Queenswalk: Woodhaven, the Home of Agateware

Montrose is on vacation this week, and will return next week with a new report. Please enjoy a past entry, this one about Agateware, a familiar product to campers, country folk, and lovers of old things.

An institution like a church, or a factory, or another kind of industry can be the catalyst for an entire neighborhood’s growth. Sometimes, the neighborhood can die when that catalyst is gone, but sometimes, by the time that happens, the neighborhood is strong and sturdy in its own right, and can survive the loss. So many industries and factories were started by men with vision and good ideas, and then those businesses are one day gone, leaving only the buildings. Down the road, one hundred plus years later, we may only know them as “those old buildings.” Often, it’s “those old buildings that should be torn down so we can build a strip mall.” This is the story of one of those groups of old buildings, and what happened there, and what’s happening with them now.

Florian Grosjean was born in 1826 in Switzerland. He studied business as a student, and became a bank clerk in Montbeliard, France. Banking is very different now than it was in the 19th century, and a bank clerk had many more responsibilities and a different job description than clerks and tellers have today. His duties were more like a bank officer’s, with much more authority, and also a closer working relationship than even most contemporary officers have with clients.

In this capacity, Grosjean met with many successful businessmen, and with their encouragement, he came to New York City in 1850, to seek his fortune. He went into partnership with Frenchman Charles W. Lalance, whom he probably met at the bank, and the two men began an importing company, importing housewares and champagne from France. Their offices were on Pearl Street, in Lower Manhattan. Researchers have been able to find out absolutely nothing about Charles W. Lalance in the United States, leading them to believe that he stayed in Europe, and ran his end of the business there.

The company specialized in tinware and pressed sheet metal products, and his products were snapped up by an eager market. Lalance and Grosjean soon found that it would be far cheaper to manufacture those goods here in America, rather than import them, so they brought over experienced artisans from France and Switzerland, and set up the first pressed metal manufacturing company in America, somewhere on Pearl Street.

By the late 1850s, the Pearl Street plant was too small, and Grosjean began looking towards Queens for expansion. He bought a large parcel of land in Woodhaven, along Atlantic Avenue, and began building a factory complex, as well as nearby worker’s housing. The site was chosen because at the time, it was considered “country,” and also because there was a nearby rail line, and relatively easy access to Manhattan, without Manhattan’s congestion and expenses.

Grosjean built about 100 workmen’s cottages on nearby Woodhaven streets. They are simple, two story wood framed row houses with small front porches and clapboard siding. He owned about forty of them himself, and the company owned around sixty more, some of which were sold to workers, others were rented. Many are now gone, but the remaining houses still stand at 85-02 through 85-20 95th Avenue, 85-01 through 85-21 97th Avenue, and 87-02 through 87-20 Atlantic Avenue. In addition, he also built a large house for himself, several other buildings, and kept a lot of undeveloped land around the factory.

The new location allowed Lalance and Grosjean to expand their product line, and it was at this point that they began to produce the enameled metalware kitchen products known as “Agateware.” It was a hit, and made them a fortune. Agateware was enamel coated ironware, the first pieces were mottled gray, and the product line included all kinds of kitchen ware, such as coffee pots, bowls, trays and plates and cooking vessels. Agateware was of a high quality, and durable, and soon rose to the top of the market. Between 1869 and 1870, the firm incorporated and began offering stock, which enabled them to expand their facilities further. A disastrous fire in 1879 destroyed the entire plant, but they immediately rebuilt, this time using the most modern fireproof brick, and in the process expanded the plant even further.

For the next thirty years, the company grew, opening a plant in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, near the steel mills, which rolled the metal goods, and stamped out the tin plate that was sent to Woodhaven for shaping, enameling and finishing. By 1890, the company’s catalog showed that they produced not only the gray and white enamelware, but also brass ware, copper ware, re-tinned ware, japanned ware, blue and white enamel ware, bright iron and steel ware, and agateware, made into every type of kitchen and house ware from pots and pans to kitchen sinks.

As Lalance and Grosjean Co. grew, so too did Woodhaven. By the 1890s, the town had over 6,000 people, 2,100 of which worked for the plant in some capacity. Woodhaven was a company town. The Harrisburg plant also employed 400 other people. The goods shipped to Queens from the Harrisburg plant were stamped in a three story press that was constructed on-site in the buildings along Atlantic Avenue, between 90th and 92nd Streets. Up until the 1930s, this was one of the largest stamp presses for deep-drawn metal forms in the entire world.

Florian Grosjean had married a Brooklyn lady names Eugenia Rosselot, and they had two children, Alice and Alfred. The son died in 1888, and Alice married a life-long employee of Lalance and Grosjean, August Julian Cordier, who had started with the company as an office boy at the age of twelve. He moved up the ranks, and eventually married the boss’ daughter, and took over as president of the company after Florian retired. In addition to his business, Florian had also gone into real estate development, and built two cul-de-sac blocks of speculative row houses in Bedford Stuyvesant, just off Atlantic Avenue. Fittingly, he named them Alice and Agate Courts. Both streets were landmarked in 2006. Florian Grosjean died at home of a long illness in 1903.

After World War I, there were several companies who copied the Agateware look for less money, and Lalance & Grosjean had to look to new products in order to stay alive. They helped develop a new line of kitchenware with the help of the Allegheny Ludlum Company, pioneers in stainless steel, and in 1928, came out with the first ever line of stainless steel pots and pans. They were so successful, the company scrapped over a million dollars’ worth of agateware machinery. Enameled kitchenware was the past; stainless steel would be the future.

The company remained strong, in spite of the Depression, with strong sales to hotels, institutions, schools, hospitals and other large scale customers. During World War II, they supplied the U.S. Navy with culinary goods. After the war, their stainless steel lines were marketed again for the home consumer under the name Crusaderware, which was sold in department stores. But cheaper imports and copies would soon undercut their market again.

In 1955, the company voted to close the Woodhaven plant, and disband the company. After 100 years, the plant on Atlantic Avenue would close its doors. Since that time, the buildings changed hands many times, broken up into separate units, which became home to sewing factories, storage, baking, and other small businesses. Today, all of the buildings that made up the vast company grounds are gone, except for most of the row that once held the giant stamping presses, along Atlantic Avenue. The hallmark building of the complex, the corner building with a tower and clock, remains on the corner of 92nd Street, as does most of the row that once stretched a city block, and held a monster machine.

Before most of the interior buildings were destroyed in order to build a shopping center, an attempt was made in 1980 and ‘81 to landmark the complex. The Landmarks Preservation Commission approved the landmarking, citing the complex, which by that time, was in danger of being destroyed, as an important part of Queens’ industrial and social history, worthy of saving. The Board of Estimate did not agree, and turned down the designation. Consequently, all that is now left of Florian Grojean’s great business, and the neighborhood of Woodhaven’s largest employer, are a few partially boarded up buildings along Atlantic Avenue. No one even knows what once went on there.

(Photo:Jim Henderson for Wikipedia)

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