@joshuacharow This 110-Year-Old NYC Business is Shutting Down. I made a documentary about New York City’s last remaining column factory, American Wood Column Corp. It tells the story of its third-generation owner, Thomas Lupo. To watch the full film, visit the link in my bio.
♬ original sound - joshuacharow
1 ઑગસ્ટ, 2026
The last remaining column factory in New York City.
A documentary about the American Wood Column Corp, which has preserved traditional wood manufacturing inside what is a beautiful building.
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32 ટિપ્પણીઓ:
More troubling, the last remaining NY Hooters has closed. It deserves a 21-cannon salute. RIP.
Another triumph for Mamdani and his neo-Nazis.
"Priceless ... and worthless." That's a tough observation to make.
So ... no more op-eds in the Times?
Send the molds to a data center, stat!
At the turn of the century, I was looking for 4 fat, square columns for my rebuilt 9x36 front porch, and there weren't many choices, even for parts. I ordered fiberglass bases, thinking they were solid, but they were just a shell. We ended up reusing the 1940 columns made of 1x12s to carry the load and building 18" ornamental ones around them. They're the 4th set of columns & porch floor my house has had since 1875.
You may or may not like White Males.
But you need a critical mass of them for your society to rise above poverty.
New York city will follow the path of South Africa at record pace.
Columns are so bougie.
I'm a woodworker, and there are plenty of people I know that do historically accurate woodworking work like columns, windows, floors, etc. They have a wait time for what they do. Not enough work for a bigger manufacturer to stay open, but it's still out there.
Private equity can buy the business.
How do you mold wood? The clip just showed a split second of one of the molds in use. Is the wood soft enough to press into the mold? I don't get it. CC, JSM
It deserves a 22-cannon salute.
Fixed that for you.
Wondering if his shop supplied the White House for Trump”s remodeling.
She is Order of the Coif at NYU Law. Also a federal judge law clerk. A young Althouse!
I'm always amazed at the level of craftsmanship and just pure devotion evident in the furniture and architecture of the past. Starting thousands of years ago, what was accomplished with simple tools and human hands is amazing. We should preserve what we can of that magic. We can make beautiful things today, but the ease with which it's done makes them simply appliances. There is nothing today comparable to the incredible cathedrals in Europe that took hundreds of years to complete. Such long-term undertaking is no longer part of the human effort to shape our world, except for the bullet train in CA. - amazing dedication and persistence.
Is the business iconic or Ionic?
"How do you mold wood? The clip just showed a split second of one of the molds in use. Is the wood soft enough to press into the mold? I don't get it. CC, JSM"
Not mold but moulder. A moulder is a shaper used to shape wood with profiled cutters, also known as knives or blades.
" Such long-term undertaking is no longer part of the human effort to shape our world..."
Not really a surprise, when so much of the human diversity seems inclined to tear down as much of it as they can.
Sad. There were so many different businesses in Manhattan decades ago. When I was studying for the New York bar, during a hot summer in an apartment on the upper West side, I would play a game with myself. I would study for 50-55 minutes. Then I would put my notes down and try to think of an exotic product or service and see if I could find it in the Yellow Pages (for those of you who remember what the yellow pages were). I nearly always found a listing for whatever I was thinking of. It was hot summer, but I got through it without air conditioning in a tall ceilinged studio and this game.
I bet that man knows what entasis is.
There have been very few beautiful public buildings constructed in Europe or America in nearly one hundred years. Why can we no longer have nice things?
What’s the difference between a column and a pillar?
I bet the internet kept that man's business going for the past couple of decades. Pre-internet there was no real way other than word-of-mouth and limited hobby magazines for craftsmen of this type to connect with people who need or want their services. So they died off, and the buildings, houses, boats, cars, etc. that required this level of speciality died off from neglect and the impracticality of preservation. An odd quirk that the internet made it practical and possible to preserve a lot of stuff that would have otherwise been junked or destroyed.
I have a live-in wood column factory of sorts, I am happy to say.
No brag, just fact…
"boatbuilder said...
I bet the internet kept that man's business going for the past couple of decades. Pre-internet there was no real way other than word-of-mouth and limited hobby magazines for craftsmen of this type to connect with people who need or want their services. So they died off, and the buildings, houses, boats, cars, etc. that required this level of speciality died off from neglect and the impracticality of preservation. An odd quirk that the internet made it practical and possible to preserve a lot of stuff that would have otherwise been junked or destroyed."
you would be wrong. It's a niche market and only people of money participate in. Like I said before, the craftsman have a waiting list.
I think the demand for decorative items like that is diminishing.
Sadly. I love a good greco-roman column.
I used to use a custom millwork shop nearby - for custom case and base. The original owners sold it - and I wonder if it's OK?
Sorry to see them go.
Hope the paragraph factory survived.
I could see somebody with a 3-D printing business buying him out and opening up in the same facility, using the same molds, to create a modern, very cost-effective renaissance for these classical shapes.
Tick Tock, I liked to play Strangely Juxtaposed Yellow Pages Guide Words. Like Abrasive-Accountant, Barricade-Barber, Engineer-Exterminator, etc. CC, JSM
In 1966 American Dispenser Company's main plant was the 8th floor of 860 Broadway. They made the soap dispensers that you see in restrooms.
I worked there as a schleppper.
I looked the building up the other day and find that it also, a few years later, housed Andy Warholes Factory
It was a grungy industrial building at the time. Pretty hoity-toity now.
John Henry
Re the internet as someoone mentioned, before the internet, there used to be the Thomas Register which was a directory of suppliers of virtually any industrial or commercial product in the US. They were big books, 1000 thin pages or so, oversize, maybe 16H x10" and the complete set wasa 12 volumes, about a 6' shelf. It had a great indexing system and you could find ANYTHING in it. I bought a new edition every other year when I had a job that would pay for it.
Later I would beg discarded copies.
Sweets was a similar directory but for architectural stuff.
So I suspect that they would have been easy to find.
John Henry
Whats missing from the story is the intoxicating smell of all that wood! Anyone who’s ever taken woodshop knows that smell.
I used to use the Thomas Register a good bit too. I remember watching the number of volumes dwindle over the years, as catalogs like this became more and more archaic, and companies computerized. The first time I ever came across it, it was over 20 volumes. Then it eventually got down to just a handful.
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