Woods Cotton Mill/Wheaton Plastics

Source: TFPNJ Postcard Archive

The Mays Landing division of the Woods Cotton Mill was established in 1867. At the time it was one of the largest employers in region. At the company's 50th anniversary they they built the iconic building along Rt. 559.

Three years later the company installed a hydroelectric dam and re established themselves as the Mays Landing Water Power Company.

The mill closed in 1949 after 82 years in business. The property didn't stay idle long though. It was purchased and reopened the following year by the rapidly growing Wheaton Industries. Wheaton was a Millville based glass container company  who used the Mays Landing site to manufactured plastic bottles and cosmetic jars. 

Alcon, a Montreal based company who had acquired the business announced it would be closed by October of 2004. Though only 74 people worked at the Mays Landing site at the time, the closure was part of a broader exodus on manufacturing jobs throughout the region. 

The machinery was removed from the site and repurpossed at other nearby Alcon facilities. Mays Landing didn't want the property to sit abandoned, so the Mill Complex Redevelopment Plan was announced in 2005. Tragically, a large fire destroyed several original buildings on the property in September 2007 during the conversion process. 

The 1917 builing and powerhouse were mostly built of concrete, so they managed to escape the fire without any damage. The charred remains of the 1800's buildings were demolished, and the renovation plans were dashed. 

Finally by 2023 new plans were announced that a Weehawken based redevelopment group would try once again to convert the site to apartments.

As of 2025 the complex still sits abandoned, waiting to find a new life. 

Wheaton Glass

New Jersey has a rich industrial heritage dating all the way back to the 17th and 18th centuries. Most historians will rightly point out the iron and copper mining and manufacturing that occurred up north, South Jersey had a blossoming industry of its own; glass manufacturing. The cheap, durable material was being used in products all throughout the American Industrial Revolution. One South Jersey pharmacist capitalized on the high quality sand deposits of Millville for a side venture of his own. 

Source

Dr. T.C. Wheaton established his glassmaking venture in 1888. His primary intent was to make bottles for his own products, but the business was so sucessful he ended up significantly expanding the operation.

Wheaton opened a second plant along the Vineland Secondary railroad to increase production and diversify his product line to collectable bottles and art glass.

The company embraced automation in favor of traditional manpower which allowed them to thrive in the following decades, even through the great depression. By the 1950s the company made another smart move, embracing a newly developed technology, plastic. The company acquired the old Woods Cotton Mill in nearby Mays Landing and retrofitted the property to accommodate the new line od products. 

American manufacturing shifted heavily in the coming years as other nations industrialized and the US embraced global trade. By 2006 the brand underwent a major restructuring. Despite returning to their roots, the newly incorporated Wheaton Science Products closed the third street plant.

The loss of the plant was devastating for the local economy. After more than ten years languishing in the fallout, city leaders took action. In a drastic and unprecedented move, the entire city of Millville was declared an "area in need of redevelopment".

That same year a tentative agreement was reached with the DeSantis group to redevelop the Third Street site as a plastic recycling facility. This plan actually involved the renovation and reuse of several Wheaton buildings. Due to the scope of the project the city had a list of deadlines the developer had to meet to show he wasn't going to continue to let the property languish. The DeSantis group failed to meet those deadlines, so the city took the property back. DeSantis didn't appreciate the move, so by 2021 they were embroiled in a heated legal battle with the city. 

Eventually the two parties found an amicable path forward. Instead of a plastic recycling facility, the group would build a massive refrigerated warehouse on the site. Unfortunately, the plan involved the total demolition of all the historic Wheaton buildings. 

By 2025 the site was cleared and ready for the warehouse. While I'm grateful to see the site put back to productive use I hope some homage is paid to it's history. The lanscape of Millville, and potentially all of South Jersey would look a lot different without Dr. T.C. Carson and his glassware. 

American Strip Steel

Passaic Avenue in Kearny looks much different than it did at the turn of the century. Factories and machine shops used to tower over both sides of the street. Those industries have since died out and made way for cookie-cutter retail and tacky, high density housing. One such factory that was recently demolished was the American Strip Steel Company. 

American Strip Steel was founded by Newark Entrepenuer LeRoy Schecter. Schecter had just returned home after fighting in World War II. After a brief stint working in the local steel mills he founded his own rolling mill just up river from the city in Kearny.

After a few decades, Schecter noticed that one of the pinch points in his operation was having to rely on outside trucking firms to move his goods around. The mill had a shoreline crane to load barges and was adjascent to a freight railway, but fright was losing out to truck transportation as more and more lines across the country closed and consolidated. This led Schecter to found Norbert Trucking in 1965. 

Kearny experienced the same heavy blows to domestic production that much of the country faced as the decades passed. The Aluminum Bat Factory to the north had been shuttered, as had the Clark Thread Mill to the south. Despite this American Strip was thriving. Things were going so well they began branching out to fill other niches.

In 1989 the company started manufacting metal studs under the name Ware Industries. Ware then purchased the Marino company four years later, rebranding themselves Marino-Ware. 

The Passaic Avenue Industrial corridor was beginning to become a nuicense to the town of Kearny. They declared the strech "an area in need of redevelopment". This allowed them to rezone the area for high density and grant special tax incentives so developers can make a ton of money rebuilding the properties. 

Most of the old industrial buildings were swiftly demolished. American Strip Steel, however, managed to hang on just a bit longer. It wasn't until the 2020's that American Strip had finally left Kearny. They moved to the large Marino-Ware compound in South Plainfield. 

At this point their old buildings stood out a bit like a sore thumb among the equally unappealing "peel and stick" style apartments. The oginal American Strip Steel Buildings were eventually demolished in the early 2020s. Workers moved slowly to salvage some of the overhead gantry cranes that were built into the structure, but by 2023 the buildings were entirely wiped away.

The site is currently being reworked to accomidate the new buildings that will rise where American Strip Steel once stood. Hopefully they pay some sort of homage to what once stood there, as the story is such a quintessentially American one. Only time will tell. 

RCA Building No. 8

The Victor Talking Machine company, established in Camden in 1901, is perhaps one of the most iconic American companies of all time. They started out making phonographs and recording equipment before braching out into the new medium of radio technology. The company expanded into a large manufacturing and office complex in downtown Camden, right at the landing of the Ben Franklin Bridge. The crown jewel of the hulking Ballinger & Perot designed campus was the iconic tower adorned with D'ascenzio Studios stained glass windows depicting the company's trademark "His Masters Voice" logo. General Electric bought out VTMC in 1919 and incorporated it into their new corporation, RCA. Over the next decade they continued to expand the Camden campus, which is when the subject of this article came to be.

Source: Library of Congress 

Building 8 was constructed between 1924 and 1925. This made it one of the few buildings added after RCA had been incorporated. Despite the expansive growth operations at the massive manufacturing center began to dwindle over the next few decades, as was the case with a lot of domestic production. The beautiful D'ascenzo Company stained glass had been removed from the tower windows, and replaced with plywood before finally being replaced again with new, cheaper glass windows.  In the late 1980s the first large scale demolition project began on campus. The two buildings adjacent to No. 8, buildings 1 and 18 were taken down and replaced with surface parking.

By the time General Electric formally vacated the complex in 1992 a majority of the production buildings had been demolished. That included building No. 4, which was attached to building 8. What remained were several warehouses, the generating station, building no. 8, and the iconic "Nipper" Building. The buildings were absolutely ravaged by metal thieves and vandals over the next decade. They found their way to the stained glass windows, and destroyed them. Thankfully the original glass had been removed in the late 1960s and distributed to several universities and museums. The remaining buildings were demolished one by one, The complex became a symbol for the overall deterioration of the city, visible to everyone taking the Ben Franklin into Philadelphia. 

Finally in 2002, after more than a decade of abandonment, the Nipper building was purchased by Philadelphia Developer Carl Dranoff. Work moved quick on the structure which reopened as apartments the following year. Replacement Stained Glass windows were even installed in the tower. Unfortately things almost immediately started to get ugly between the city and Dranoff. Part of the developers plans were contingent on the city doing an environmental survey on building No. 8 and taking on the ensuing cleanup. Afterwards the developer would purchase the building from the city and renovate that into lofts too. However, the city expected an initial loan of 3 million dollars to have been paid off first. Dranofff saw things differently. 

After years of fighting between the city and the developer, The Nipper building was put on the market in 2014. A Colorado based company attempted to purchase the apartment building, but the city refused to transfer the 30 year tax abatement they had granted to Dranoff to the new buyers. Therefore they backed out of the sale. Dranoff then sued the city, claiming they sabatoged the sale on purpose. All this time building no. 8 continued to languish, casting a tall shadow over downtown Camden. 

The highly visible Building no. 8 had long been considered an eyesore, but that was made worse in 2020 when the building was struck by lightning. Large pieces of the facade fell down to the street below, causing the city to erect a fence around the perimeter of the high rise. The following year a superior court judge ruled that the dispute would go in front of a jury. After two more years of backroom deal making a settlement was finally announced in 2023 that would see the developer receiving a small payout, and the city gaining redevelopment rights to Building No. 8. It was around this time that I visited the structure.

I had been getting rejected at everything I had been trying to access one morning in the city. I decided I had better stop pushing my luck and move on to another city. However, I remembered how accessible the old RCA building that stood downtown looked. The structure was unremarkable, but had a fantastic view of the bridge and Philly from the roof. After taking a moment to smoke a bowl in the car, I headed across the parking lot alone to the hulking shadow of a building. I could tell from the well worn path that the building was both a popular place to hang out for taggers, but also a shelter for some local unhoused folks. Not wanting to intrude on anyones space, I was extremely conscious to be as quiet as possible as I worked my way towards the stairs and began the climb up.

After about a half an hour I decided to get on with my day, so I climbed back down the stairs and headed to my car. I never did end up crossing paths with anyone inside, which was a bit of a relief. Currently the building is still standing derelict, and I'm not sure if it will ever end up being converted. Whatever happens I'll be sure to update the post. 

Samuel Hird & Co./ Black Prince Distillery

The Athenia section of Clifton has long been known as one of the industrial hearts of the city. There was once a large steel mill right at the fork of the DL&W's old Boonton Branch. Motorists would better know this as the area where Route 46, Route 19 and the Garden State Parkway all converge today. On the other side of the tracks stood a small textile mill that dates back to the 1920s. 

The main building of the Samuel Hird Company's Clifton location was built in 1925. It was a large T shaped structure dwarfed by a tall brick chimney. 

Hird had originally set up shop in Garfield, but moved his wool manufacturing operation across the river. Early stories from residents tell of sheep that used to graze the land at the corner of Clifton Ave and Paulison. 

A warehouse was added behind the main factory just three years later, and a small strech of rail siding was laid down to accomidate deliveries and shipments for the company.

The only major change to the buildings was that a skybridge was built between the factory and warehouse in 1949 to make it easier to move goods around. 

The Black Prince Distillery moved into the old mill in 1982. They stayed put until 2019, when operations moved down to Tennessee. They stripped all of their tanks and equipment out, leaving the structures completely barren.  Clifton declared the parcel an area in need of redevelopment declared shortly afterwords, and the distillery started working with a group known as Clifton Station Redevelopment LLC. 

The buildings were only vacant a short time before being absolutely thrashed by local kids. This was, of course, due to the property being directly adjascent to the infamous "Gates of Hell". The owners made no effort to ever secure the property or buildings, in a move known as "demolition by neglect". This action ensured the property would become a problem for the city, which would help with redevelopment plans down the line. 

Funny enough, it was around the same time that my girlfriend and I moved to DeMott Avenue. We passed the distillery multiple times every day, watching it slowly disintegrate.  Naturally we spent a lot of time inside the property as well. There ended up being some decent grafitti inside, including one amazing Mexican flag mural. 

It was neat seeing regulars from different groups during our many trips. At one point some local skate rats set up ramps inside the warehouse and had it locked down so they and their friends could enjoy the place without having to worry about anyone showing up to spoil the fun.

Like all good things, the fun had to come to an end eventually. Demolition began on the complex in the fall of 2021. It took several months to level the nearly 100 year old mill, but by the following February the entire property was flat.

At the time this article is being written, the Clifton Station development is well underway. I'm not sure I'll ever get accustomed to coming out from underneath the rail bridge and not seeing the Hird Mill. Even though the structures are gone the memories will surely live on with all of those who found a home in the old vacant buildings while they lasted.

The Union Waxed Paper Mill

One of the most iconic abandoned locations in New Jersey has to be the old Wheatsworth Mill building. However, few people know that behind the Wheatsworth complex along the old NJ Midland Railroad lies another piece of Hamburg's industrial past; the old Union Waxed and Parchment Paper Mill.

Source: TFPNJ Historic Postcard Collection

What is now little more than a collection of crumbling ruins along the Walkill River was once a bustling paper producer. Paper production had historically been one of New Jersey's lesser know big industries. Most only know of Marcal, which tragically burned down in 2019. However there also existed large paper mills in Milford, Warren Glen, and Hughesville. Before any of these were operating, there was the Hamburg Paper Mill. 

The facility was constructed in 1874. At the time there existed a dam on the river for the iron furnace on the site, which was another popular industry in the state at the time. The dam was raised in order to be able to increase its power potential.

Unfortunately the land on which the mill say on was flood prone, causing issues for production. Ironically it was a series of fires that eventually put the mill out of production in the 1950s. Shortly afterwards the train line that runs alongside the mill was de-tracked and subsequently abandoned. 

The mill was left to rot, and after decades of neglect very little remains of the complex. What is left, however, is quite a sight to behold.