street, where there are floors well adapted for the purpose. There is also a drying floor on the premises.” [Register 1 Jun 1868]
“Free School in South Adelaide.— Another laudable effort to overtake the mass of ignorance prevailing among the children of those whose parents are unable or unwilling to pay for the education of their families has been made this week. A lady member of Flinders-street Baptist Church, who has for many years conducted one of the higher class seminaries in the city, is now assisted by some younger members of the Church devoting four evenings per week to the entirely gratuitous tuition of some of the class referred to. The effort was begun on Monday in a portion of the Halifax-street Mill, when 26 children attended, and by Thursday 41 children were present.” [Register 10 Apr 1869]
“Service is held in Clark's Mill (situated in this street) every week by the Rev. D. J. H. Ibbetson.” [Evening Journal 4 Nov 1870]
“Messrs. Green & Co. sold at their Mart, on Friday, October 13, by auction, Acre 564, Halifax-street, with Clark's mill, brewery, and factory, also cottages, machinery, and all apparatus, for £5,000.” [Register 14 Oct 1871]
“The extensive property known as Clark's Mill and Brewery in Halifax-street is on the point of being transformed into extensive smelting works. The quantity of iron ore of high percentage obtainable within an easy distance of Adelaide is immense, and there is abundant reason for believing that the projected enterprise will be thoroughly successful.” [Register 29 Jul 1872]
“A temperance meeting in connection with the Adelaide Lodge of Good Templars was held in the back room of the Halifax-street Mill.” [Chronicle & Weekly Mail 25 Jan 1873]
“Messrs. Robt. Dixson and Co.’s Manufactory. . . a tobacco manufactory which has within the past fortnight been started in the building hitherto known as Clark's Flour-Mill, Halifax-street.” Register 4 May 1877]
“Halifax-street Sunday-school.— For about 12 years a branch of the Stow Memorial Sunday school has been in existence, carried on at first in the old mill in Halifax-street, and latterly in Mr. Peate's schoolroom in Gilles-street. Its managers have now succeeded in establishing themselves in premises of their own, having erected a neat and substantial room on a corner block in Halifax-street close to the old mill. The building was opened on Sunday afternoon, September 15.” [Register 18 Sep 1878]
“United States Tobacco Works. . . the enterprise of Robert Dixson & Co., who have now fairly settled in their new premises, named as above, on the west side of Light-square. The firm formerly carried on business in what was known as Clark's Old Mill in Halifax-street, but the building was inconvenient in many ways.” [Register 21 Dec 1883]
“With a view of extending their operations in Adelaide Mr. Hunter purchased the business and plant of Mr. J. Florey, of Pulteney-street. . . acting under Mr. Florey's advice Mr. Hunter authorized him to secure the possession of the old mill in Halifax-street, which had been used for various purposes, and to turn it into a modern boot factory. . . The mill, which is five stories high, is eminently well suited for the object which it has been secured for. It is substantially built of stone, slate roofed, and the joists and pillars are of extraordinary thickness, being capable of bearing great weight. Each floor is composed of one large room. . . pillars running through the first three. The fourth room is a fine one, and having no pillars through the floor should prove to be of great utility.” [Evening Journal 4 Dec 1890]
“Enterprise Boot Factory in Halifax street was formally opened. The building which was known as the old mill' has been vacant for many years, and until recently its broken windows and generally dilapidated appearance made anything but a pleasing landmark. Now, however, a transformation has been effected. The interior has been partially reconstructed and the place fitted up for the accommodation of a large number of men, and the music of their tools has replaced the squeaking of rats and the chirruping of birds which formerly haunted the mill.” [Chronicle 17 Jan 1891
“The Enterprise Shoe Factory was started by Mr. J. Florey about eight years ago, the company which now owns the concern being formed at the end of 1892. The whole of the large business of the company was carried on at Halifax-street till March of this year, when a change became necessary. It was decided to apply the moat up-to-date machinery to certain departments, and to do that meant either putting up a new building at Halifax street, or transferring the whole of the office and distributing work to a more central position, and accordingly a warehouse was secured in Grenfell-street.” [Express & Telegraph 5 Dec 1894]
“a brown snake about 4 ft. in length, which was killed on Wednesday morning in Halifax-street. . . had evidently come out of the old deserted mill adjacent to Hunter's boot factory. The reptile was quickly dispatched. We understand that children are in the habit of playing about the old mill.” [Advertiser 11 Jan 1894]
“Enterprise Shoe Company's factory in Halifax-street. The party assembled at the Company's office and sample room, Grenfell Street, and were driven in three wagonettes to the extensive premises in Halifax Street, formerly known as Clark's mill. Under the guidance of Mr. Joseph Florey, the Managing Director of the Company, the visitors inspected the establishment. . . The Enterprise Shoe Factory was started by Mr. Joseph Florey about eight years ago, and the Company that now owns the business was formed at the end of 1892. The whole manufacturing and distributing of the large business of the Company was carried on at Halifax street till March of this year . . . and they secured a warehouse at 55 Grenfell Street.” [Register 5 Dec 1894]
“Mr H. A. Garrett, engineer to Messrs Heenan & Froude, contractors for the refuse destructor, has arrived in Adelaide, and preliminary work has already been begun. The site in Halifax street, where the machinery will be installed is being cleared, and a start has been made to demolish a portion of the old Enterprise Shoe Factory. The machinery is expected to arrive in the course of a few days.” [Register 22 Jun 1909]
Matchbox 1-75 Series No 7c Ford Refuse Truck was introduced in 1967, it remained the same with some minor die-cast changes and was also used as a Superfast model in 1970. The most differences with the 1967 release was the rear cut out that was added in the later models as with this one over rear wheels. This was probably purchased in 1969 and sadly no box, silly me didn't keep it. As you can see the entire back opens up.
This is where I am finding Matchbox information... Beware, it's addicting.
Owned by: aaa trash
Chassis: International 4900
Body Maufacture: Heil
Type of truck: rear loader
additional notes:
location of photo: burke va
"Judith Carter Henry, 84 or 85 years old and bedridden, refused to leave her upstairs bedroom as the First Battle of Bull Run was fought on the hill surrounding her home. Snipers used the house; Judith Henry was killed by a bullet meant for the snipers. She was the first civilian killed at First Bull Run, July 21, 1861. The Second Battle of Bull Run was also fought on this hill. (Also called the First and Second Battles of Manassas.)"
-- from womenshistory.about.com/library/pic/bl_p_judith_henry_hou...
EZ Pack Hercules front load, outside Glenwood Springs, CO
kind of crappy pic, I was in the car and this was with my phone...please forgive
see my video of a sampling of MRI's fleet by clicking here
Inter-media exhibition about music, mushrooms and decomposition by the band The Observatory at SAM, Tanjong Pagar Distripark.
2025 Waste Expo Tradeshow visit
Stellar Products refuse hopper for use on utility vehicles
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Please do not use this image without first asking for permission. Thank you.
McGinnis peak refusing to come out. A few times during our weeks stay the top was clear, but it really didn't matter since the whole valley was absolutely spectacular!
© 2012 www.lwpetersen.com
(May 4, 2006) -- Sgt. Maj. Bradley A. Kasal feels he did what any good Marine would’ve done.
That includes taking enemy rifle fire on Nov. 14, 2004, absorbing a grenade blast and refusing medical attention inside Fallujah’s “House of Hell” during Operation Al Fajr (New Dawn).
For his extraordinary heroism and leadership in Fallujah, Iraq, as the Weapons Company first sergeant for 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, Kasal was awarded the Navy Cross during a ceremony here Monday.
“The word hero is tossed around pretty loosely these days,” said Maj. Gen. Michael R. Lehnert, Commanding General of Marine Corps Installations West, after awarding Kasal with the Naval service’s second-highest decoration, in front of an audience that included the 1st Marine Division’s past and present commanding generals, Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis and Maj. Gen. Richard F. Natonski, respectively.
”Some may call a basketball player a hero for scoring the winning goal or a celebrity for donating a small portion of their earnings to a good cause, but Kasal is a true American hero.”
When then-1st Sgt. Kasal assisted one of his platoons with an over watch inside Fallujah that day, intense gunfire broke out in an Iraqi home to his immediate front.
Seconds later, Marines were rapidly exiting the building, known as the “House of Hell.” “That house was a death trap,” said Maj. Gen. Lehnert.
“It was set up for one purpose: to kill United States Marines.” Kasal could have easily stayed out of the house.”
When he found out that there were Marines still pinned down inside the infamous house, nothing the insurgents could put on the table would stop him from rescuing his Marines.
“Going in for them was the right thing to do,” said Kasal, 39, who hails from Afton, Iowa. “They’re Marines, and I’m a Marine. We look out for each other.”
Upon entry of the house, Kasal found himself face-to-face with an insurgent who he neutralized at extreme close range. Shortly afterwards, AK-47 gunfire was coming from all directions, and Kasal was hit from behind.
“While I was in that house, I made three life or death decisions,” Kasal said. “I never thought I would live through any of them, but I did what I did to help the other Marines.”
The first decision Kasal made was to expose himself to enemy fire in order to pull another wounded Marine out of the line of fire. Kasal took more enemy fire doing this.
While both Marines were under cover, they assessed their wounds. Both had multiple injuries, but there were only enough bandages for one of them to live.
Kasal made his second decision to forfeit his medical supplies to the other Marine.
“It made more sense to use all of the bandages on one of us then to split the supplies and have us both bleed to death,” Kasal said.
The insurgents deployed a hand grenade to get the Marines out of cover, and it landed within a few feet of the two bleeding Marines.
Kasal then decided to use his own severely wounded body to protect the Marine from shrapnel.
By the time he was carried out of the house by Lance Cpl. Chris Marquez and Lance Cpl. Dan Shaffer as Lucian M. Reed, an Associated Press photographer snapped the iconic photo displayed at Marine Corps installations all over the globe, Kasal had lost approximately 60 percent of his blood from more than 40 shrapnel wounds and seven 7.62 mm AK-47 gunshots.
One day prior to being awarded the Navy Cross Kasal’s father passed away.
However, a live video teleconference feed to Kasal’s hometown provided his mother, family members and friends an opportunity to watch him receive the Navy Cross, be promoted to the rank of sergeant major and reenlist for three years.
“It’s been a very emotional week,” Kasal said. “I am blessed to recover from my injuries, which the doctors thought would never happen, and regain my place in the Marine Corps. I would take the pain of surgeries any day over the pain of being away from my Marines.”
US Marine Corps Home
No hi viz vesst and just a small metal plate to stand on with additional upright grab rail. That's the lot of the Cypriot bin man. No climbing into the cab every 5 minutes as in the UK. This workable practice is illustrated here on the rear of Hino refuse truck DAE 417 seen at Deryneia on November 24th 2017.
Mott Haven, Bronx, New York City, New York, United States of America
Summary
Featuring robust brick facades and a high corner clock tower, the former Estey Piano Company Factory is a distinguished monument to an industry that was once one of the Bronx’s most important. Anchoring the northeast corner of Lincoln Avenue and Southern (now Bruckner) Boulevard since 1886, when its original portion was completed, the Estey building is the oldest-known former piano factory standing in the Bronx today. It is also one of the earliest large factories remaining in its Mott Haven neighborhood, dating from the period in which the area first experienced intensive industrial development. Today, as in decades past, the building’s signature clock tower and expansive facades—simply but elegantly detailed with terra cotta, patterned brick, and contrasting stone—are visible from the waterfront and nearby Harlem River bridges, making the Estey Factory a true neighborhood landmark.
Manufacturing blossomed in the Mott Haven section of the Bronx during the 1880s, when new factories started springing up in the area east of Third Avenue. Many of these produced pianos or their components, and by 1919, the Bronx had more than 60 such factories, making it one of America’s piano-manufacturing centers. One of the city’s first piano factories to be built in the Annexed District or North Side, as the western portions of the Bronx were known between 1874 and 1898, the Estey building was credited with providing “an unusual stimulus” for the movement of other piano makers there. Several of the manufacturers that followed Estey to the Annexed District, and later the Bronx, clustered within a few blocks of its factory, creating an important nucleus for the piano industry.
The Estey Piano Company was organized by Jacob Estey and John B. Simpson in 1885. Two decades before, Estey had established an organ works in Brattleboro, Vt. that had grown into one of the country’s largest producers of reed organs, thousands of which found their way into American parlors every year. Like other organ manufacturers in the late nineteenth century, Estey sought to diversify into the booming piano industry, and his partnership with Simpson—a pioneering North Side piano manufacturer—was a means to that end. When Estey Piano opened its factory, it manufactured upright and grand pianos that would become recognized for their “superior construction and workmanship.”
The original portion of the Estey Piano Factory was designed by the architectural firm of A.B. Ogden & Son. Many of this building’s features, including its L-shaped plan, flat roof, regular fenestration pattern and bay arrangement, and relatively narrow width to allow for daylight penetration, are characteristic of latenineteenth-century factory buildings. Its mixture of segmental- and round-headed window openings, and the Romanesque machicolations of its clock tower, place the Estey Factory within the tradition of the American round-arched style. Other features, including the factory’s distinctive, red-orange brick, dogtoothed and zigzagging patterned-brick stringcourses, recessed brick panels, terra cotta tiles featuring festoons, lions’ heads, and foliate motifs—and of course, its dramatic, projecting clock tower—speak of a building that sought to announce its presence on the urban landscape, projecting a strong public image for its owner. Indeed, the Estey Piano Company often included an illustration of this factory on its trade cards, which advertised the firm’s products.
The original building was extended to the east along Southern Boulevard in 1890, with a harmonious five-story addition designed by John B. Snook & Sons, and to the north, along Lincoln Avenue, with one-story additions in 1895. The Lincoln Avenue additions appear to have been combined and expanded, and then raised to three stories in 1909, and by an additional two stories in 1919; the 1919 addition near the southeast corner of Lincoln Avenue and 134th Street features broad expanses of industrial sash that were characteristic of the “daylight factories” of the early twentieth century. Known today as the Clock Tower Building, the old Estey Piano Company Factory currently houses artists and their studios. With its historic fabric almost completely intact, the building remains, in the words of the AIA Guide to New York City, “the grande dame of the piano trade: not virgin, but all-together and proud.”
The Industrial Development of Mott Haven
Well before the 1898 creation of the borough of the Bronx, industrial activity was occurring in the area that is now the Bronx’s southernmost portion. In 1828, Jordan L. Mott, the inventor of a coal-burning iron cooking stove, opened a “modest little factory” on property he had purchased on the Harlem River near the present Third Avenue, in what was then the township of Morrisania. Mott started calling the area Mott Haven and, in 1850, seeking to attract additional industry to the area, he laid out the Mott Haven Canal, an artificial inlet from the Harlem River that would ultimately extend to just south of 144th Street. The canal, however, was slow to attract industrial firms, and by 1879, only a handful of substantial ones existed nearby, including a brass and iron works, a machine shop, and a few lumber and coal yards, all of which were below 138th Street. These were joined by a marble yard, lumber yard, and hotel west of the canal, near the tracks built by the New York & Harlem Railroad to connect Manhattan with what is now the Bronx, in 1841. Despite the presence of the large Harlem River & Port Chester Railroad yard, which stretched from Lincoln Avenue to Brown Place south of 132nd Street, few factories appear to have existed east of Third Avenue at the end of the 1870s.
In 1874, the townships of Morrisania, West Farms, and Kingsbridge—the sections of the present Bronx borough located west of the Bronx River—became part of New York City. Officially called the 23rd and 24th Wards, they were generally referred to as the “Annexed District” or “North Side,” but they remained fairly isolated. At that time, few links existed between the southern portion of the District and Manhattan; among those that did was a cast-iron bridge at Third Avenue which, in 1860, had replaced an old wood dam-bridge built in the 1790s at that location.
Soon after annexation, however, local residents, property owners, business owners, and booster groups like the North Side Association began agitating for improved infrastructure, including better connections with Manhattan. In the 1880s, new public works started to be built; among them was the Madison Avenue Bridge, completed in 1884, which spanned the Harlem River at 138th Street, about five blocks north of the Mott Iron Works complex. By 1885, additional industrial concerns—including a planing mill, cabinet maker, and nickel works, and factories making carpets and surgical instruments—had sprung up in Mott Haven, near and below 138th Street, and close to Third Avenue. The expanded rail yard below 132nd Street, at that point operated by the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad, connected directly to new docks at the foot of Willis Avenue. A few factories had sprouted up in the area east of Lincoln Avenue, as the Estey Piano Company Factory, then under construction at the northeast corner of Lincoln Avenue and Southern (now Bruckner) Boulevard, shared a block with the expansive works of the New York Lumber and Woodworking Company.
The 1886 opening of the Second Avenue Bridge just a few blocks from the Estey Factory provided a Harlem River crossing for the trains of the new Suburban Rapid Transit Company. The Suburban’s line, which would come to be known in the Bronx as the Third Avenue El, was the first to bring rapid transit service to the Annexed District. With its southern terminus on the Manhattan side of the Harlem, where it met Manhattan’s east-side elevated lines, the Suburban stopped at Southern Boulevard, before continuing northward; service on the line was expanded and improved between 1887 and 1902. While the Suburban was under construction, Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide predicted that it would have an enormous impact on the North Side, calling it, in 1885, “a great thing for the [Annexed District], as well as for New York City. It will furnish cheap homes for a poorer population, as well as choice rural habitations for the well-to-do. We may expect many light manufacturing industries to become naturalized on the other side of the Harlem.” And the line did come to play a crucial role in Mott Haven’s late-nineteenth-century development, spurring rowhouse construction in the late 1880s and 1890s. As new housing sprouted up, so too did industry; an 1894 drawing of the Harlem River east of Third Avenue shows a busy waterfront with docks and factories on both sides of the river, including the Estey Factory, with its distinctive clock tower clearly visible. In 1895, the New York Times noted that “that part of the 23rd Ward along the Harlem River”—that is, the southernmost portion of the Annexed District, including Mott Haven—was “a very busy manufacturing place.”
Improved rapid transit connections with Manhattan aided Mott Haven’s residential growth, but the area’s industrial development was spurred by its Harlem River location and the expansion of its freight-rail infrastructure. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the New York, New Haven & Hartford—with a freight depot located one block south of the Estey Factory, at Lincoln Avenue and 132nd Street—connected with dozens of railroads providing service throughout the eastern and midwestern United States, and into Canada. The New York Central system, with extensive yards close by in Melrose, was just as far-reaching. And the southern Bronx retained these transportation advantages into the twentieth century. Writing in 1908 about the proliferation of piano factories, many of which were in the southern Bronx, lifelong piano man William
P.H. Bacon pointed to the borough’s “superior transportation and shipping facilities, both by water and land,” as well as “the opportunity of getting land for the erection of commodious factories at reasonable figures.” In experiencing strong manufacturing growth in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Mott Haven was a microcosm of the Bronx and the city as a whole: by 1920, New York City had 12% of the country’s factory workers, and by 1927, the Bronx had 2,700 plants with more than 100,000 employees.
Industrial growth had been rapid in the southern Bronx; Bacon wrote, in 1908, of “the busy hum of commerce where but a few years ago, the lowing of cattle and other sylvan sounds were the only noises heard.” The end of World War II marked the apex of manufacturing in New York, as in 1947, more manufacturing jobs existed in the city than in Boston, Detroit, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia combined. But industrial activity in the Bronx would soon begin to decline, reflecting city-wide trends. By the 1950s, New York City was rapidly losing industrial jobs, with manufacturers leaving in droves for the suburbs, or departing the region entirely. Between 1969 and 1999, the number of manufacturing jobs in the city fell by twothirds. Contributing to the decline of industry in the southern Bronx was the destruction of manufacturing space with the construction of broad new highways; the building of the earliest portions of the Major Deegan Expressway through Mott Haven between 1935 and 1939, for example, wiped out several industrial buildings on the block immediately to the north of the Estey Factory, including the former factory of the Brambach Piano Company. In 1997, the New York City Department of City Planning, citing an underutilization of industrial space in Mott Haven, rezoned a portion of Bruckner Boulevard including the block containing the former Estey Factory, to allow for residential uses and community facilities. This special mixed-use zoning was expanded to blocks to the east, west, and south in 2005.
As Mott Haven becomes increasingly residential, the former Estey Factory is a reminder of the neighborhood’s early years of intensive industrial growth. Today, the Estey building is one of the oldest large factories standing in Mott Haven, and in the entire area of the southern Bronx below 149th Street.
The Estey Piano Company and Its Factory
The Estey Piano Company had its roots in the firm of Manner & Company, which manufactured pianos on the Bowery between 1866 and 1869. Manner called his piano the “Arion,” and in 1870, his firm’s name changed to the Arion Piano-Forte Company. In 1872, the company’s factory moved to 149th Street, in what is now the Bronx. John Boulton Simpson, who had been Arion’s secretary since 1871, took control of the company in 1875; in that year, the company apparently moved to a new factory on St. Ann’s Avenue and boasted that “Six years ago, there were none of our pianos in existence; to-day, there are over 7,500 in use.” In the following year, the firm’s name changed to Simpson & Company, although it also continued to be known by the Arion name. By the end of the 1870s, Simpson’s factory—stretching from Brook to St. Ann’s Avenues on the north side of 149th Street—was probably the largest piano factory in the Annexed District, but in 1880, it was sold to another piano maker, the William E. Wheelock Company.
While Simpson apparently continued to make “high grade pianos” following the Wheelock sale, the location of his factory in the early 1880s is unclear. Between 1881 and 1885, Simpson & Company continued to maintain a space, likely a showroom, at 5 East 14th Street—where it had been since 1876—but the company was also listed at 127 East 129th and 232 East 40th Streets, neither of which appears to have been the location of a substantial factory. These addresses do, however, link Simpson in the early 1880s with the respected tuner Stephen Brambach, who would play a crucial role in developing Estey’s first pianos; Brambach was located next door to Simpson between 1881 and 1883, and in the same building in 1884.
In 1885, the Estey Organ Company of Brattleboro, Vt. was hitting its peak. By the end of the 1880s, the firm, which had been founded in 1866 by Jacob Estey, would be the world’s largest producer of reed organs. Thousands of these instruments found their way into American parlors every year; they were also being distributed, by 1890, to Africa, Asia, Australia, and South America, and to major European cities. Despite the company’s success—it was described, in 1886, as doing “an immense business, amounting to over one million dollars annually”—and its rapid growth—production rose by a factor of seven between 1865 and 1886—the organ business was in decline. The piano business, however, was booming; and, likely noticing the 1882 entry of the renowned organ maker Mason & Hamlin into piano manufacturing, Estey and the company’s other principals, including Levi K. Fuller and Jacob’s son Julius, decided to take the same path.
Estey became a piano manufacturer by forming a partnership with Simpson, who was named president of the new Estey Piano Company; the Simpson piano was essentially re-branded as the new Estey model. Simpson, of course, had been a pioneer in Bronx piano manufacturing, and this may have played a role in Estey’s decision to build its plant on the North Side. A.B. Ogden & Son was hired to design the factory, but Simpson may have had some influence over its appearance and form, as he had dabbled in architecture, altering his home on West 129th Street in 1882 to give it a “picturesque exoticism.” Work began on the “large factory with modern appliances,” as it would later be described, in August of 1885; it was completed, at a cost of approximately $40,000, in February of 1886. While the factory was under construction, Estey Piano decided to construct three more buildings that would extend its complex by an additional 80 feet along Southern Boulevard. These brick structures, designed by Ogden’s firm and completed at the same time as the main factory, were a one-story extension, a one-story shed, and a two-story stable.
Estey Piano prospered in its early years, as “Estey grand and upright pianos soon became a dominant factor in the piano trade,” according to Alfred Dolge, who added that they often “carried off highest awards for superior construction and workmanship.” In 1887, the trade publication Musical Courier wrote that the Estey Piano Factory was “one of the most complete in the country”; two years later, it called the firm’s upright “a most beautiful specimen of piano manufacturing,” of which Estey would “find no difficulty in disposing … in the best musical circles in the land.” While trade journals’ opinions should be considered with caution, those of the respected piano tuner and regulator Daniel Spillane may be more reliable. Five years after the Estey Factory opened, Spillane called its piano “a very excellent instrument,” adding that “much of the technical and musical merit of these pianos is due to the competency and skill of [Stephen] Brambach, who is a gentleman of fine musical and mechanical sensibilities [and] … one of the best tuners in New York.” Although Brambach had apparently started his own piano company in 1885, he remained involved with Estey in 1890, originating “all new ideas in the mechanics and acoustics of the Estey piano.” Brambach’s brother Carl, “one of the most expert and artistic tuners and toners in the country,” was also employed by Estey Piano, according to Spillane.
Business was good, and only four years after the Estey Piano Factory opened, it underwent a huge expansion. In May of 1890, work began on a 100-foot-long east addition that would result in the demolition of the extension, shed, and stable on Southern Boulevard, and create the unified five-story, 200-foot-long Bruckner Boulevard façade that remains essentially unchanged today. The architect of this addition, which was completed in October of 1890 at a cost of about $23,000, was John B. Snook & Sons. This firm, then one of New York’s most prolific, traced its origins to the arrival of John B. Snook (1815-1901) in the United States, from England, in 1835. By 1842, Snook was working with Joseph Trench, and the two helped introduce the Anglo-Italianate style to New York with buildings such as the A.T. Stewart Store at 280 Broadway (1845-46, a Designated New York City Landmark). One of Snook’s best-known works was the first Grand Central Terminal (1869-71, demolished); in 1887, he took his three sons, James Henry (1847-1917), Samuel Booth (18571915), and Thomas Edward, and a son-in-law, John W. Boyleston, into his office, and changed his firm’s name to John B. Snook & Sons. Although Snook had designed a diverse array of buildings—including residential and commercial structures for some of New York’s most prominent families—his firm designed several manufacturing lofts in the 1880s and 1890s that would have made it an appropriate choice for the Estey addition. These industrial buildings, now located in the SoHo-Cast Iron Historic District—including 8 Greene Street (1883-84), 12 Wooster Street (1883-84), 127 Spring Street/87-89 Greene Street (1886-87), 391-393 West Broadway/77-81 Wooster Street (1889), 151 Spring Street (1889-90) and 361 Canal Street (1891-92)—were utilitarian brick buildings; but like the Estey Factory, they were also designed with an eye toward detail, featuring patterned and textured brickwork, and contrasting stone trim that enliven their facades.
The Estey Factory continued to grow in the 1890s. In 1895, the company extended the building 50 feet along Lincoln Avenue with a one-story, 69-foot-deep brick addition that apparently provided a fireproof home for its woodworking department; at the same time, Estey constructed a new, one-story brick lumber room running for an additional 38 feet along Lincoln, where it met a small, one-story brick building then existing at the southeast corner of Lincoln Avenue and 134th Street. Both the extension and the new building—which appear to remain today as the base of the five-story portion of the factory north of the original building—were designed by Hewlett S. Baker of 492 East 138th Street. Little is known about Baker; he was described as “a property owner in the South Bronx” in a 1910 New York Times article, and as “a contractor and builder in the Bronx” in a 1912 article about his death. By 1900, the one-story buildings near the corner of Lincoln and 134th appear to have been extended to the east.
The portion of the factory north of the original building remained at one story until 1909, when Simpson and architect S. Gifford Slocum raised it to three stories. Slocum, an architect of some note, is remembered primarily for his large residences for wealthy clients, including several fine Queen Anne-style residences built in the Saratoga Springs area in the 1880s. Born in Jefferson County, N.Y., Slocum studied architecture at Cornell University from 1873 to 1875, and by 1885, he had offices in Saratoga and Glens Falls, N.Y. In 1888, Slocum moved to Philadelphia while retaining his Saratoga office; between 1890 and 1909, he practiced architecture in New York City. Simpson hired Slocum to design an alteration to his residence at 117 East 83rd Street, in 1900. Slocum’s two-story addition to the Estey Piano Factory was described as being of “similar construction to the present building” in its Buildings Department application, and it demonstrates continuity with the floor below and with the original building in its segmental-arch-headed window openings, and in its similar decorative details, including pilasters, stone sills supported by corbelled brick courses, and patterned-brick stringcourses. A drawing of the factory following the completion of Slocum’s addition appeared in a 1917 Estey Piano Company advertisement.
Over the previous years, the Estey Piano Company had undergone several changes, weathering the deaths—in 1890, 1896, and 1902, respectively—of Jacob Estey, Levi K. Fuller, and Julius Estey. The firm’s “warerooms” or showrooms, which had been at 5 East 14th Street since the time of the company’s founding, were at 97 Fifth Avenue by 1900 and 7 West 29th Street by 1909. They would move again—in 1912 to the since-demolished “Estey Building” at 23 West 42nd Street—and by 1916 to 12 West 45th Street. By 1912, Estey pianos were being sold at Loeser’s department store in Brooklyn; in its advertising, the company took advantage of its historical association with the Estey Organ Company, stating that “the world-renowned Estey Pianos … are just as reliable as the Estey Organs made famous by the same firm in the days of our parents.” On at least one occasion, the Estey Piano Factory witnessed strife between its employees and management, as in 1912, workers struck Estey and other Bronx piano manufacturers that would not recognize the piano makers’ union and refused to close their shop floors to non-union employees.
In 1917, John B. Simpson’s leadership of the Estey Piano Company came to an end, when George B. Gittins, the former president of piano manufacturer Kohler & Campbell, purchased a controlling interest in the firm. Gittins, an industry prodigy who was only 37 at the time he took Estey Piano’s helm, appears to have begun revamping the company’s product line almost immediately; an “at-the-factory” clearance sale held in November of 1917 was prompted by the company’s intention “to concentrate on the large-scale production of a few standard models.” Two years later, Gittins purchased M. Welte & Sons, Inc., which was originally the American arm of a German company that had invented the reproducing piano, a technologically advanced kind of player piano using special rolls that were able to express, to some extent, the subtleties of the renowned pianists who had “recorded” them. Following the 1907 introduction of Welte’s “Mignon” reproducing piano in the United States, dozens of the world’s most famous pianists made recordings for Welte, allowing Americans to experience, for the first time, something close to having Paderewski, Saint-Saens, and other virtuosi play for them in their homes.
Soon after acquiring Welte, Gittins started shutting down the firm’s Poughkeepsie, N.Y. plant—which had produced rolls, reproducing pianos with and without keyboards, Welte “Philharmonic” reproducing organs, orchestrions, and other products—and expanding the Estey Factory building and its complex. In 1919, architect George F. Hogue of 41 Union Square in Manhattan was hired to add two stories to the northern, three-story portion of the factory, and to add an elevator shaft. This alteration, which cost about $25,000, featured broad expanses of industrial sash typical of the “daylight” factories that were then being constructed around the country. By 1921, Gittins had also constructed a two-story building (not part of this Designation) facing Southern Boulevard and adjoining Snook’s 1890 addition, as well as a four-story factory for Welte (not part of this Designation) that remains today at 27 Bruckner Boulevard. In 1922, the Estey-Welte Corporation was created, which served as an umbrella organization for several Gittins holdings, including the Estey Piano Company and the Welte-Mignon Corporation. Estey, at that time, was manufacturing a variety of pianos, including an 88-note player piano, and manual and reproducing uprights and grands; the new four-story factory on Southern Boulevard made Welte-Mignon pianos and grands, actions for reproducing instruments, and Welte Philharmonic organs.
In 1925, perhaps sensing the end of the glory days for the piano and player piano, Gittins decided to diversify into the manufacture of pipe organs for churches, concert halls, theaters, and large residences. In the following year, Estey-Welte appeared to be perfectly healthy, but by January of 1927, a crash in its stock price brought the over-extended company to its knees. Estey-Welte was in serious trouble, and by summer of that year, it was reorganized as the Welte Company. Gittins was soon gone; by 1928 his old firm was reorganized again, as the Welte-Mignon Corp. This latest incarnation of the firm fell into receivership in 1929, when its chief assets were split up and its factory emptied; one investor, Donald F. Tripp, bought some of the organ business, and the Estey Piano Company was sold to the Settergren Piano Company of Bluffton, Ind. Tripp’s firm was bankrupt within two years; in 1935, Settergren was renamed the Estey Piano Company.
The Estey Piano name continued on for decades. Estey spinets were being advertised in Chicago in 1948, and the firm’s pianos appeared in Macy’s advertisements in the early-to-mid 1960s. The Estey Piano Company was still operating in 1972, when it received a loan from the Commerce Department to assist it in starting production of a plastic piano. At that time, Estey was described as having “an office in Union, N.J., and an old plant in Bluffton, Ind.”
After the old Estey Piano Company Factory was vacated in 1929, it passed through the hands of a number of different owners, and was occupied by many different industrial tenants. A sheet-metal works leased space there in 1932, and its occupants in 1937 included the Whitman Supply Company and Unique Balance Company. By 1939, the factory had been acquired by the Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank. In February of 1940, Emigrant sold the five-story Estey Factory building and the adjacent two-story building constructed by Gittins to the S.H. Pomeroy Company, a manufacturer of window sashes that had been located on the same block as Estey Piano since 1923 or before. One month later, however, the owner of the building was the 120 Lincoln Avenue Realty Corporation, which was leasing space to Alta Furniture Factories. Until at least 1945, 120 Lincoln Avenue Realty remained the owner of the building; in 1969, it was occupied by the Ranger Plastics Corporation, and in 1973, it was home to a draperies manufacturer. At the end of the 1970s, the old Estey Piano Company Factory housed a maker of textile products and its outlet store, along with manufacturers of wire and “novelty” products. In 1995, when the building was mostly vacant, it was purchased by Truro College, which planned to convert it into student dormitories or a home for a liberal arts and sciences program. Those plans fell through, however, and the college sold the former Estey Factory, now known as the Clock Tower Building, to Carnegie Management, which remodeled its interior to accommodate live-in artists’ studios. It retains this use today.
Description
The Estey Piano Company Factory is an L-shaped, five-story building with a projecting clock tower at its southwest corner. Spanning the east side of Lincoln Avenue between Bruckner Boulevard and East 134th Street, the building has three primary street facades, all of which feature face brick laid in common bond: a 200-foot-long Bruckner Boulevard façade, a 200-foot-long Lincoln Avenue façade, and a façade on 134th Street that is approximately 69 feet in length and attached to an elevator shaft.
The original factory building, which was constructed in 1885-86, extended for 100 feet along Lincoln Avenue and for 100 feet along Southern (now Bruckner) Boulevard. Comprising the westernmost 15 upper-story bays on the south façade and the southernmost 15 upper-story bays on the west façade of the existing building, including the clock tower, this original portion of the Estey Piano Factory was extended by 100 feet to the east along Bruckner Boulevard with the construction of a five-story addition in 1890. (The construction of the 1890 addition resulted in the demolition of three buildings of one and two stories that were completed at the same time as the original factory, and which had a combined street frontage of 80 feet.) Before the construction of the 1890 addition, the five-story portion of the south façade terminated, at its east, with a two-bay projection featuring round-headed windows, all set within a corbelled recess, at the first through fifth floors. This projection—which was identical to the two-bay projection that originally terminated the Lincoln Avenue façade, and remains virtually unchanged today—extended above the adjacent portion of the façade, and, like the clock tower, outward from the façade plane. With the completion of John B. Snook & Sons’ 1890 addition, the two-bay projection on the south façade was doubled in width—the two new bays matching the original two—and its parapet was raised to match, in height, the parapet above the then-new, three-bay projection at the eastern end of the extended façade. Both the raised and new parapets featured, just below their pressed-metal cornices, recessed square panels arranged in a row. Also at that time, the four-bay projection became the central feature of a broad, essentially symmetrical Southern Boulevard façade, with the new three-bay projection at the eastern end of the façade balancing the three-bay, projecting clock tower at the building’s corner.
- From the 2006 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report