THIS wall painting marking a cosmetics factory for Nutrine cosmetics was in decent shape when I first spotted it nearly a quarter century ago and it hasn’t faded much since. It’s all due to the quality of paint that was used that would hold up to bright sunshine. It can be found at #304 Hewes Street between Harrison Avenue and Broadway and reads…
Middlebrooke Lancaster Inc
Mfrs of Nutrine
Beauty Preparations
According to the Indispensable One, Walter Grutchfield, the Middlebrooke Lancaster factory was located here between 1947 and 1965, just 18 years. Middlebrooke Lancaster was in existence from 1934 to 1976 and manufactured products such as a shaving cream called Lord Middlebrooke, Nutrine Transparent Hair Lacquer, and Homogenized Creme Shampoo.
There’s still a cosmetics brand called Nutrine and if you look carefully at the labels, the swash lettwering is the same as what you will find on this wall and in the linked ads above. Thus, another manufacturer took up the baton after Middlebrooke Lancaster went kaput. Nutrine has no website of its own, so its overall history is all the more difficult to ascertain.
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4/26/23