Building of the Day: 261-267 Meserole Street

Brooklyn, one building at a time.

Name: Factory
Address: 261-267 Meserole Street
Cross Streets: Bushwick Avenue and Waterbury Street
Neighborhood: Bushwick
Year Built: Sometime before 1919
Architectural Style: Turn of the 20th century brick factory
Architect: Unknown
Landmarked: No

The story: Today’s BOTD is not really an architectural treatise, because let’s face it, this is a utilitarian turn of the 20th century factory building that got a new façade recently, and it’s pretty unremarkable. But I chose it for a reason, because even the most nondescript buildings sometimes have a story to tell. I was looking for something else in this neighborhood, which I’ll write about at another time, and I thought of this building, and went to look for it, via Google Maps. I must have gone up and down the street between Newtown Creek and Bushwick Avenue 10 times, virtually, before realizing that the building I was looking for had been radically changed.

Unfortunately, there are no “before” pictures, but it didn’t look all that impressive before, and was just another one factory building on a street of factory buildings, both large and small. It was old red brick, had very few windows, and was really dark inside. It’s a long building, and stretches back for quite a few feet. There used to be a roll-up loading dock on the left, in the part of the building that’s only one story, and then there was only one other door to the other part of the building.

For many years, this was home to Just Lace, a fabric and trim dyeing company. Back when I was working in the garment and home furnishings industry, one of the companies I worked for used their services to dye fabric. We had our own specially dyed colors for a line of terry beach towels. We also used them to wash and roll fabrics that we imported. The goods were manufactured with a heavy coating of sizing pressed into it, making the fabric as stiff as a starched collar. Just Lace would wash the sizing out, dry and roll the goods into bolts. I used to have to drive our company vehicle out here from our Manhattan studio, bringing goods back and forth, and working with the dyer and washers.

This was my first foray into Brooklyn industry, and that’s why I’m strolling down Memory Lane today.

I first heard the word “Meserole Street” not because of any hip industry or product, or artist’s loft, not even for the landmarked Berlenbach house that is only a few blocks from this factory. I was out here for business. But I have to admit, half the time I came out here, I’d drive around and look around. I lived in Brooklyn then, but I didn’t know very much about this part of Brooklyn.

Just Lace was in an old factory building that had a pretty interesting history of its own. I found an ad in a 1919 Eagle help wanted section advertising for factory operators. They wanted 25 girls for light industry. The ad doesn’t say what kind. It just said the pay was good and the conditions were “splendid.” I guess splendid doesn’t include light. They must have had a hefty electric bill. I remember the building being pretty dark inside, in spite of a lot of fluorescent lighting.

At some point in its history, the building became a bakery for kosher matzo for Passover. It had large work tables and a couple of enormous ovens in the back of the factory. When Just Lace moved in, they didn’t remove anything, just worked around it. The ovens stayed in the back, they installed enormous dye vats, huge industrial washing machines, lots of tables and dryers. They also used mangle machines; large and small, into which you fed the wet fabric, clothing pieces or lace, and they emerged on the other side, dry and pressed.

With all that water around, many of the workers stayed in their wellies all day long, especially the men who hauled the heavy wet goods from the dye vats or the washing machines into the rolling cloth bins to be taken to the next step. They also wore thick rubber aprons and heavy rubber gloves. Dyes are usually set in boiling water, so wearing protective gear was necessary. It could get pretty hot and humid in there. Of course the bosses were upstairs in the air conditioned offices.

I became friends with the head dyer, a brilliant man with a chemist’s skill who had a filing cabinet, old school, with the formula for every color that every client used. He was a master of alkaline and vegetable dyeing, and could do anything. He did straight dyeing of fabric goods and laces, and also piece dyeing of already made goods. He also did all kinds of specialty work, like tie-dying, ombréd effects and resist dyeing. His office was down on the floor, no air conditioning, and he had a room full of dyes that he made all of the colors with. Fascinating stuff!

Anyway, after a few years, Just Lace left the space for a new facility on Flushing Avenue, where they still are today, and my friend the dyer left the company. He came back on his own, and bought or leased the factory, and set up shop. His was a much smaller operation, but it was an expensive one. He used thousands of gallons of water a day, and gallons of fuel oil in his boiler to heat the dye vats, and run the washers and other equipment. But he was so good, he had some of the city’s biggest names in fashion as clients. They wouldn’t use anyone else.

One day when I came into the factory, he told me we had to be quiet. He had rented out the ovens and tables in the back to a group of Hasidic bakers who were baking the matzo for Passover. Sure enough, there was a whole group of black coated men back there praying over the ovens and making the matzo. He said that they had been coming there for years, before the dyers, and now they were back. Once a year, they took over the entire back of the factory for a couple of weeks, and baked all of the matzo they needed for Passover.

The company I worked for went out of business, I lost use of the company car and trips to that part of town, but I stayed in touch with my friend for a couple of years, and then he too, went out of business, and moved to Florida. I started writing about Brooklyn, but forgot about this little factory in the boonies, surrounded by the remnants of a bustling industrial area that is now once again humming with life. Meserole Street will always have meaning to me. The building I knew is gone, but the memories will last. GMAP

(Photo: Christopher Bride for PropertyShark)