51 Bergen Street is a three story factory building located in what until recently was an industrial neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York. The history of this factory building reflects the history of this downtown neighborhood.
Although it is only one mile in distance from lower Manhattan, this area was still farmland as recently as the mid-19th century. The reason for this fact is that downtown Brooklyn is physically separated from lower Manhattan by the East River. The downtown Brooklyn area began to slowly change by the mid-1800’s because of it’s close proximity to Manhattan, but at that time the people who lived in this “suburb” across the river were only able to get to work in Manhattan via ferryboat across the East River.
When the Brooklyn Bridge opened in 1883, this enabled rapid development of downtown Brooklyn to take place. When the New York City subway system was built in the early 1900’s and Brooklyn became accessible to everyone, then growth began to increase exponentially and the downtown area of Brooklyn close to Manhattan became very densely built and the population increased significantly. Much of this rapid growth at that time was also fueled by the mass immigration from Europe between the 1890’s and 1910.
The factory at 51 Bergen Street was built in the late 1800’s. Over the years it has been used for various things, including manufacturing, storage and parking. On this block there were several commercial stores, including a blacksmith shop, and a factory which made cheese. 51 Bergen Street was purchased in the 1970’s by one Mr. George Zorbas, who was a former US Army Air Corp pilot during WW II. After the war, he started his own jewelry and clothing business and eventually he owned several factories in downtown Brooklyn. After purchasing the building at 51 Bergen Street, he consolidated his business there and made costume jewelry, belts, necklaces, small clothing items and a well known children’s item called the “Invisible Dog.” Mr. Zorbas sold many of his products to stores like Macy’s in New York, and to other large department stores. At the peak of production, this factory operated 24 hours per day with three shifts and employed 150 workers.
By the early-mid 1990’s, it became very difficult for this business to compete with low cost manufacturing in places like China and Mexico, so the business slowly dwindled. For the last 10 years, the main product manufactured at 51 Bergen Street was the “Invisible Dog,” and this product was sold to places such as Six Flags Amusement Park and to Disneyland.
In 2004, Mr. Zorbas passed away. He was known in the neighborhood as a kind and gentle old man who was loved by many people. His estate attempted to operate the factory for a short while afterwards, but the remaining 5 or 6 workers were laid off by 2006. The new owners purchased this factory in 2007.
