BEDI-MAKKY ART FOUNDRY, GREENPOINT

by Kevin Walsh

THE Beddi-Makky Art Foundry, 227 India Street east of McGuinness Boulevard, is a bronze monument foundry established in Greenpoint in the 1940s when two immigrant Hungarian foundryworkers named Bedi and Rassi acquired the Kunst foundry in Manhattan’s Upper East Side and moved it to Greenpoint. Present owner Steve Makki, who fled Hungary during its Soviet domination, eventually bought out Messrs. Bedi and Rassi.

The present complex occupies three lots on India Street, including a residential building.

It is a strange place, a factory whose nooks and shelves hold statues of patriots, baboons, nymphs, rams, angels and dusty gods and goddesses. Some are monumental in scale, others are minute. Size is not a measure of artistic or historic value: The shop holds tiny gems such as the maquette-the original small model made by sculptor Paul Manship -for the Prometheus that hovers over the Rockefeller Center rink. [Newsday]

The foundry has produced several well-known monuments during its nearly 75-year history including the Iwo Jima Memorial in Arlington, VA.

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6/22/23

3 comments

chris June 23, 2023 - 4:54 am

These guys do mostly onesey-twosey jobs.Production foundry work
on the other hand,is a ass-breaker,and one of those jobs Americans
dont want to do anymore.Next time you see a manhole cover in the street
chances are its going to say on it Made in India

Reply
t June 23, 2023 - 10:53 am

what is that thing on the roof?

Reply
Nunzio June 24, 2023 - 11:02 pm

I don’t think that’s the roof- There’s probably an open courtyard (Next to the building) behind that roll-up door. The structure protruding from the top is probably a gantry for loading/unloading the heavy merchandise and supplies onto/off of trucks. I’ve seen that type of deal many times in such areas, readily apparent when the door is rolled up.

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