For more than a century, time was of the essence on Hamilton Street in New Haven. That’s where the factory built by the New Haven Clock Co. — once the largest timepiece manufactory in the world — once stood. Actually, it stands there still (part of it, though), though its namesake company vanished 60 years ago. […]
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For more than a century, time was of the essence on Hamilton Street in New Haven.
That’s where the factory built by the New Haven Clock Co. — once the largest timepiece manufactory in the world — once stood. Actually, it stands there still (part of it, though), though its namesake company vanished 60 years ago.
The New Haven Clock Co. was founded in 1853. Two years later it acquired the assets of the Jerome Manufacturing Co., the first U.S. factory to produce well-made, inexpensive brass clock movements. The New Haven Clock Co. eventually occupied nearly two city blocks, was world-renowned and the bedrock of a vital and growing neighborhood. Between 1880 and 1959 more than 1,500 men, women and children, comprising generations of families, produced 40 million watches there.
But time stands still for no one — not even the company that makes the timepieces themselves. During World War II the factory switched over to manufacturing timing devices for bombs and artillery shells urgently needed for the war effort. After peace returned in 1945, the GI Bill, postwar economics, low-cost foreign competition, new transportation infrastructure, and an ill-fated corporate takeover led to the demise of the company — it filed for bankruptcy in 1956 and never recovered, closing for good in 1960.
During the same era, urban renewal dealt a final blow to the once-thriving neighborhood just east of Wooster Square. New Haven was torn apart, rebuilt and connected to two major interstates. By 1970, the surrounding neighborhood had been leveled and replaced with the industrial warehouses and parking lots that line Hamilton Street today.
But the factory — or what’s left of it — still stands. And that imposing brick edifice at 133 Hamilton Street is the subject of a new exhibition, FACTORY, on view at the New Haven Museum through the end of the year.
Organized and curated by Jason Bischoff-Wurstle, the museum’s director of photo archives, FACTORY documents the post-industrial, underground history of the imposing edifice at the corner of Hamilton and St. John streets. It housed visual and performance artists, punk bands, skateboarders, and a succession of music and adult-entertainment clubs in the decades following the factory’s closing.
“To passersby it looked abandoned, but it was teeming with life and most people weren’t even aware of it,” Bischoff-Wurstle says.
Using original and archival video and photography and artifacts, FACTORY documents the unlikely second chapter of the industrial complex during the latter decades of the 20th century, when artists, musicians, community activists and the property’s owner, Tony Yagovane, populated and energized a grass-roots counterculture hub.
The visual and performing artists who worked and lived in the factory went largely unnoticed by those who frequented a succession of the nightclubs on the other side of the building, fronting St. John Street. The music scene included the Country Palace and its alter ego, the Brick N’ Wood — an R&B dance club open only on weekends, where up to 1,000 revelers might rub elbows with the likes of Bobby Brown and Carl Weathers (of Rocky fame) as well as adventurous Yale undergrads and junior faculty all bonding improbably on the dance floor. Hardcore punk and death- metal performance spaces followed, as did J.P. Monroe headlining as drag-queen performer Candy Monroe at the 10,000-square-foot LGBTQ club Kurt’s 2.
The FACTORY exhibition is one of three concurrent projects pertaining to the building. A documentary on the factory’s colorful history is in development by Elm City filmmaker/director Gorman Bechard (Pizza: A Love Story) with Connecticut entrepreneur and historic real estate consultant Bill Kraus producing.
“This is unsanitized, authentic history,’” says Kraus, who specializes in the redevelopment of historic buildings for urban revitalization and hopes to transform the space into 130 affordable live/work lofts for artists and affordable apartments. He adds that the clock-factory narrative can make history and historic buildings more relevant to younger generations.
“The depth, breath, diversity and sheer quantity of the stories is astonishing,” Kraus says, “as is the juxtaposition of an august, international industrial giant becoming the post-industrial den of crazed dreams and dreamers.”
FACTORY, exhibition on view at New Haven Museum, 114 Whitney Ave., New Haven. Visit newhavenmuseum.org, Facebook.com/NewHavenMuseum or 203-562-4183.
