I had known about this building on Park and Franklin Avenues in Clinton Hill marked with the name “Stimpson” for some time. A recent walk by there again led me to investigate what “Stimpson” is all about. I discovered that Stimpson, originally the Edwin B. Stimpson Co. is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of small metallic devices such as grommets (the small rings used to protect designed holes in fabrics), washers, eyelets and snaps. The company was founded in 1852 in lower Manhattan at Park Row and Spruce Street, where Pace University is now. At some point (I don’t know when) it opened this office in Brooklyn–it doesn’t show up on the 1929 Belcher Hyde desk atlas, so it was after that — and in 1971 moved to a new facility in Bayport. Its current HQ is in Pompano Beach, Florida, where it opened a factory in 1961.
The main Edwin B. Stimpson identifying sign on the Park Avenue side was cut in half in 2017 when The Fixture Gallery, a bathroom fixture retailer, opened a new storefront.
An Art-Deco style entrance on the Franklin Avenue side displays the company name.
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6/25/22
8 comments
New York wasn’t their kind of state … they left Bayport for good in 2004, after having transferred most of their jobs to Florida over the prior years.
Ferguson Plumbing Supply now occupies the site.
“NY wasn’t (Stimpson’s) kind of state..”: don’t dismiss this casually. NY has hemorrhaged manufacturing jobs for too many decades, contributing to the decline in population. The political class, like the clueless maggots they are labors under the delusion that the tourist trade may provide new opportunities:
https://nypost.com/2022/06/25/new-york-preparing-welcome-out-of-state-abortion-seekers/
Between this & the ever-increasing crime rate, it adds up to see NY & die. Very sad.
New York placed all its eggs in one basket, so to speak, by having an economy based largely on people commuting to work in office buildings. It worked just fine, until WFH arrived in 2020 and now looks like it’s here to stay.
Was the Stimpy cartoon character named for him? [no].
He probably was no EE-diot!
According to records available online, the building itself (455 Park Avenue) was constructed in 1938. The 1940 tax photo for that area shows the Edwin B. Stimpson Co. owning a good chunk of that block, though I don’t see the building as it exists today.
My aunt worked many years at Edwin B. Stimpson. As a kid she used give me grommets, washers and other things Stimpson manufactured. I remember when she told us about vandals breaking in and trashing the facility. I was told that was the last straw and that’s why they moved to Bayport. Being a life long Brooklyn resident and employee of Stimpson, when the company moved out east she and other Brooklyn employees were offered van service to commute to the new facility. That didn’t last too long since my aunt didn’t like the long daily commute. So she left the company and lived out her final years in Brooklyn.
About ten years ago, I bought a Zippo engraved with the Stimpson company name (and Brooklyn) in a thrift store. Probably an employee gift.