586 HISTORY OF BROOKLYN.

PART IV. MANUFACTURES.

The oft-repeated saying that Brooklyn is only a large bedroom for the business men of New York, may pass for a joke, but as a fact it is not tenable, when we consider the immense amount of manufacturing which is here carried on. Every year adds largely to this manufacturing interest, and Brooklyn already possesses numerous factories, which for size of buildings, and amount of business transacted, cannot be excelled in this country. The immense improvements now in progress all along our water front, and the wonderful changes consequent thereupon, are opening a brilliant future before her as a manufacturing city. She offers to the capitalists, inventors and master mechanicians of New York, facilities of accommodation, transit, purer air and light, etc., etc., than they can now find in the large, overgrown and overfull metropolis; and already there are men of means and foresight who have eagerly grasped the opportunity and have planted institutions of labor and productive industry which are an ornament to the city, and an honor, as well as profit, to their projectors. No proper estimate can be made of the variety, value and extent of the manufactures of Brooklyn, except by personal inspection and a careful study of the statistics furnished by the census department, etc., and a description of them, interesting as it would be, is beyond the limits of this volume. We must content ourselves therefore with a brief allusion to a few of the most noticeable, such as Prentice’s Hat Factories;1the Brooklyn Brass and Copper Company; the

1 JAB. H. PRENTICE’s factories turn out more hats than any other similar establishment in the country; and the wholesale dealers from all parts of the United States and the British Provinces are chiefly supplied from the Brooklyn market. Twice a week auction trade sales of hats are held at the warehouse, from three hundred to one thousand cases, each containing from two to six dozen hats, being sold each sale day, according to the demand of the trade. Mr. Prentice is entire owner of three hat factories, one of which is bounded by Willoughby, Raymond, Bolivar, and Navy streets, an entire block; the other is on Nostrand avenue, near Myrtle, occupying six full lots; and the third at Norwalk, Conn., the latter being the smallest, and used only for the purpose of forming fur hat bodies. At the two Brooklyn factories, the work of manufacturing hats from the raw material is conducted; the Nostrand avenue establishment being where the hats mostly go through the first processes, and are sent from thence to the Raymond street factory to be finished, trimmed, packed, and transferred to the warehouse for sale. Capacity of the works, 1,000 dozen hats per day, and about 1,500 operators are employed. The sales average about $3,000,000 annually. In addition to the factories there is a large three-story warehouse, opposite the factory on the corner of Willoughby and Raymond streets, where goods are stored, and trade sales are held; also blacksmith’s, box-making, and other buildings.