TIMES NEWSWEEKLY/OUR NEIGHBORHOOD THE WAY IT WAS

	THE WEEK OF AUGUST 22, 2002

The Telephone Improved Communication,
Changed The Face Of Middle Village
In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, and on March 7, 1876 the U.S. government issued a patent to him.
On July 9, 1877, the Bell Telephone Company was founded along with several other Bell companies. Eventually, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company was chartered as the central company of the Bell companies. As we shall see as the story unfolds, Mr. Bell indirectly changed the history of Middle Village.
On the banks of Newtown Creek in 1917/1918, the C. B. French Company manufactured telephone booths for American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T). In 1920, they needed more space to expand, and they moved to Middle Village south of Metropolitan Avenue on a Long Island Rail Road siding between the El Terminal and 65th Lane.
Subsequently, the Turner-Armour Company, which also manufactured telephone booths, acquired C.B. French Company. They continued to operate the plant in Middle Village.
Prior to November 1929, Western Electric Company, the manufacturing subsidiary of AT&T, had acquired Turner-Armour Company, including their plant in Middle Village.
On November 22, 1929, the Ridgewood Times published:
WESTERN ELECTRIC TAKES OVER MIDDLE VILLAGE LAND

The Western Electric Company has purchased a large factory and additional land in Middle Village. The factory is that of the Turner-Armour Company, and the sale included frontage on Metropolitan Avenue worth more than $700,000. Immediate expansion of the Turner-Armour plant from a production of 1,000 telephone booths to 2,000 per month is expected with an increase in the number of employees from 400. The Turner-Armour acquisition was previously known but the land purchases have just been completed. Western Electric bought the Middle Village plant outright and leased the other plant at 1201 Flushing Avenue in Brooklyn for a term of years. The sale included all the property, buildings and machinery at Middle Village, all patents and developments underway and the inventories at the plants.
The original factory fronted on the railroad. The plant will be known as the Queensboro Works of the Western Electric Company and will continue to manufacture a new and improved type of telephone booth. The valuable land not previously owned by Turner-Armour stretches 1,322 feet along the south side of Metropolitan Avenue. Much of the property is improved with buildings, houses, stores and industrialized establishments. The land extends west from the Middle Village BMT terminal to 65th Lane. There is about 200 feet of additional frontage about 100 feet deep to the west of the main area. In the 1930s there was a baseball field on the property, with a backstop but no stands. On a deep fly ball to right field, the outfielder had to run back on the Long Island Rail Road tracks, keeping alert for steam locomotives.
Before Western Electric purchased the land in November 1929, there were a number of other real estate transactions. On January 2, 1927, Stuyvesant Real Estate Company, which was affiliated with the Long Island Rail Road and the Pennsylvania Railroad, conveyed to Metropolitan Resources, Inc. land on the south side of Metropolitan Avenue. On August 24, 1929 Metropolitan Resources, Inc. conveyed to Alpha Corp. the property they had acquired in 1927. Apparently there were buildings on the property. On October 31, 1929 Alpha Corp. conveyed to Western Electric Company this property which had 398 feet frontage on the south side of Metropolitan Avenue and extended south to the Long Island Rail Road and was roughly about 900 feet deep.
The Western Electric advertisement which is shown this week originally appeared in a 1923 magazine. We wonder how many of our readers can recall having the “candlestick” type of telephone, as pictured in the advertisement, in their home?
We are uncertain when Western Electric Company closed the plant in Middle Village, but we think it was about 1965.
Subsequently, United Merchants and Manufacturers Inc., a large textile mill organization with multiple plants in the south, acquired the property for their Robert Hall Clothes subsidiary. They operated a chain of clothing stores, with their main advertising theme being they sold at low prices right off the pipe racks in their stores. In 1972 to 1974, an imposing three-story building was erected with a total of 1,500,000 square feet (500,000 sq. ft. per floor). Robert Hall occupied the main floor. The second floor was leased to Macy’s department stores for a warehouse, and the third floor was leased to the City of New York’s Department of Correction for a training facility. Also, the Metropolitan Museum of Art leased space for their mail order operation.
After several years of operating the facility in Middle Village, United Merchants and Manufacturers Inc. had financial difficulties and with their Robert Hall subsidiary, filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Eventually, the property in Middle Village was sold and the new owners established Rentar Plaza which was the site and Metro Mall which was the building.
The main floor of Metro Mall is used for retail space. Macy’s is no longer a tenant on the second floor. However, the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s mail order facility is still there and the City of New York still leases the third floor. The Department of Correction still operates the training facility there and as a spokesperson for the landlord mentioned, the City of New York is storing voting machines on the third floor and expressed that we seem to have come “full circle” from telephone booths to voting booths.
Old Timer’s Note—The Old Timer recalls playing a baseball game in 1937 or 1938 with the Glendale Redwoods at the baseball field mentioned above that had the vulgar name of “Nigger Ditch.” We played a team from Maspeth that had a good pitcher, Hank Behrman, and a good catcher, Art Roth. Behrman later pitched for the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants from 1947 through 1949. Roth eventually caught for the Birmingham team in the Southern Association. Fred Ringswald pitched for the Redwoods. The Old Timer was playing rightfield and recalls having to chase a fly ball back on the railroad tracks. Maspeth won the game, which was for a side bet of $5 and a ball.
If you have any remembrances of our neighborhood or old photographs that you would like to share with our readers, please write (regular mail, please, no e-mail) to the Old Timer c/o Times Newsweekly, P.O. Box 299, Ridgewood, NY 11386. All photographs will be carefully returned to you.