Walkabout: On the Razor’s Edge -- Edward Weck & Company

Every day we read about small companies relocating to Brooklyn. Inventive people in all kinds of ways are bringing their businesses to Brooklyn, attracted to available space, abundant public transportation and the possibilities of making their fortunes in the great city of Brooklyn. Everyone wants that Brooklyn name. Hopefully, we will once again be a city of makers. Our history is one of great manufacturing within our borders. We used to make everything imaginable, most of it in factories that were not tucked away in the outer fringes of the city, but with walking distance of some of the most desirable neighborhoods in that city.

I like to look at maps, and can spend hours examining our streets, and it never ceases to amaze me what used to be manufactured here. We were a self-contained city, capable of making everything we needed, except perhaps fresh food. And even that was possible well into the 20th century, in the outer parts of Southern Brooklyn and Flatbush. If you drive or walk around what was our industrial core – all of the waterfront areas, plus Gowanus, the border areas of Bedford/Clinton Hill and Crown Heights/Prospect Heights, Greenpoint and Bushwick, you can get an idea of what once was, and has since gone.

Most people don’t realize that downtown Brooklyn also had a lot of manufacturing going on, too. This part of town has been built up, plowed under, and built up again so often, it takes a look at maps, advertisements and old city directories to realize what a forgotten industrial hub parts of downtown once were. Two major bridges, ramps, highway exits and entrances, Metrotech, housing projects, hotels and college campuses have all but decimated the industrial parts of downtown. There were all kinds of interesting companies located there. One of them was Edward Weck & Company.

Most of the great companies didn’t start out with a man or woman intending to corner the market, it usually starts with someone just trying to support themselves and feed their family. Edward Weck was one of the thousands of German immigrants who came to America to do better for himself. He came to Brooklyn at the age of fifteen in the late 1800s.

He was from Solingen, a city in western Germany; a city famous since the Middle Ages for its sharp blades. The best swords, razors, scissors and knives were produced there for centuries, and young Weck came to the United States with the knowledge of his forefathers. By 1890 he had opened a cutlery company in Manhattan under the name Edward Weck. He manufactured and sold fine carving knives, pocket knives, scissors and other sharp implements, as well as shaving razors.

His razors were doing quite well, and he began concentrating on making a better product. Straight razors were the only razors at the time, and in the hands of a skilled barber, they were magic. But the razor needed to be exceedingly sharp to do its job well, and would need to be stropped quite often. Weck invented the precursor of the multi-blade razor, and patented it in 1909. It was called the Weck Sextoblade.

The “sex” in “sextoblade” for all those whose imaginations just woke up, meant “six.” Sorry. Weck’s razor came with six blades all attached at the base, able to be folded back into the handle and secured by a safety guard. Each blade could be extended when needed, and if all were stropped and sharpened at once, this razor could last a long time before the next sharpening. For its day, it was quite revolutionary. Weck manufactured several different variations and degrees of quality; Sextoblades all. They manufactured the strops that sharpened the razors, too, and then ventured into the new single edge razors, making several models of those, as well as a smaller travel razor called the Bantam.

The company grew, and had stores in Manhattan and in Brooklyn. The factory that made everything was in downtown Brooklyn, at 135 Johnson Street, part of a block that no longer exists, and is part of Metrotech and the NYU Polytechnic campus, just off Flatbush Extension. It was between Bridge and Duffield Streets, both of which also no longer exist at that location anymore. The factory was a tall seven story building, nestled between much older two and four story frame houses.

In 1917, Edward Weck incorporated the business under the name Edward Weck & Son. His son Albert joined him in business. Edward Weck was slowing down, and his health wasn’t what it once was. The family lived at 247 Rugby Road in Ditmas Park, in a nice two story plus attic suburban frame house. Several years later, Edward Weck died of heart disease in March of 1922. Albert took over the business.

He expanded into other lines of sharp tools. The company became very well known for their manufacture of surgical instruments. They also made hair shapers that looked very much like the Sextoblade, as well as surgical prep razors, marketed to the U.S. military for field and base operating rooms.

The New York Public Library has in their photo collection a series of pictures showing the Weck factory and men at work making the instruments and tools. They are shown below. The photos were taken in 1931. The factory was hard at work, in spite of the growing economic depression. From the teens until the early 1950s, the company was always seeking employees. Ads for people to work in the Johnson Street factory are a constant in the archives.

But by 1953, Weck was leaving downtown Brooklyn. Like far too many industries, it was heading for cheaper locations in the city. They moved to Long Island City. Sometime between 1956 and 1963, they were acquired by the Standard International Corp. of Massachusetts, although the company name was maintained.

In 1963, the company purchased Durham-Enders Razor Company, located in Mystic, Ct., growing their razor business once again. At some point, the Weck factory was torn down, and the entire streetscape was incorporated into the campus for Polytech. Today, the Wunsch Building stands where the factory and the surrounding houses once stood.

Squibb Corp bought Weck in 1971, for $22 million. Weck was still producing in both Long Island City and Mystic. In 1993, Squibb merged with Bristol-Meyers, Teleflex and the Weck assets were purchased for $63.5 million. Today, Teleflex still manufactures the Weck line of surgical instruments. The Weck name and its products live on.

GMAP