Swingin' Past the Old Swingline Building

This building at Skillman Avenue and Van Dam Street in Sunnyside, now home to the CityView Racquet Club, fills an entire block and contains over a thousand windows. It’s also the former home of Swingline Staples, founded by Jack Linsky in 1925 as the Parrot Speed Fastener Company, changing the name to Speed Products in 1939 and then Swingline in 1956. The company moved to this new headquarters on Skillman Avenue in 1950. Swingline was famed for its giant neon sign on the roof, featuring a ‘working’ stapler, which could readily be seen from commuters passing by on the Long Island Rail Road, which runs through Sunnyside Yards across the street. A Capitol One bank ad presently is attached to the framework.

In 1998 Swingline eliminated its Queens factory, moving it to Nogales, Mexico. The 60 by 50-foot sign required six men working three ten-hour days to pull down.

The old factory is sometimes called “the house of a thousand windows.”

In 2002 the Museum of Modern Art renovated its East 53rd Street building and moved for a year into another Swingline building on 33rd Street north of Queens Boulevard. In a way, that was fitting, because Jack Linsky and his wife Belle were collectors of fine art, including paintings by Rubens, Gerard David and Boucher. They donated the works to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which can be found in the Belle Linsky Galleries. The Linskys were also famed philanthropers, donating millions to charity. But the Swingline jobs have disappeared from the USA.

Kevin Walsh’s website is Forgotten New York. His book, with the same name, is also available.