Hi, Frank Romano for WhatTheyThink.com.  I’m here in Brooklyn, New York, at the corner of Ryerson Street and Flushing Avenue home to what was once the typesetting capital of the hot metal world.  Today, it is a decaying industrial area.  

Mergenthaler originally built his linotype machine in Baltimore.  The factory, however, later moved to Brooklyn because the owners of the company, the syndicate, were here in New York City and the home office was there, so they put the factory here in Brooklyn, which was an up and coming area at the time because it was near the Brooklyn Navy Yard, so they could ship a lot of the machines overseas.  This was actually the first building that was built by the company.  This was on the corner of Flushing and Ryerson.  

Then they built that building right there, which was the main building and it built the machines and did the matrices.  In the middle ‘20’s, another building was built and that is the one that you see here.  And that was not only matrix manufacturing, but the home office also moved to the top floor, the eighth floor, and over time, we saw this complex expand to other avenues and streets beyond this area.  So, at one point in time, Mergenthaler had two full square blocks of this particular area for manufacturing linotype machines, parts, matrices, etcetera.  

You can see ahead of me the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.  This didn’t exist when I worked here. Of course, now it’s just a big parking lot as far as I can tell.  

In 1958, the company moved out of the machine manufacturing building.  They sold it and they moved out to Plainview, New York, on Long Island where they build a one-story building that was much more efficient than using elevators to move parts back and forth in this building.  Also in ’58, they moved some of the manufacturing overseas and they assembled machines in various places around the world, depending on who ordered it and what it was.  

Now, we’re approaching what was the main entrance to the company.  Now, when I tell people that 29 Ryerson Street was the typesetting capital, you would think that there would be an ornate entrance, it would have gild around it or something, gild of some sort around it.  Well, that’s not the case.  It was just a simple door.  Although today, it’s something even worse than that.  We’re approaching it right now.  I passed through this door for the first time in 1959, my high school counselor said there was a job available here and I went to this door to get to the Personnel Department, which was on the eighth floor.  And this was it.  This was the main entrance to the Mergenthaler Linotype Company for most of the years that it was in business.  You can see there is barely a 29 on there, and there’s also an ad, “We buy houses, all cash.”  I think this was a sign indicating a company that was here at one time.  There was a plaque on the wall; I think it was right about there that had a symbol of a linotype that said:  Mergenthaler Linotype Company.  

I’ll never forget that day in ’59.  I came in, went up to Personnel, they interviewed me, told me on the spot that I had a job in the Shipping Department, which was across the street in that building.  Now, this red building was added in 1944.  The federal government actually paid the money to build this building.  And they did it because Mergenthaler was involved in government contracts; they made bomb sites and other precision equipment.  It was the only part in this entire complex that was air conditioned.  All these other buildings had window air conditioners built in to them.  

So, at one time or another, all of the great type designers of the world passed through these doors.  Matt Carter passed through these doors, Hermann Zapf passed through these doors.  They came her to visit Mike Parker and other directors of typographic development who then took their fonts and made them into linotype matrices and then later into phototypesetting fonts.  

In any case, this is Frank Romano for WhatTheyThink.com, and a very nostalgic trip back to the building where I started working.  Take care.