Fortress, back,  Jackson St. 1

Read Part 1 of this story.

Last time we took a bit of a vacation from Brooklyn, and journeyed up the Hudson River to Troy, NY, my new home. There is a wealth of great architecture here, and among the very impressive buildings that were built for the industries that gave Troy its wealth and prestige during the latter part of the 19th and early 20th centuries, this building stands alone, noticeable for its size, condition, and prominent place in South Troy, near the Hudson River. Originally, before I saw it close up, I thought this might have been an armory, one of many castle-like buildings built, as Brooklyn’s armories were, to store weaponry and provide a barracks and training ground for National Guard regiments. But when I saw it for myself, I knew this was no armory, it was a warehouse or factory building.

Troy has a wealth of factory and warehouse buildings, all built for the iron and steel industry, and garment trades that flourished here. The heavy industry trades were concentrated in South Troy, and the mills, sewing factories and warehouses stretched northward along the Hudson, up through Lansingburg, to the north, and over to the city of Cohoes, just across the river. Many of those factories still stand, most converted to other use, and a few standing empty, waiting for the next wave of development.

This castle warehouse was not a part of the iron and steel works surrounding it, but was a part of the textile trade. This was the United Waste Manufacturing Company, makers and dealers of shoddy. “Shoddy what?” you may ask. Yes, shoddy – the name given to recycled cotton and woolen fabrics; a product woven from the reconstituted fabric scraps from the mills and factories of the Troy area and beyond. Shoddy was big business, and long before the “Green Movement,” was a rather clever way to take all of the fabric scraps left over from cutting out the shirts, collars and cuffs that Troy was famous for, as well as other textile scraps, rags, old clothing, and other fiber materials, and reusing them.

Through a series of steps, the fibers were broken down, mashed, burned and boiled into a stew from which new threads were extracted, and new fabric was woven for another round of use. Shoddy was not the best or strongest of fabrics, and was used primarily for blankets, workmen’s clothing and soldier’s uniforms. Many of the Union Army’s regular troops were dressed in shoddy, and the fabric’s poor performance during the Civil War gave rise to the use of the word as meaning “of poor quality, an inferior product, and bad workmanship.”

The United Waste Manufacturing Company was founded in 1899 by Troy men, and one, general manager Edward J. Murphy, Junior, was a former senator and mayor of Troy. The main factory building for the company was up the river in Cohoes, but nowhere in Cohoes could they have gotten a view like this, a monumental advertising tool that would been seen throughout South Troy, and by anyone travelling on the Hudson, or on the roads across the river. The warehouse was also only steps from the railroad tracks, with a loading dock, where active freight lines carried goods to and from Troy, out to the rest of the world.

A building in this strategic location needed to be large enough to perform its function, but striking enough to catch the eye and be memorable. Even if someone never touched shoddy at any point in his or her life, they knew the company name, and they knew about the building that is usually referred to as “The Fortress.” And this was quite the castle. The unknown architect and builders of the Fortress did a great job here. It’s too bad we don’t know who they were, as they deserve recognition, and had they been known, we might have a better idea of the collaboration between client and creator to devise this functional and yet very unique building.

The warehouse is a six story brick building with a basement. The style is Romanesque Revival, a style made popular in the mid-1880s, and for decades, the favored style for armories, storage facilities and other large buildings that needed strong sturdy massing to achieve their functional and design objectives. Frank Freeman’s Eagle Warehouse in DUMBO is a prime example, as are the armories of Isaac Perry, who along with Fowler & Hough, designed the 23rd Regiment Armory on Bedford and Atlantic Avenues.

As the state architect for armories in the late 19th century, Perry designed many of the state’s other armories, including those in Schenectady, Saratoga, Utica, Hudson and Cohoes. Troy’s own armories were also fortresses. The only one standing today is now a part of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and was not designed by Perry, but by a man named Lewis Pilcher. In Brooklyn, he was the architect of the Troop C Armory on Bedford Avenue and Union Streets in Crown Heights South.

The Fortress can be accessed by the Jackson Street approach, but that is technically the back of the building. The side that faces the Hudson, the west side, is the front of the building, and has the most architectural detail. Approaching the building from the street is certainly impressive enough, but when you are in front of it, which takes some doing, you can see the big picture, as it were.

All four sides of the building are flanked with corner towers that rise from corbelled bases on the second floor, making the building look as if it is top-heavy, sitting on a smaller base. This makes the ground appear to need a moat, so the castle could rise above it. The western side of the building has five blind archways rising up from the banding just above the second floor. The north and south side each have two blind arches. There are windows on every level, but this was a warehouse, not a factory, so there really aren’t all that many, considering the size of the structure. It must have been quite dark in there, and incredibly hot and stifling in the summer.

The tower that rises from the center of the building completes the look of a medieval fortress. Most of the elevation is without windows, and only at the top story are there small windows just below the crenelated roof line. This tower held the water tank. An impressive brink corbelled cornice surrounds the building, supporting a band course that had painted signage with the name of the building. It once read “United Waste Manufacturers Company,” which is very faintly seen in places, but a later name, “Hudson River Terminal Warehouse Co.” can still be seen, although that too is becoming harder to read, as time goes by.

The ground floor in the back of the building has two large arched windows on the north side, and an entrance on the eastern side. The ghost of some kind of wooden building is still visible on the back, perhaps, like on the river side, there was a shed or loading dock of some kind. This is the entrance to the Fortress. According to the report filed for admittance to the National Register, the interior of the building is unfinished warehouse space. Huge wooden beams and posts support the ceilings and floors. The basement level consists of large arched corridors that support and spread the load of this massive building. The first floor once was office space which looked out of those large arched windows, and traces of those days still remain. There is a relatively small spiral staircase that runs the height of the entire building, and a freight elevator. There is also an interior staircase that connects the buildings’ floors.

So, what does one do with this huge building in the 21st century? By the 1950s, the Fortress was a storage facility for the Goldberg Building Material Company, which also owned the surrounding buildings. They eventually sold the building, and in 2004, the City of Troy approved a variance to convert this industrial building into ten apartments and an art gallery. The applicants were a local business concern, with a Troy address. But for unknown reasons, nothing much happened, and the plans fell through.

In 2007, the city once again received a petition for a variance. This time it was for the creation of one residential unit in the warehouse. The petitioner was Maurice Margulies of New York City. Mr. Margulies and his wife, Antonie Reinhard, are antiques dealers, long time owners of a business at 80 East 11th Street, now called Fortress Antiques. They had seen the warehouse, like most people do, from the I-787 highway across the river, fell in love with it, and bought it as a storage and sales facility for their very high end antiques business, and hopefully, as their home.

Their antiques can be found on 1stdibs.com, and a perusal of their goods show vignettes that were photographed in the bare interior of the Fortress. I don’t know how they are doing with converting at least part of the structure into a residence, but when they finish, it should be spectacular. What a great space, and what possibilities. Just this year, the United Waste Manufacturing Company building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. The extensive report on the building was my main source material for this article. It can be found at the National Register site, here.

The 1960s and ‘70s were a horrible time for Troy. The city lost jobs and a sizable portion of her population as manufacturing left the area for cheaper rents down south, or out of the country. Like many cities, her downtown was emptied by the building of suburban malls, and old housing stock was left abandoned. In an extremely short sighted, and frankly, stupid move, Troy bulldozed a sizable portion of its center city in an effort to modernize and draw business and people back. It didn’t work. Some of her most important and historic buildings were torn down and remain parking lots today. Many of the industrial buildings were also lost, but some, like the Fortress, were just too big, or too out of the way to bother with. The Fortress is a survivor. Shoddy may have been this building’s raison d’être, but it was never shoddy. Long may it stand. GMAP

The Fortress of Shoddy, part one

Fortress, Jackson St. 3

Photo: National Register report. nps.gov.
Photo: National Register report. nps.gov.

Fortress, Jackson St. 2

Fortress, Jackson St. 4

Interior space. Photo: National Register report. nps.gov.
Interior space. Photo: National Register report. nps.gov.
Spiral staircase that spans all six floors. Photo: National Register report. nps.gov
Spiral staircase that spans all 6 floors. Photo: National Register report. nps.gov
Interior. Photo: The Fortress Antiques, 1stdibs.com
Interior. Photo: The Fortress Antiques, 1stdibs.com

What's Your Take? Leave a Comment

  1. Nice post. Couple of questions. Troy has a reputation as being a high-crime community. Is that true? Also, what would cost to buy in Troy the equivalent of a $3 million 2-family row house in Brownstone Brooklyn? Thanks.

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