I have often wondered about the original purpose of this large, brick fortress-like building at the NE corner of Grand Street and Morgan Avenue in East Williamsburg, just west of the bridge that carried both Grand Avenue and Metropolitan Avenue across English Kills, a tributary of Newtown Creek.
I wonder no more, since seeing a postcard during a task I am performing for the Greater Astoria Historical Society, scanning in thousands of postcards from collector Bob Stonehill. This one depicts the building when it was the Robert Chapman Stationery Company. Presumably, Chapman manufactured paper products.
The entire building, which runs through to Metropolitan Avenue and Morgan, has lost its pointed caps on the corner turrets, but not much else. The plant even still has its old smokestack intact.
9/18/15