E.A. Laboratories, 692-696 Myrtle Avenue -- Brooklyn History

Read Part 1 and Part 2 of this story.

In the fall of 1942, the Bedford Stuyvesant-based automobile horn and headlight company, E. A. Laboratories, entered World War II. As one of America’s largest automobile accessories companies, EAL was poised to serve the country by converting its factory into a war materials manufacturing plant.

Their distinctive song-tune electric horns, their car heaters and windshield wipers were going to be replaced by gun sights for airplanes, landing lights, and horns for ships, Jeeps and other military vehicles.

The company was very patriotic in their embrace of the war effort. John Aufiero, EAL’s president, was the younger brother of the founder of the company, inventor Emanuel Aufiero. He published full page patriotic ads in the local papers, contributed tons of scrap metal to the war effort, and hired more workers to enable the plant to work non-stop at a 300% rise in production.

The American flag flew highest over the corner of Spencer Place and Myrtle Avenue in the two adjoining buildings that made up the E. A. Laboratories. Please see Parts One and Two, which give lots of background.

All of that flag waving may have been a necessary distraction to point attention away from John Aufiero’s personal skeletons. As I mentioned in the last chapter of this story, those skeletons were about to goose-step out of his closet, and make a mess of his well-ordered public persona. Aufiero, it appears, had a great admiration for Benito Mussolini, the Fascist dictator of Italy, and the enemy of the United States and Allied forces.

Mr. Aufiero had been to Italy, his birthplace, several times after the Fascists took over, and had hobnobbed with the new leadership. He had voiced great support for the brutal Italian takeover of Ethiopia.

Here in the US, he had sponsored a dinner celebrating the career of Fascist and anti-Semitic newspaper editor Domenico Trombetta, and had written effusively about the successful government policies of Il Duce. In return, they awarded him with the honorary title of “Commendatore.”

None of that was illegal, or even very controversial before the start of the war. But after Pearl Harbor, it was poison. It was also a weapon in the hands of Aufiero’s enemies; the auto-worker’s union that represented a large percentage of EAL’s work force.

The Laboratories had a lot of labor issues under John Aufiero, and strikes and work slowdowns were not uncommon. He had been successfully taken to court and made to pay back thousands of dollars in withheld overtime. Alfiero recanted his admiration for the Fascists, and called Mussolini a “rat,” but it was too late. The damaging information was out there.

Because Aufiero had been so gung-ho about preparing for war, and shutting down his domestic production, he was awarded hefty government contracts from the military. During the years between 1943 through 1945, his company worked exclusively for the government.

By 1944, they had a $7 million contract for manufacturing gun sights for bombers and detachable landing lights for all kinds of airplanes. Some enterprising officials of Local 844 of the United Auto Workers union wanted some contracts of their own.

Three of them came to Aufiero and told him that if he didn’t pay them shakedown money, the union was going to call slowdowns and if that didn’t work, a general strike. He gave them all $200 each. A short time later, they came back with the same demands.

This time they wanted real money, not the “chicken-feed” they had been receiving. Other union officials in other factories were getting rich, they said. Where was theirs? The following week, production slowed down by 75%. A strike was called for the next week, and Aufiero promised to pay up. Unbeknownst to them, he also went to the police.

They told him to make the payoffs, which amounted to three payments to the three officials of $600 each. Aufiero met them in a restaurant on Grand Street, in Manhattan. As soon as the enveloped passed hands, the police swept in. The three were arrested, went to trial, and were sentenced to a year in prison, each. They immediately appealed.

Because of the arrest, a strike was called by the local. Aufiero fired all of the strikers, offering to rehire anyone who denounced the union. That was illegal and the courts forced him to rehire the workers. But the animosity and mistrust grew.

When the union leadership found out about Aufiero’s relationship with the Fascists in Italy, They knew they had their revenge. They immediately made the relationship public, and tied Aufiero’s Fascist connections to his labor problems. The stink that rose from that combination was almost more than the company could handle.

There were three parties in this story, John Aufiero and EAL, the union and the government. After the union leaked Aufiero’s link to the Italian Fascists, the government could not afford to be in business with a company that was friendly with the enemy.

They didn’t come out and phrase it that way, because that would be admitting that they hadn’t vetted EAL at all, and had been fine with a business relationship with someone who could have possibly been able to sabotage, or compromise the war effort. So they used the union.

Fred M. Vinson, the Director of the Office of Economic Stabilization, a wartime government agency charged with regulating inflation through price, wage and salary increases, imposed sanctions on E.A. Laboratories. He cancelled their government contracts, charging that Aufiero’s refusal to recognize the local chapter of the U.A.W. had caused a violation of the War Labor Board’s authority.

Because the union had walked out on a strike, Aufiero claimed that they had violated their agreement and voided their contract with the company, thereby losing their union rep’s standing as a representative of anything.

The union fought back, charging that EAL was still manufacturing “unnecessary” domestic production. They were still making the musical car horns that had been their bread and butter, and were the signature product of the company.

One hundred workers walked out of the plant, charging that EAL had taken steel that was necessary for the war effort, and was producing car horns. That was a very serious charge at a time when municipalities were melting down their statues and bells for the war effort.

Picketers surrounded the War Labor Board’s offices in the Empire State Building, chanting that their husbands and sons could not shoot the Japanese, or win on the Western Front with musical horns. The WLB sent some of their top people over to EAL to demand an explanation.

Aufiero replied that they were doing nothing illegal. He said that he had government permission to produce the horns, and pulled out an exemption that allowed him to continue to use part of his plant, and his steel, to manufacture all manner of electric horns, not just the musical ones. The horns were being used by the Army, Coast Guard and Navy for signaling and other military uses.

The WLB was embarrassed, as Aufiero had all of his paperwork in order, including purchase orders. The union had not known the end use of the horns, and neither had the picketers. The union’s attempt to drive Aufiero out of business during peak wartime production seems highly self-destructive, as their own membership would be out of work if the plant had to shut down. The hatred of Aufiero was so strong; they couldn’t see the forest for the trees.

In April of 1945, the U.A.W. and E.A. Laboratories struck a deal, and made peace. The government agencies backed down, charges were dropped, and all of the company’s government contracts were restored. Production could proceed again, in full. But there was a price.

Only two months before the agreements were signed, the founder of the company, Emanuel Aufiero, died at the age of 63. This gentle man had only wanted to be able to create his marvelous automobile accessories, not be embroiled in wartime and union entanglements.

It is not known how much day to day involvement Emanuel had in the company at that point, as John Aufiero, his younger brother, was the face and authority of the company. Emanuel’s wife, Adele, who had taken control of all of his money when he was institutionalized, was still married to him at his death.

Their son Emanuel Jr. was a prominent doctor in Queens. Emanuel Aufiero’s funeral mass was near his home in Forest Hills, and he is buried in Holy Cross Cemetery in Brooklyn.

When the war ended, the plant laid off all of the extra workers, and went back to producing its domestic product. Emanuel and John Aufiero separately, have dozens of patents in their names for various automobile accessories, including horns, heaters, and from the war years, signaling devices and other military patents.

E. A. Laboratories was one of the best at what they produced. Their products were used by all of the American car manufacturers, as well as by many foreign manufacturers.

I found help wanted ads for the Laboratories up until 1954. I could find no obituary for John Aufiero, and no record of what happened to the plant. I don’t know if they moved, were bought out, or just closed. I did find that the patents filed by Emanuel Aufiero for his musical car horns are still being referenced in more modern patents today.

The EAL buildings at 692 Myrtle Avenue are now apartments and offices. The Emanuel Aufiero Building still has his name on it, a mystery to people who wonder as they walk in. “Who was that,” you may well ask. He was the man who invented the musical car horn, and this was home to one of Brooklyn’s most successful businesses, born out of the inventive mind of someone who never ran out of ideas. Cue the “Ride of the Valkyries.”

GMAP

John Aufiero in 1945. Sketch: NY PM tabloid.
John Aufiero in 1945. Sketch: NY PM tabloid
E.A. Laboratories at 692-696 Myrtle Avenue at Spencer Place, Bedford Stuyvesant. Photo: Nicholas Strini for Property Shark
E.A. Laboratories at 692-696 Myrtle Avenue at Spencer Place, Bedford Stuyvesant. Photo: Nicholas Strini for PropertyShark
692-696 Myrtle Ave. today. Photo: Scott Bintner for Property Shark
692-696 Myrtle Avenue today. Photo: Scott Bintner for PropertyShark

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