02.02.23 I found out more about that factory on the Delaware....

     Yesterday's post was the result of a continued interest I have in the Delaware River striped bass, and more importantly the history of the health of the river. No doubt that industrialization and development of large cities led to the near destruction of the river and all things that live in it. Discharge from industrial and human waste wreaked havoc on the rivers health until changes starting being made in the 1950's through the 1970's. While in my search I came across several postcards that showed a large factory on the banks of the Delware River on the Trenton side. This picqued my interest. 

      

     I found a paper written in 2013 by Clifford Zink titled, Iron and Steel, Entrepeneurs on the Delaware. In that paper he tells the history of iron and steel manufacturing in the capital city telling the story of innovators like Peter Cooper (below), Abraham S. Hewitt, and John Roebling. 

     Peter Cooper started The Trenton Iron Works in 1845, also known as Cooper-Hewitt Iron Works, in a building on the Delaware River at the foot of Warren Street, near where the Trenton Thunder Park now stands. Over the years they moved out around that base and into other sections of the city. Why Trenton? Well,  you had the river, there was the D&R Canal, and nearby railroads going points everywhere. 

World Maps Online

     In the above image (if you click on it it gets larger) from a map found on World Maps Online drawn in 1900 we can see Cooper's factory, which had by then changed names or hands (I didn't research that further) in the upper left of the image. What I find that is cool is how different the scene looks today. The bridge to the far left is the Calhoun Street Bridge, and to the right the Trenton-Morrisville Bridge, aka The Trenton Makes Bridge. For those of us that crawl around down there it is interesting to see the island closest to the Morrisville, PA side. And up on top, on the Trenton side, how large the island is there, which was once part of Stacy Park. It's still there but smaller. Through the years as waterfront development changed due to de-industriualization and notable storms, like the massive 1955 flood, and what changes became of the banks of the Delaware River on both sides. On the PA side, in 1936, a levee was created to reduce flooding in the town of Morrsiville, specifically for a section

known as "The Island", because as we can see, there was an island there. If you look at the map you can see Central, and maybe Park Avenue, just above the Trenton Makes Bridge. Those streets are still there today. So, was the river and island "removed", or filled in when they did the levee construction in 1936 which changed, or ruined, "The Island" neighborhood? One last thing, looking at a Google Map view you can almost see where the river was "cut" off and re-directed when the levee was built.  The filled in section is now Williamson Park, which the town is under talks to re-develop into a condo/mini-town. 

    I think I have actually walked on a section of the old Island. Falling between the Trenton MNakes Bridge and the Route 1 bridge there is a small bog/stream/nastiness, that I believe was where the river "came back in", after passing between the Morrisvile mainland and "The Island". Cool shit there. But back to Cooper. 

     Cooper would go on to produce the first I-beams in the United States and they were the go-to structural members for many of the historical large buildings in the Northeast. First, a modifed rail road track known as the "bulb T" and then a more true representative of classic i-beam design. What is even

more interesting to me is the loose connection between where I fish and my families heritage. I come from a line of union ironworkers. My grandfather was an ironworker. My father is an ironworker. My brother is an ironworker. And yes, I even dabled as an ironworker as a proud member of Camden Local #399 between my 90 day stay at Seton Hall and waiting for the Newark Fire department to call my name. That picture was taken sometime in the late 1980's, maybe around 1988, Wow. And lastly as 

wrap up the "what is that factory" journey, I had to ask myself, "Is there anything left of that now?". Well, there is. while the baseball stadium and offcie buildings have ate up a lot of real estate down on the river where the factory once stood, there are some portions of the buildings left, and in use today. 

     A part of the former factory is owned by the Mercer County Improvement Authority. It is currently leased out as Cooper's Riverfront, and prior to that has been a mix of clubs and restaurants. And that's what I got, well, that's what I found. I am really digging seeing old pictures of the Delware waterfront on both the Trenton and Morrsiville side. Now if I could just find "stuff" related to striped bass fishing, vintage stuff, that would be really cool.