SHIRTTAIL ROW, MASPETH

THIS grouping of attached two-story residences found on 59th Drive between Fresh Pond Road and 64th Street, opposite the Rieff Playground, was built as workers’ houses of the Sampson’s Oil Cloth Factory (Alden Sampson & Sons Oil Cloth), constructed in the 19th Century. Groupings of workers’ residences for local factories can be found in far flung outposts such as Steinway in northern Astoria (for the Steinway piano factory, still going strong) the Lalance & Grosjean kitchenware factory in Woodhaven on 95th Avenue, and the Kreischer brick works in Charleston, Staten Island. Colloquially, the modest workers’ residences in Maspeth were known as “Shirttail Row.”

In this early 20th century photo by the prolific Eugene Armbrister, trolley tracks on Fresh Pond Road are in view. The Shirttail Row buildings on the corner have been razed between then and now. Also in the intervening years, owners have chosen to rehabilitate the buildings to their own tastes.

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4/18/24