Many of the buildings along Flushing Avenue between Marcy and Tompkins Avenues are emblazoned with signs denoting the Pfizer Company. The drug manufacturer was opened by Charles Pfizer and cousin Charles Erhart in 1849 on Flushing Avenue, with its first product being santonin, a drug originally used to expel roundworms from the system. It moved its main headquarters to Maiden Lane downtown in 1868; it has frequently moved around since and has branches worldwide. Its production of citric acid in 1880 became its main business for decades; Pfizer pioneered the production of penicillin in 1941. It would become the world’s #1 maker of the new wonder drug during World War II. Among the well-known brand-name drugs produced by Pfizer today are Advil, Celebrex, Lipitor, Viagra, Xanax and Zoloft. Today the complex is home to “artisanal” food producers and schools. Pfizer sold its Brooklyn properties in 2011.
Pfizer is one of two giants in the pharmaceutical industry to be headquartered in Brooklyn, the second being Bristol Meyers Squibb, founded by Edward Robinson Squibb in Brooklyn Heights in 1858.
Pfizer was prominent in the news in 2020, as along with Moderna it was the first pharmaceutical company to successfully develop a vaccine for the Covid 19 coronavirus. Distribution began in December 2020.
Pfizer buildings are shown in this 1929 Belcher Hyde map excerpt. The buildings along Gerry and Wallabout Streets are no longer there, but Pfizer buildings on the north and south sides of Flushing Avenue remain.
Much more over at the Bowery Boys.
Check out the ForgottenBook, take a look at the gift shop, and as always, “comment…as you see fit.”
12/16/20