Industry | Musical instruments |
---|---|
Founded | 1850s |
Founder | Jacob Estey |
Defunct | c. 1961[1][2] |
Headquarters | |
Worldwide | |
Products | Pump organs (Melodeon, American reed organ) Pipe organs, Theatre organs, Electronic organs |
Subsidiaries | Estey Piano Co., Welte Mignon Corp., Welte Organ Co., North American Discount Co., Estey-Welte Securities Co., Eswell Realty Corp., Magna Electronics Co. (Magnatone)[1] |
Beginning in the 1840s, the reed organ experienced rapid growth and popularity, becoming a symbol of middle class social status. But its heyday was squarely in the Gilded Age. The Reed Organ was manufactured by The Estey Organ Company of Brattleboro, Vermont in 1872. This particular organ is a classic Victorian design.
For a century the Estey Organ Company in Brattleboro, Vermont was the largest Organ (music) manufacturer in the United States. In 1852 Jacob Estey founded the company and bought out another Brattleboro manufacturing business. At its peak, the company employed approximately 700 people, and sold its high-quality items as far away as Africa, Great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand. Estey built around 500,000 to 520,000 pump organs between 1846 and 1955. Estey also produced pianos, made by the Estey Piano Company in New York City.
- 1History
History[edit]
Jacob Estey[edit]
Jacob Estey
Jacob Estey, born 1814 in Hinsdale, New Hampshire, ran away from an orphanage to Worcester, Massachusetts, where he learned the plumbing trade. In 1835 he arrived in Brattleboro, Vermont at age 21 to work in a plumbing shop. He soon bought the shop, beginning a long career as a successful businessman. He died in 1890.
About 1850, Estey built a two-story shop in Brattleboro and rented it out to a small company that manufactured melodeons. When the renters ran short of cash, Estey took an interest in the business in lieu of rent, eventually becoming sole proprietor. Despite having no musical talent or skills as an inventor, Jacob Estey grew the company into a great success, giving up the plumbing business.[3] In 1855, Estey organized the first manufacturing company to bear his name, Estey & Greene—followed by Estey & Company, J. Estey & Company, Estey Organ Company—and finally, Estey Organ Corporation.
Jacob Estey saw the manufacturing and sale of these instruments, later known as American reed organs, as a new business opportunity.
Estey reed organs in the 19th century[edit]
- Portable melodeon by Estey & Green (1855-1863)[4]
- Piano style melodeon (1867)[5]
- American reed organ (Cottage organ style)
- Chapel organ (1864-1882)[6]
- Parlor organ with top (1897)[6]
- Pipe-top parlor organ[6]
- Boudoir organ with pipe-top (1882, a style)[7]
- Salon organ (late 19th century, a style)[8]
- Church Phonorium organ (late 19th century, a style)[9]
- Cathedral organ with pipe-top (1890, a style)[10]
- cf. Organ case design '17' (1903)[11]
Estey Organ in the early 20th century[edit]
Estey Piano Company Building
Welte Mignon's Philharmonic Organ
In 1926 the company used the name, Estey-Welte Corporation. That year, it acquired the Hall Organ Company of West Philadelphia and a new built six-floor building at 695 Fifth Avenue as showrooms and salesrooms. This became the company's home, and the offices of the Welte Mignon Studios and the other subsidiary companies—including the Estey Piano Company, the Welte Mignon Corporation, the Welte Organ Company, the North American Discount Company, the Estey-Welte Securities Company, and the Eswell Realty Corporation.[12] In 1926 Estey-Welte formed The Welte-Mignon Stuidos of Florida, Inc. in Palm Beach.[13]
Estey Residence Pipe Organ console (1922)
Estey pipe organ
opus 1111 (1913)
opus 1111 (1913)
Over its more than one hundred years, Estey became the largest and best known manufacturer of reed organs in the world. It made more than 520,000 instruments, all labeled Brattleboro, Vt. USA. In 1901, Estey Organ Company began making pipe organs, and became one of the largest American pipe organ manufacturers. They built and sold more than 3200 pipe organs across the US and abroad. The company provided organs for many important locations, including New York City's Capital Theatre, the Sacramento, CA Municipal Auditorium, and Henry Ford's home in Dearborn, Michigan.
Also during the era of silent films, Estey made over 160 theatre organs.[14][not in citation given][15]
Estey Organ after World War II[edit]
Following World War II, Estey developed and manufactured electronic organs, joining a limited number of companies that manufactured all three types of organs—reed, pipe, and electronic. In the 1950s, Harald Bode joined Estey. He had been a pioneer in the research and development of electronic musical instrument since the 1930s, and had developed the Bode Organ in 1951.[16] At Estey, he helped develop the Estey Electronic Organ model S and AS-1 (1954),[17][18] then served as a chief engineer and a vice-president of Estey during the late 1950s.[16]
Later history[edit]
Fletcher Music Centers purchased the Estey Organ company name in 1989, and subsequently produced several models of home organs. The models included a lifetime free lesson program. They sold these throughout the 1990s, exclusively through their chain of retail stores. Fletcher Music Centers and the Estey Organ Company corporate office is in Clearwater, Florida.
Estey Organ Company Factory[edit]
Location | Birge St., Brattleboro, Vermont |
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Coordinates | 42°50′51″N72°34′4″W / 42.84750°N 72.56778°WCoordinates: 42°50′51″N72°34′4″W / 42.84750°N 72.56778°W |
Area | 5 acres (2.0 ha) |
Built | 1870 |
NRHP reference # | 80000344[19] (original) 06001232 (increase) |
Significant dates | |
Added to NRHP | April 17, 1980 |
Boundary increase | January 9, 2007 |
The Estey Organ Company's main factory was located southwest of downtown Brattleboro, on the south side of Whetstone Brook between Birge and Organ Streets. At its height, the complex had more than 20 buildings, many of which were interconnected by raised walkways and covered bridges. Several of the buildings were built with distinctive slate siding, resulting in an architecturally unique collection of such structures in the state.[20] One of the buildings now houses the Estey Organ Museum; the entire surviving complex was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980, both for its architecture, and as a major economic force in Brattleboro for many years.[19]
Social contributions by Estey family[edit]
Estey Hall of Shaw University, North Carolina
The Estey family had a long tradition of company leadership and community involvement, including residential development such as Esteyville; banking; town government; schools; fire protection; military units; churches; and Vermont state politics and government. Estey Hall on the campus of Shaw University is named after Estey, who contributed to the construction of the building. Fletcher Music Centers continued the tradition of community involvement by helping fund a music therapy wing at All Children's Hospital located in St. Petersburg, Florida.
See also[edit]
- List of New York City Designated Landmarks in the Bronx - Estey Piano Company Factory
References[edit]
- ^ abAhern, Douglas (2013). 'Arnold Bernard and Estey'. The History of the Magnatone Amplifier. MagnatoneAmps.com.
... In 1959, Estey acquired Magna Electronics and made [F. Roy] Chiltonthe president of the Estey Corporation. Headquarters moved from the east coast to the Torrance where a line organs would be added to what was already in production under the Magnatone name. Some vague words were spoken in regard to keeping the Brattleboro operation going, but it seemed unlikely. Within a year or two, the 100 year legacy of Estey organ manufacturing finally came to an end, and the doors were closed for good.
- ^'Mason Buys Estey Organ Shop'. North Adams Transcript. November 3, 1961.
- ^Hall, Henry (1896). Americas Successful Men of Affairs (Volume II ed.). New York Tribune. pp. 287–289.
|access-date=
requires|url=
(help) - ^'A Brief Chronology of the Estey Organ Company'. EsteyOrganMuseum.org. Brattleboro, Vermont: Estey Organ Museum.
Below is a very brief chronology of the Estey Organ Company. For a comprehensive examination of the company, we recommend the book, Manufacturing the Muse by Dennis Waring
. [Waring 2002] - ^1867 Estey catalogue, J. Estey & Company,
The Estey Perfect Melodeons', 'Piano Style. / Nos. 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13. / Rosewood, Round Corners, Serpentine Mouldings.
; also published as Figure 7 on Waring 2002, p. 24 - ^ abcPumpOrganRestorations.com
- ^1890 Estey catalogue, Estey Organ Company,
Boudoir Organ. -- Pipe Organ Top. / Rosewood, Round Corners, Serpentine Mouldings.
; also published as Figure 9 on: Waring 2002, p. 26 - ^1881 Estey catalogue, Estey Organ Company,
The J. Estey & Company “New Salon Organ”
; also published as Figure 2 on: Waring 2002, p. 3 - ^'The Phonorium Organ'. The Estey Organ Virtual Museum.
- ^1890 Estey catalogue. Estey Organ Company.
Estey Cathedral Organ (with pipe top) ...
; also published as Figure 8 on: Waring 2002, p. 25 - ^1903 Estey catalogue, Estey Organ Company,
Organ case design “17”
; also published as Figure 11 on Waring 2002, p. 29 - ^New York Times, Dec. 18, 1926, Organ Company absorbed
- ^New York Times, January 15, 1927 Sales of organs rise
- ^'Manufacturer: Estey'. Opus List Database, The Theatre Organ Home Page (TheatreOrgans.com). Retrieved 2017-04-22.
167 items were found
- ^'Search results: 'Theatre Organ' on esteyorgan.com: about 18 pages'. Google.com. Retrieved 2013-10-26.
- ^ abRhea, Tom (May 2004), 'Harald Bode', Video History Project, Experimental Television Center, archived from the original on 2011-07-19 (also broken format page remains in here)
- ^Harald's wonderful Instruments, Harald Bode News, 27 April 2010
- ^Levin, John (March 6, 2010). Estey Electronic Organ model AS-1, designed by Harald Bode (photograph). Estey Organ Museum, Brattleboro.
- ^ abNational Park Service (2010-07-09). 'National Register Information System'. National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service.
- ^'NRHP nomination for Estey Organ Company Factory'. National Park Service. Retrieved 2015-11-22.
- Types of pump organs
- PumpOrganRestorations.com, Thirteen Different Types of Pump Organs (Types of Reed Organs)
- Estey Organ Museum, How To Find Serial Numbers In Estey Reed Organs
Further reading[edit]
- Waring, Dennis G. (2002). Manufacturing the Muse: Estey Organs and Consumer Culture in Victorian America. Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press. ISBN978-0-8195-6508-2.
External links[edit]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Estey Organ Co.. |
- Ned Phoenix, Museum Founder NAMM Oral History Interview
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Estey_Organ&oldid=899323366'
Bronx, New York City, New York, United States of America
If you want to know more about my walks and photos, check out my blog.
Summary
Featuring robust brick facades and a high corner clock tower, the former Estey Piano Company Factory is a distinguished monument to an industry that was once one of the Bronx’s most important. Anchoring the northeast corner of Lincoln Avenue and Southern (now Bruckner) Boulevard since 1886, when its original portion was completed, the Estey building is the oldest-known former piano factory standing in the Bronx today. It is also one of the earliest large factories remaining in its Mott Haven neighborhood, dating from the period in which the area first experienced intensive industrial development. Today, as in decades past, the building’s signature clock tower and expansive facades—simply but elegantly detailed with terra cotta, patterned brick, and contrasting stone—are visible from the waterfront and nearby Harlem River bridges, making the Estey Factory a true neighborhood landmark.
Manufacturing blossomed in the Mott Haven section of the Bronx during the 1880s, when new factories started springing up in the area east of Third Avenue. Many of these produced pianos or their components, and by 1919, the Bronx had more than 60 such factories, making it one of America’s piano-manufacturing centers. One of the city’s first piano factories to be built in the Annexed District or North Side, as the western portions of the Bronx were known between 1874 and 1898, the Estey building was credited with providing “an unusual stimulus” for the movement of other piano makers there. Several of the manufacturers that followed Estey to the Annexed District, and later the Bronx, clustered within a few blocks of its factory, creating an important nucleus for the piano industry.
The Estey Piano Company was organized by Jacob Estey and John B. Simpson in 1885. Two decades before, Estey had established an organ works in Brattleboro, Vt. that had grown into one of the country’s largest producers of reed organs, thousands of which found their way into American parlors every year. Like other organ manufacturers in the late nineteenth century, Estey sought to diversify into the booming piano industry, and his partnership with Simpson—a pioneering North Side piano manufacturer—was a means to that end. When Estey Piano opened its factory, it manufactured upright and grand pianos that would become recognized for their “superior construction and workmanship.”
The original portion of the Estey Piano Factory was designed by the architectural firm of A.B. Ogden & Son. Many of this building’s features, including its L-shaped plan, flat roof, regular fenestration pattern and bay arrangement, and relatively narrow width to allow for daylight penetration, are characteristic of latenineteenth-century factory buildings. Its mixture of segmental- and round-headed window openings, and the Romanesque machicolations of its clock tower, place the Estey Factory within the tradition of the American round-arched style. Other features, including the factory’s distinctive, red-orange brick, dogtoothed and zigzagging patterned-brick stringcourses, recessed brick panels, terra cotta tiles featuring festoons, lions’ heads, and foliate motifs—and of course, its dramatic, projecting clock tower—speak of a building that sought to announce its presence on the urban landscape, projecting a strong public image for its owner. Indeed, the Estey Piano Company often included an illustration of this factory on its trade cards, which advertised the firm’s products.
The original building was extended to the east along Southern Boulevard in 1890, with a harmonious five-story addition designed by John B. Snook & Sons, and to the north, along Lincoln Avenue, with one-story additions in 1895. The Lincoln Avenue additions appear to have been combined and expanded, and then raised to three stories in 1909, and by an additional two stories in 1919; the 1919 addition near the southeast corner of Lincoln Avenue and 134th Street features broad expanses of industrial sash that were characteristic of the “daylight factories” of the early twentieth century. Known today as the Clock Tower Building, the old Estey Piano Company Factory currently houses artists and their studios. With its historic fabric almost completely intact, the building remains, in the words of the AIA Guide to New York City, “the grande dame of the piano trade: not virgin, but all-together and proud.”
The Industrial Development of Mott Haven
Well before the 1898 creation of the borough of the Bronx, industrial activity was occurring in the area that is now the Bronx’s southernmost portion. In 1828, Jordan L. Mott, the inventor of a coal-burning iron cooking stove, opened a “modest little factory” on property he had purchased on the Harlem River near the present Third Avenue, in what was then the township of Morrisania. Mott started calling the area Mott Haven and, in 1850, seeking to attract additional industry to the area, he laid out the Mott Haven Canal, an artificial inlet from the Harlem River that would ultimately extend to just south of 144th Street. The canal, however, was slow to attract industrial firms, and by 1879, only a handful of substantial ones existed nearby, including a brass and iron works, a machine shop, and a few lumber and coal yards, all of which were below 138th Street. These were joined by a marble yard, lumber yard, and hotel west of the canal, near the tracks built by the New York & Harlem Railroad to connect Manhattan with what is now the Bronx, in 1841. Despite the presence of the large Harlem River & Port Chester Railroad yard, which stretched from Lincoln Avenue to Brown Place south of 132nd Street, few factories appear to have existed east of Third Avenue at the end of the 1870s.
In 1874, the townships of Morrisania, West Farms, and Kingsbridge—the sections of the present Bronx borough located west of the Bronx River—became part of New York City. Officially called the 23rd and 24th Wards, they were generally referred to as the “Annexed District” or “North Side,” but they remained fairly isolated. At that time, few links existed between the southern portion of the District and Manhattan; among those that did was a cast-iron bridge at Third Avenue which, in 1860, had replaced an old wood dam-bridge built in the 1790s at that location.
Soon after annexation, however, local residents, property owners, business owners, and booster groups like the North Side Association began agitating for improved infrastructure, including better connections with Manhattan. In the 1880s, new public works started to be built; among them was the Madison Avenue Bridge, completed in 1884, which spanned the Harlem River at 138th Street, about five blocks north of the Mott Iron Works complex. By 1885, additional industrial concerns—including a planing mill, cabinet maker, and nickel works, and factories making carpets and surgical instruments—had sprung up in Mott Haven, near and below 138th Street, and close to Third Avenue. The expanded rail yard below 132nd Street, at that point operated by the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad, connected directly to new docks at the foot of Willis Avenue. A few factories had sprouted up in the area east of Lincoln Avenue, as the Estey Piano Company Factory, then under construction at the northeast corner of Lincoln Avenue and Southern (now Bruckner) Boulevard, shared a block with the expansive works of the New York Lumber and Woodworking Company.
The 1886 opening of the Second Avenue Bridge just a few blocks from the Estey Factory provided a Harlem River crossing for the trains of the new Suburban Rapid Transit Company. The Suburban’s line, which would come to be known in the Bronx as the Third Avenue El, was the first to bring rapid transit service to the Annexed District. With its southern terminus on the Manhattan side of the Harlem, where it met Manhattan’s east-side elevated lines, the Suburban stopped at Southern Boulevard, before continuing northward; service on the line was expanded and improved between 1887 and 1902. While the Suburban was under construction, Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide predicted that it would have an enormous impact on the North Side, calling it, in 1885, “a great thing for the [Annexed District], as well as for New York City. It will furnish cheap homes for a poorer population, as well as choice rural habitations for the well-to-do. We may expect many light manufacturing industries to become naturalized on the other side of the Harlem.” And the line did come to play a crucial role in Mott Haven’s late-nineteenth-century development, spurring rowhouse construction in the late 1880s and 1890s. As new housing sprouted up, so too did industry; an 1894 drawing of the Harlem River east of Third Avenue shows a busy waterfront with docks and factories on both sides of the river, including the Estey Factory, with its distinctive clock tower clearly visible. In 1895, the New York Times noted that “that part of the 23rd Ward along the Harlem River”—that is, the southernmost portion of the Annexed District, including Mott Haven—was “a very busy manufacturing place.”
Improved rapid transit connections with Manhattan aided Mott Haven’s residential growth, but the area’s industrial development was spurred by its Harlem River location and the expansion of its freight-rail infrastructure. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the New York, New Haven & Hartford—with a freight depot located one block south of the Estey Factory, at Lincoln Avenue and 132nd Street—connected with dozens of railroads providing service throughout the eastern and midwestern United States, and into Canada. The New York Central system, with extensive yards close by in Melrose, was just as far-reaching. And the southern Bronx retained these transportation advantages into the twentieth century. Writing in 1908 about the proliferation of piano factories, many of which were in the southern Bronx, lifelong piano man William
P.H. Bacon pointed to the borough’s “superior transportation and shipping facilities, both by water and land,” as well as “the opportunity of getting land for the erection of commodious factories at reasonable figures.” In experiencing strong manufacturing growth in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Mott Haven was a microcosm of the Bronx and the city as a whole: by 1920, New York City had 12% of the country’s factory workers, and by 1927, the Bronx had 2,700 plants with more than 100,000 employees.
Industrial growth had been rapid in the southern Bronx; Bacon wrote, in 1908, of “the busy hum of commerce where but a few years ago, the lowing of cattle and other sylvan sounds were the only noises heard.” The end of World War II marked the apex of manufacturing in New York, as in 1947, more manufacturing jobs existed in the city than in Boston, Detroit, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia combined. But industrial activity in the Bronx would soon begin to decline, reflecting city-wide trends. By the 1950s, New York City was rapidly losing industrial jobs, with manufacturers leaving in droves for the suburbs, or departing the region entirely. Between 1969 and 1999, the number of manufacturing jobs in the city fell by twothirds. Contributing to the decline of industry in the southern Bronx was the destruction of manufacturing space with the construction of broad new highways; the building of the earliest portions of the Major Deegan Expressway through Mott Haven between 1935 and 1939, for example, wiped out several industrial buildings on the block immediately to the north of the Estey Factory, including the former factory of the Brambach Piano Company. In 1997, the New York City Department of City Planning, citing an underutilization of industrial space in Mott Haven, rezoned a portion of Bruckner Boulevard including the block containing the former Estey Factory, to allow for residential uses and community facilities. This special mixed-use zoning was expanded to blocks to the east, west, and south in 2005.
As Mott Haven becomes increasingly residential, the former Estey Factory is a reminder of the neighborhood’s early years of intensive industrial growth. Today, the Estey building is one of the oldest large factories standing in Mott Haven, and in the entire area of the southern Bronx below 149th Street.
The Estey Piano Company and Its Factory
The Estey Piano Company had its roots in the firm of Manner & Company, which manufactured pianos on the Bowery between 1866 and 1869. Manner called his piano the “Arion,” and in 1870, his firm’s name changed to the Arion Piano-Forte Company. In 1872, the company’s factory moved to 149th Street, in what is now the Bronx. John Boulton Simpson, who had been Arion’s secretary since 1871, took control of the company in 1875; in that year, the company apparently moved to a new factory on St. Ann’s Avenue and boasted that “Six years ago, there were none of our pianos in existence; to-day, there are over 7,500 in use.” In the following year, the firm’s name changed to Simpson & Company, although it also continued to be known by the Arion name. By the end of the 1870s, Simpson’s factory—stretching from Brook to St. Ann’s Avenues on the north side of 149th Street—was probably the largest piano factory in the Annexed District, but in 1880, it was sold to another piano maker, the William E. Wheelock Company.
While Simpson apparently continued to make “high grade pianos” following the Wheelock sale, the location of his factory in the early 1880s is unclear. Between 1881 and 1885, Simpson & Company continued to maintain a space, likely a showroom, at 5 East 14th Street—where it had been since 1876—but the company was also listed at 127 East 129th and 232 East 40th Streets, neither of which appears to have been the location of a substantial factory. These addresses do, however, link Simpson in the early 1880s with the respected tuner Stephen Brambach, who would play a crucial role in developing Estey’s first pianos; Brambach was located next door to Simpson between 1881 and 1883, and in the same building in 1884.
In 1885, the Estey Organ Company of Brattleboro, Vt. was hitting its peak. By the end of the 1880s, the firm, which had been founded in 1866 by Jacob Estey, would be the world’s largest producer of reed organs. Thousands of these instruments found their way into American parlors every year; they were also being distributed, by 1890, to Africa, Asia, Australia, and South America, and to major European cities. Despite the company’s success—it was described, in 1886, as doing “an immense business, amounting to over one million dollars annually”—and its rapid growth—production rose by a factor of seven between 1865 and 1886—the organ business was in decline. The piano business, however, was booming; and, likely noticing the 1882 entry of the renowned organ maker Mason & Hamlin into piano manufacturing, Estey and the company’s other principals, including Levi K. Fuller and Jacob’s son Julius, decided to take the same path.
Estey became a piano manufacturer by forming a partnership with Simpson, who was named president of the new Estey Piano Company; the Simpson piano was essentially re-branded as the new Estey model. Simpson, of course, had been a pioneer in Bronx piano manufacturing, and this may have played a role in Estey’s decision to build its plant on the North Side. A.B. Ogden & Son was hired to design the factory, but Simpson may have had some influence over its appearance and form, as he had dabbled in architecture, altering his home on West 129th Street in 1882 to give it a “picturesque exoticism.” Work began on the “large factory with modern appliances,” as it would later be described, in August of 1885; it was completed, at a cost of approximately $40,000, in February of 1886. While the factory was under construction, Estey Piano decided to construct three more buildings that would extend its complex by an additional 80 feet along Southern Boulevard. These brick structures, designed by Ogden’s firm and completed at the same time as the main factory, were a one-story extension, a one-story shed, and a two-story stable.
Estey Piano prospered in its early years, as “Estey grand and upright pianos soon became a dominant factor in the piano trade,” according to Alfred Dolge, who added that they often “carried off highest awards for superior construction and workmanship.” In 1887, the trade publication Musical Courier wrote that the Estey Piano Factory was “one of the most complete in the country”; two years later, it called the firm’s upright “a most beautiful specimen of piano manufacturing,” of which Estey would “find no difficulty in disposing … in the best musical circles in the land.” While trade journals’ opinions should be considered with caution, those of the respected piano tuner and regulator Daniel Spillane may be more reliable. Five years after the Estey Factory opened, Spillane called its piano “a very excellent instrument,” adding that “much of the technical and musical merit of these pianos is due to the competency and skill of [Stephen] Brambach, who is a gentleman of fine musical and mechanical sensibilities [and] … one of the best tuners in New York.” Although Brambach had apparently started his own piano company in 1885, he remained involved with Estey in 1890, originating “all new ideas in the mechanics and acoustics of the Estey piano.” Brambach’s brother Carl, “one of the most expert and artistic tuners and toners in the country,” was also employed by Estey Piano, according to Spillane.
Business was good, and only four years after the Estey Piano Factory opened, it underwent a huge expansion. In May of 1890, work began on a 100-foot-long east addition that would result in the demolition of the extension, shed, and stable on Southern Boulevard, and create the unified five-story, 200-foot-long Bruckner Boulevard façade that remains essentially unchanged today. The architect of this addition, which was completed in October of 1890 at a cost of about $23,000, was John B. Snook & Sons. This firm, then one of New York’s most prolific, traced its origins to the arrival of John B. Snook (1815-1901) in the United States, from England, in 1835. By 1842, Snook was working with Joseph Trench, and the two helped introduce the Anglo-Italianate style to New York with buildings such as the A.T. Stewart Store at 280 Broadway (1845-46, a Designated New York City Landmark). One of Snook’s best-known works was the first Grand Central Terminal (1869-71, demolished); in 1887, he took his three sons, James Henry (1847-1917), Samuel Booth (18571915), and Thomas Edward, and a son-in-law, John W. Boyleston, into his office, and changed his firm’s name to John B. Snook & Sons. Although Snook had designed a diverse array of buildings—including residential and commercial structures for some of New York’s most prominent families—his firm designed several manufacturing lofts in the 1880s and 1890s that would have made it an appropriate choice for the Estey addition. These industrial buildings, now located in the SoHo-Cast Iron Historic District—including 8 Greene Street (1883-84), 12 Wooster Street (1883-84), 127 Spring Street/87-89 Greene Street (1886-87), 391-393 West Broadway/77-81 Wooster Street (1889), 151 Spring Street (1889-90) and 361 Canal Street (1891-92)—were utilitarian brick buildings; but like the Estey Factory, they were also designed with an eye toward detail, featuring patterned and textured brickwork, and contrasting stone trim that enliven their facades.
The Estey Factory continued to grow in the 1890s. In 1895, the company extended the building 50 feet along Lincoln Avenue with a one-story, 69-foot-deep brick addition that apparently provided a fireproof home for its woodworking department; at the same time, Estey constructed a new, one-story brick lumber room running for an additional 38 feet along Lincoln, where it met a small, one-story brick building then existing at the southeast corner of Lincoln Avenue and 134th Street. Both the extension and the new building—which appear to remain today as the base of the five-story portion of the factory north of the original building—were designed by Hewlett S. Baker of 492 East 138th Street. Little is known about Baker; he was described as “a property owner in the South Bronx” in a 1910 New York Times article, and as “a contractor and builder in the Bronx” in a 1912 article about his death. By 1900, the one-story buildings near the corner of Lincoln and 134th appear to have been extended to the east.
The portion of the factory north of the original building remained at one story until 1909, when Simpson and architect S. Gifford Slocum raised it to three stories. Slocum, an architect of some note, is remembered primarily for his large residences for wealthy clients, including several fine Queen Anne-style residences built in the Saratoga Springs area in the 1880s. Born in Jefferson County, N.Y., Slocum studied architecture at Cornell University from 1873 to 1875, and by 1885, he had offices in Saratoga and Glens Falls, N.Y. In 1888, Slocum moved to Philadelphia while retaining his Saratoga office; between 1890 and 1909, he practiced architecture in New York City. Simpson hired Slocum to design an alteration to his residence at 117 East 83rd Street, in 1900. Slocum’s two-story addition to the Estey Piano Factory was described as being of “similar construction to the present building” in its Buildings Department application, and it demonstrates continuity with the floor below and with the original building in its segmental-arch-headed window openings, and in its similar decorative details, including pilasters, stone sills supported by corbelled brick courses, and patterned-brick stringcourses. A drawing of the factory following the completion of Slocum’s addition appeared in a 1917 Estey Piano Company advertisement.
Over the previous years, the Estey Piano Company had undergone several changes, weathering the deaths—in 1890, 1896, and 1902, respectively—of Jacob Estey, Levi K. Fuller, and Julius Estey. The firm’s “warerooms” or showrooms, which had been at 5 East 14th Street since the time of the company’s founding, were at 97 Fifth Avenue by 1900 and 7 West 29th Street by 1909. They would move again—in 1912 to the since-demolished “Estey Building” at 23 West 42nd Street—and by 1916 to 12 West 45th Street. By 1912, Estey pianos were being sold at Loeser’s department store in Brooklyn; in its advertising, the company took advantage of its historical association with the Estey Organ Company, stating that “the world-renowned Estey Pianos … are just as reliable as the Estey Organs made famous by the same firm in the days of our parents.” On at least one occasion, the Estey Piano Factory witnessed strife between its employees and management, as in 1912, workers struck Estey and other Bronx piano manufacturers that would not recognize the piano makers’ union and refused to close their shop floors to non-union employees.
In 1917, John B. Simpson’s leadership of the Estey Piano Company came to an end, when George B. Gittins, the former president of piano manufacturer Kohler & Campbell, purchased a controlling interest in the firm. Gittins, an industry prodigy who was only 37 at the time he took Estey Piano’s helm, appears to have begun revamping the company’s product line almost immediately; an “at-the-factory” clearance sale held in November of 1917 was prompted by the company’s intention “to concentrate on the large-scale production of a few standard models.” Two years later, Gittins purchased M. Welte & Sons, Inc., which was originally the American arm of a German company that had invented the reproducing piano, a technologically advanced kind of player piano using special rolls that were able to express, to some extent, the subtleties of the renowned pianists who had “recorded” them. Following the 1907 introduction of Welte’s “Mignon” reproducing piano in the United States, dozens of the world’s most famous pianists made recordings for Welte, allowing Americans to experience, for the first time, something close to having Paderewski, Saint-Saens, and other virtuosi play for them in their homes.
Soon after acquiring Welte, Gittins started shutting down the firm’s Poughkeepsie, N.Y. plant—which had produced rolls, reproducing pianos with and without keyboards, Welte “Philharmonic” reproducing organs, orchestrions, and other products—and expanding the Estey Factory building and its complex. In 1919, architect George F. Hogue of 41 Union Square in Manhattan was hired to add two stories to the northern, three-story portion of the factory, and to add an elevator shaft. This alteration, which cost about $25,000, featured broad expanses of industrial sash typical of the “daylight” factories that were then being constructed around the country. By 1921, Gittins had also constructed a two-story building (not part of this Designation) facing Southern Boulevard and adjoining Snook’s 1890 addition, as well as a four-story factory for Welte (not part of this Designation) that remains today at 27 Bruckner Boulevard. In 1922, the Estey-Welte Corporation was created, which served as an umbrella organization for several Gittins holdings, including the Estey Piano Company and the Welte-Mignon Corporation. Estey, at that time, was manufacturing a variety of pianos, including an 88-note player piano, and manual and reproducing uprights and grands; the new four-story factory on Southern Boulevard made Welte-Mignon pianos and grands, actions for reproducing instruments, and Welte Philharmonic organs.
In 1925, perhaps sensing the end of the glory days for the piano and player piano, Gittins decided to diversify into the manufacture of pipe organs for churches, concert halls, theaters, and large residences. In the following year, Estey-Welte appeared to be perfectly healthy, but by January of 1927, a crash in its stock price brought the over-extended company to its knees. Estey-Welte was in serious trouble, and by summer of that year, it was reorganized as the Welte Company. Gittins was soon gone; by 1928 his old firm was reorganized again, as the Welte-Mignon Corp. This latest incarnation of the firm fell into receivership in 1929, when its chief assets were split up and its factory emptied; one investor, Donald F. Tripp, bought some of the organ business, and the Estey Piano Company was sold to the Settergren Piano Company of Bluffton, Ind. Tripp’s firm was bankrupt within two years; in 1935, Settergren was renamed the Estey Piano Company.
The Estey Piano name continued on for decades. Estey spinets were being advertised in Chicago in 1948, and the firm’s pianos appeared in Macy’s advertisements in the early-to-mid 1960s. The Estey Piano Company was still operating in 1972, when it received a loan from the Commerce Department to assist it in starting production of a plastic piano. At that time, Estey was described as having “an office in Union, N.J., and an old plant in Bluffton, Ind.”
After the old Estey Piano Company Factory was vacated in 1929, it passed through the hands of a number of different owners, and was occupied by many different industrial tenants. A sheet-metal works leased space there in 1932, and its occupants in 1937 included the Whitman Supply Company and Unique Balance Company. By 1939, the factory had been acquired by the Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank. In February of 1940, Emigrant sold the five-story Estey Factory building and the adjacent two-story building constructed by Gittins to the S.H. Pomeroy Company, a manufacturer of window sashes that had been located on the same block as Estey Piano since 1923 or before. One month later, however, the owner of the building was the 120 Lincoln Avenue Realty Corporation, which was leasing space to Alta Furniture Factories. Until at least 1945, 120 Lincoln Avenue Realty remained the owner of the building; in 1969, it was occupied by the Ranger Plastics Corporation, and in 1973, it was home to a draperies manufacturer. At the end of the 1970s, the old Estey Piano Company Factory housed a maker of textile products and its outlet store, along with manufacturers of wire and “novelty” products. In 1995, when the building was mostly vacant, it was purchased by Truro College, which planned to convert it into student dormitories or a home for a liberal arts and sciences program. Those plans fell through, however, and the college sold the former Estey Factory, now known as the Clock Tower Building, to Carnegie Management, which remodeled its interior to accommodate live-in artists’ studios. It retains this use today.
Description
The Estey Piano Company Factory is an L-shaped, five-story building with a projecting clock tower at its southwest corner. Spanning the east side of Lincoln Avenue between Bruckner Boulevard and East 134th Street, the building has three primary street facades, all of which feature face brick laid in common bond: a 200-foot-long Bruckner Boulevard façade, a 200-foot-long Lincoln Avenue façade, and a façade on 134th Street that is approximately 69 feet in length and attached to an elevator shaft.
The original factory building, which was constructed in 1885-86, extended for 100 feet along Lincoln Avenue and for 100 feet along Southern (now Bruckner) Boulevard. Comprising the westernmost 15 upper-story bays on the south façade and the southernmost 15 upper-story bays on the west façade of the existing building, including the clock tower, this original portion of the Estey Piano Factory was extended by 100 feet to the east along Bruckner Boulevard with the construction of a five-story addition in 1890. (The construction of the 1890 addition resulted in the demolition of three buildings of one and two stories that were completed at the same time as the original factory, and which had a combined street frontage of 80 feet.) Before the construction of the 1890 addition, the five-story portion of the south façade terminated, at its east, with a two-bay projection featuring round-headed windows, all set within a corbelled recess, at the first through fifth floors. This projection—which was identical to the two-bay projection that originally terminated the Lincoln Avenue façade, and remains virtually unchanged today—extended above the adjacent portion of the façade, and, like the clock tower, outward from the façade plane. With the completion of John B. Snook & Sons’ 1890 addition, the two-bay projection on the south façade was doubled in width—the two new bays matching the original two—and its parapet was raised to match, in height, the parapet above the then-new, three-bay projection at the eastern end of the extended façade. Both the raised and new parapets featured, just below their pressed-metal cornices, recessed square panels arranged in a row. Also at that time, the four-bay projection became the central feature of a broad, essentially symmetrical Southern Boulevard façade, with the new three-bay projection at the eastern end of the façade balancing the three-bay, projecting clock tower at the building’s corner.
The 1890 addition is virtually indistinguishable from the original portion of the factory, largely because it is faced in matching red-orange brick laid in common bond. It also features matching ornament, including stringcourses composed of decorative brick laid in a zigzagging pattern that align with the stringcourses on the original building; a dogtoothed, soldier-brick course just below the parapet that also aligns with the original; recessed, rectangular brick panels with corbelling, and terra cotta tiles arranged in a repeating three-tile pattern, with each of the three tiles featuring a different foliate design, at the roof parapets; projecting, molded sandstone stringcourses just below the parapets; and sandstone window sills, each supported by two courses of corbelled brick. The three-bay projection at the south façade’s eastern end largely duplicates the fenestration and ornament of the clock tower’s second through fifth floors, featuring segmental-headed window openings with arches composed of stone springers and three courses of header brick, set within a corbelled brick recess, at the second floor; square-headed windows at the third and fourth floors, and round-headed windows at the fifth floor; light-colored, contrasting stone trim, which wraps the heads of the rectangular openings and composes a short stringcourse at the springer level of the fifth-floor openings; and a belt course of terra cotta tiles that matches that of the clock tower, in an alternating festoon and lions’-head motif, just below a projecting stone sill course at the third floor. The easternmost three-bay projection, like the central four-bay projection on the south façade, is crowned by a stepped, pressed-metal cornice with a cyma profile at its top. The 1890 addition features seven basement-level openings with stone lintels that are larger than the five basement-level openings on the south façade of the original building; these five original openings retain their historic metal grilles. Aside from this difference, the addition continued the fenestration pattern of the original factory’s south façade: except for the openings on the three-bay east projection, the central four-bay projection, and the clock tower, all of the window openings on the Bruckner Boulevard façade are segmental-headed, each crowned by an arch composed of two header courses of brick.
The original part of the Lincoln Avenue façade not including the clock tower—the twelve-bay portion of this façade including, and south of, the five-story projection containing two bays of round-headed windows— is essentially identical to the original part of the Bruckner Boulevard façade, although some minor changes have been made at the first floor. A metal rooftop bulkhead is visible near this façade’s southern end, close to the clock tower. The later portions of the Lincoln Avenue façade north of the original factory, and the 134th Street façade, show evidence of their gradual construction between 1895 and 1919. Although the first through third floors of these facades show kinship with the original factory—particularly in their segmental-headed windows with sandstone sills supported by corbelled brick courses, and in the composition, of each window arch, of two courses of header brick—they also depart from the original façade in significant ways. The bay arrangement of the facades north of the original factory differs from the original bay arrangement, with the 134th Street façade and the northern half of the Lincoln Avenue façade each split into four bays of varying widths separated by austere brick pilasters. The fenestration is less regular than on the original buildings: it appears, for example, that no window opening ever existed at the second-floor, third-northernmost and tenth-northernmost bays on the Lincoln Avenue façade, or at the easternmost and fifth-easternmost second-floor bays on the 134th Street façade. Although the brick of the oldest, first-floor portions of these facades comes close to matching that of the original factory in color, the face brick of the two later two-story additions above—one built in 1909 and one in 1919—is redder in color. On both the Lincoln Avenue and 134th Street facades of the earliest, first-floor addition, and of the second-and-third-floor 1909 addition, stringcourses composed of zigzagging patterned brick align with the patterned-brick stringcourses of the original factory; an exposed horizontal metal beam between the second- and third-floor window openings is slightly lower than the corresponding patterned-brick stringcourse on the original factory. The 1919 addition differs the most of any of the additions from the original factory, featuring large window openings filled with multi-pane metal windows and with concrete lintels and projecting sills. Each of the windows, which are grouped in threes, fours, or fives within their openings, has a total of 12, 16, or 20 panes, and has a central, horizontally pivoting sash of four or six panes. At the eastern end of the north, or 134th Street façade, is an elevator shaft built in 1919 that features, at its ground floor, a large loading bay with a projecting concrete sill.
In addition to the Bruckner Boulevard, Lincoln Avenue, and 134th Street primary facades, the Estey Piano Company Factory has two visible secondary facades. The east façade of the Bruckner Boulevard leg of the building features red face brick laid in common bond. A brick rooftop bulkhead and rooftop chain-link fence are visible above this façade. The façade apparently was once painted with the words “ESTEY PIANO MANUFACTORY”; this lettering has either faded, or been partially removed. Visible on the east, or rear façade of the Lincoln Avenue leg of the building, to the south of the brick elevator shaft, are grouped fourth- and fifth-floor, historic metal sashes, apparently dating from 1919, within openings with concrete lintels and sills that are framed by austere brick pilasters. A metal fire escape extends to the roof; roof access is made possible by a break in the parapet.
The clock tower projects slightly from the façade plane. Each of the south and west faces of the tower has four window openings set within a two-story corbelled recess, with each of these openings featuring stone sills and headed by a segmental arch composed of three courses of header brick and light-colored stone springers. One pair of recessed brick panels is located below each of the first-floor openings on the tower’s west face, and a single recessed brick panel is located below each of the first-floor openings on its south face; stepped, recessed-brick panels are located below the second-floor openings on the west and south faces. A terra cotta stringcourse composed of terra cotta tiles with an alternating festoon and lions’-head motif above the second-floor windows is located below a projecting stone molding, which itself is just below the sill level of the third-floor window openings; these elements separate the lower two stories of the clock tower from its third through fifth floors. The vertically projecting top two stories of the clock tower are separated from the lower five stories by a projecting stone molding that has seen its profile softened over time. Above this, on each of the south and west faces of the clock tower, is a recessed, corbelled brick panel; faded lettering reading “ESTEY PIANO CO.” is visible within the south panel. The panels are located below two paired courses of corbelled brick that wrap all four sides of the tower. Each of the four sides of the tower contains a round clock with metal hands, with a face of metal and glass, and with metal roman numerals and minute ring; each clock face is surrounded by an inner soldier course of brick and an outer header course of brick, and is flanked by round-headed windows, each with a transom bar and stone sill. Above the clock faces, and wrapping all four sides of the tower, are a projecting stone molding; a terra cotta stringcourse similar to the one below the third-floor windows; four courses of corbelled brick; and a machicolated cornice composed of small, corbelled round arches. A parapet above this cornice is of concrete, or of stucco-covered brick. A segmental-headed opening at the sixth floor of the clock tower, on the tower’s east face, appears to provide access to the roof. Square metal wall anchors, which appear to be original to the building, are present at the first through fifth floors on the tower’s south and west faces, and on all four sides of the tower at the level of the clock faces.
Although the Estey Piano Company Factory remains remarkably intact for a building of its age, some alterations have occurred over time. On the 27-bay portion of the south façade east of the clock tower, the easternmost part of the ground floor has been altered with the installation of a three-bay brick projection containing two loading bays and an entrance set within a stepped recess. A projecting wall sign reading “PLUMBING SUPPLIES” on both of its display faces is attached at the easternmost portion of the second floor. The first-floor opening at the second-westernmost bay of the central four-bay projection has been enlarged to become a secondary entrance with a soldier-brick, round arch, and the westernmost first-floor window opening and second-easternmost window openings at the third, fourth, and fifth floors have been filled with brick. The westernmost first-floor window opening appears to be the only one on the south façade to have a concrete, rather than sandstone, sill. No historic windows appear to remain on this facade, except possibly at the easternmost second-, third-, and fourth-floor openings, which contain four-over-four, double-hung windows. These windows are paired at the second floor. The upper portions of the first-floor window openings have been filled with brick, as have the upper portions of the twelve second-floor openings immediately to the east of the clock tower; some of the infill panels at these windows have been punched through with rectangular or round openings. Non-historic metal grilles with lower privacy panels have been installed at the first-floor windows. Three through-the-wall air conditioners are present at the second floor, and numerous vents, satellite dishes, and other non-historic items are attached to the façade and the window sills at the second through fifth floors. A chain-link fence, visible from Bruckner Boulevard, is located on the roof behind the parapet.
On the original, twelve-bay portion of the Lincoln Avenue façade immediately to the north of the clock tower, none of the historic windows remain, except at the first floor. All eight first-floor windows on this portion of the façade have wood frames and wood upper sashes; the third- and fourth-northernmost of these windows have two-pane upper sashes with vertical muntins, and the rest have four-pane upper sashes. The second-northernmost window on the original portion of the factory features a round-headed, four-pane upper sash that may be original to the building. Non-historic metal window grilles have been installed at all of these windows; all except the third-southernmost of these have lower privacy panels. The historic entrance, originally located at the second bay north of the clock tower, has been removed; north of the clock tower, a former window opening has been altered to allow for the installation of a non-historic entrance featuring a surround of curved brick in varying shades, a non-historic metal-and-glass door and side panel with a metal intercom, and a non-historic transom light reading “Clock Tower 112.” The openings originally located south of this entrance have been filled with brick that does not match the original; the upper portions of the three southernmost, second-floor window openings have been filled with brick; a through-the-wall air conditioner is present below the second-southernmost, second-floor window opening; and numerous louvers, vents, signs, satellite dishes, and other non-historic items, including electrical conduit below the fourth-through-sixth-southernmost second-floor window openings, are present on this façade. The base of the façade between the entrance and the clock tower is of concrete.
On the northern half of the Lincoln Avenue façade—those portions of the façade dating from 1895 and later—alterations include, at the first floor, the enlargement of an opening at the southernmost bay, and its modification into a loading bay; the filling of the second-southernmost opening with brick; the modification of the opening at the seventh-southernmost bay into a secondary entrance; and the infilling of the third-northernmost opening with brick. At the second floor, the second-southernmost opening has been partially filled with brick, and a narrow window has been installed within the reduced opening. At the third floor, the second-southernmost window opening has been filled with brick. The nine remaining first-floor windows on the northern portion of the Lincoln Avenue façade have wood frames and wood top sashes. Non-historic metal grilles have been installed in front of all of these windows. The northernmost and second-, third-, and fifth-northernmost windows feature two-pane top sashes with vertical muntins; the fourth-northernmost window features a four-pane top sash; and the four southernmost of these windows feature four-pane upper and lower sashes, all of which are wood. The fourth and fifth floors appear to contain their historic, multi-pane metal windows with horizontally pivoting sashes, dating from 1919; five of the fourth-floor windows have been altered with the removal of panes for the installation of vents, air conditioners, and satellite dishes. The southernmost fifth-floor window has also been altered with the installation of an air-conditioning unit. Numerous vents, a satellite dish attached to the northernmost fifth-floor window sill, and other non-historic items are present on this façade.
The primary north, or 134th Street façade, has also seen alterations, with the filling of the fourthwesternmost first-floor window opening with brick. A non-historic metal gate with gate housing and exposed mechanism has been installed at the first floor, and four vents have been installed on this façade. Vertical wiring, wrapped in insulation, has been installed below the second floor. One window at the fourth floor, and one window at the fifth floor have been altered to allow for the installation of window air conditioning units. The fourth and fifth floors appear to contain their historic, multi-pane metal windows with horizontally pivoting sashes, dating from 1919. The five first-floor windows on the Lincoln Avenue façade have wood frames and wood top sashes; each of the easternmost, third-easternmost, and westernmost of these windows has a two-pane top sash with a vertical muntin, and the others feature four-pane upper sashes. Non-historic metal grilles with privacy panels have been installed in front of the first-floor windows. Two visible satellite dishes have been installed on top of the pilasters on the visible secondary east façade of the Lincoln Avenue leg of the building.
Alterations at the clock tower include the removal of the historic entrance on the tower’s south face, at the second-westernmost first-floor bay, and its modification into a window opening; the installation of a metal drainage pipe, which penetrates a terra cotta tile on the east face of the clock tower, above the clock face; and changes to the parapet, which appears to have originally been brick with rectangular, corbelled brick recesses. None of the windows on the clock tower appear to be historic except for the third-southernmost, four-overfour, double-hung wood window at the fourth floor on the west face of the tower; one pane of this window has been removed to allow for the installation of a vent. Brick infill has been installed within the upper portions of the first- and second-floor window openings. Through-the-wall air conditioners have been installed below the second-westernmost opening on the south face, and below the second-southernmost opening on the west face of the tower.
- From the 2006 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report