HENRY MAURER
420-422 East 23rd Street between First Avenue and Avenue A
JUNE 14, 1938. ABBOTT FILE 305
The Henry Maurer Company was the "largest manufacturer of firebrick
in the world," with headquarters near Perth
Amboy, New Jersey. After the Civil War, Maurer built a factory town,
named for himself, with homes and a school for his employees. In 1885, he designed and built a New York branch of
his business on East 23rd Street. Crammed with oversized and incompatible decorative motives, the building's facade
advertised the ornamental capabilities of the company. A relic of the Victorian era, the Maurer Company closed shortly
after Abbott photographed its New York building, and the New Jersey town was renamed. In 1947, the 23rd Street
site was absorbed into Peter Cooper Village.
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