Recently I had occasion to drive through the town I grew up in, and I was surprised to see just how much things had changed since I left in 2000. Places that were previously woodland were now developed, new stores had replaced old familiar ones . . . but the most radical change I’ve seen locally is the loss of corporate headquarters which I always assumed would be there forever!
Nope, not a real vintage postcard–I drove my ’58 Ford up there to complete the vintage look!
One place that hasn’t changed is Consolidated Bearings Company, which has been in this same building on Wing Drive in Cedar Knolls, NJ since the early ’60s. This sign, with the word Consolidated in “Rocket Script”–a similar style to car emblems of the period, is now about 60 years old. That’s a pretty long run for a sign in continuous commercial use. Those aluminum letters have held up remarkably well over six decades–the Consolidated people certainly got their money’s worth!
Mom & Dad back when they were working for various corporations.
My father and I were recently discussing the fact that nearly all of the corporations we have worked for in the last 40-50 years are gone now. Their office “campuses” which seemed so modern and permanent have now been swept away. These include Bell Labs (where my father worked as a design engineer), Airtron Div. of Litton (Dad got me a summer job there), Varityper in East Hanover (another employer), Warner Lambert and Honeywell (where my mother and I worked office temp jobs) are now all gone.
Bell Labs. (photo from flickr by Rich Johnson)
In the postwar era, many large firms relocated their corporate headquarters and factories out of the old cities (like New York and Newark) to modern, sprawling suburban locations. There they would find cheap, abundant land to erect clean, modern buildings with plenty of room for parking and even landscaped grounds that made what was usually a gritty industrial area rather “park-like”. Hence the term “industrial park”–a combination of words not usually put together, especially in a state like New Jersey!
Bell Labs entrance (Rich Johnson)
So I grew up around (and worked in) some of these industrial parks, and I always assumed that they would always be there. After all, the companies were so big and had been around for decades, and these places seemed so new–why would anything change?
Dialogic, Parsippany NJ. Built early 1980s, demolished 2022. You know you’re getting old when buildings you remember being built are being torn down! (photo from Parsippany Focus)
About 10 years ago, a curious thing started to happen. I started noticing that all these corporate headquarters which seemed so new and permanent, started being torn down. I kept wondering why–they seemed so well-kept and prosperous, and I’m sure cost millions of dollars to build just a few short years ago. Well, I still don’t have all the answers as to why this is happening, but I thought I’d present a few glaring examples of these major, once state-of-the-art complexes that are now no more:
Bell Labs demolition (Rich Johnson)
Here are some “before and after” views (mostly from Google) showing what is now gone:
Mennen Headquarters, East Hanover Avenue, Morristown
Warner Lambert
Airtron (across from Mennen). Fuzzy 2008 Street View is all that’s available.
Honeywell Headquarters, Columbia Road, Morris Township
Novartis campus (formerly Sandoz Pharmaceutical) looks so modern and well maintained, but it too is being demolished.Novartis demolition.
Varityper in East Hanover, abandoned, now demolished.
The Exxon Research Center campus in Florham Park was a huge, sprawling complex which one photo could not possibly take in. However, here is a view from an office window taken in April 1996. All the Exxon buildings are gone now, and the land is now occupied by the NY Jets Training Center and senior citizen housing.
Marcal Paper Mill and its iconic neon sign was plainly visible from Interstate 80 near Paterson. The old factory recently burned to the ground.
Others we have lost (not pictured): Nabisco (later Mondelez), Rayonier, Whippany Paper Board Co., Silver Burdett, and others.
Local stores and businesses:
The Foodtown supermarket in Cedar Knolls, as I remember it. We did a lot of shopping here. The Michas Bros. were of Greek ancestry, so they had all these imitation ancient Greek architectural elements and statues mounted to the walls.
Since then the building has been attractively remodeled, however it appears the Cedar Knolls Farmers Market is out of business. Foodtown is long gone.
In neighboring Morris Plains, you could shop for groceries at Acme on Speedwell Avenue.
Nothing remains. A larger Acme store was built behind the original (white building in far distance), but that closed in 2021 and the building remains empty.
I remember when this mall opened in Cedar Knolls.
Mall interior, in all its colorful, festive glory, c. 1990. Farther down the corridor was a unique “Antique Village” of small shops in a “Colonial Williamsburg” type setting. Unfortunately there are no known photos of that. Nothing shown in this picture still exists–the space was emptied out and covered over years ago. (Author’s own photograph)
Present view of the mall shows a lot of vacancies. The rosy-colored archways I believe were added in the mid-1990s.
A large strip mall on Route 10 in Whippany (Pine Plaza) was recently demolished.
There are quite a few “blank spaces”, and the supermarket space was empty. Maybe there weren’t enough tenants to make the shopping center profitable?
According to the website JerseyDigs, the Pine Plaza site will be redeveloped with “60 townhome units, a gas station, a 161,581-square-foot ‘big box discount club’, and 808 parking spaces.” Presumably, there will be no “little stores”.
While the older shopping centers are declining or being demolished, new ones are being built in the same vicinity, near where Mennen and Airtron were:
New shopping center featuring Shop Rite supermarket, Starbucks, The UPS Store, SportClips, and Spavia, just around the corner from the old Morris County Mall. New tenants today are more likely to be national retail chains rather than local, small “mom & pop” entrepreneurs.
This is going up on the Mennen site. The new trend seems to be combining retail space with residential townhouses in one self-contained development.
A similar project is planned for the Dialogic site, which almost seems like a city unto itself!
Emmanuel Orthodox Presbyterian Church is gone, replaced by townhouses. Emmanuel OPC was a very traditional church where people sang hymns and had a very formal service. It had to close because membership declined. However Abundant Life Worship Center, located in a former industrial building on S. Jefferson Road (where they sing loud rock music unto the Lord) seems to be thriving.
There used to be quite a few drive-in theatres in the area, like this one on Route 10.
The old drive-in theatre was replaced by Gatehall Corporate Center. Motorists going by would never know the drive-in ever existed!
This red neon GULF sign was still in place on Route 46 in Parsippany. In 2013 the vintage sign was removed when the station was converted to BP.
Also on Route 46 was this kiddie attraction “Storybook Farm”. It prospered in the 1950s and ’60s, and was gone by the early ’70s. Lucky for those ducks that alligator isn’t real!
No trace of Storybook Farm can be found.
Another late survivor from the Neon Age is this motel sign farther east on 46. The motel buildings were recently demolished.
Last surviving 1950s-60s era neon sign in Parsippany on Route 46 is this one, which is still electrically lit at night!
(photo from Flickr by Doug Ensel)
This original Firestone sign has been lighting up the sky on Morris Turnpike in Springfield NJ since 1962. I remember seeing this sign many times on the way home from Grandma’s house in Millburn. Think of the all the “Curbside Classics” that have passed through this place for tires and service during the last 61 years! (photo by Marc A. Krauss)
Dinner at Grandma’s house, 1982. Me in the center, Dad on the right; family friend Emilio, the only man I ever knew who could regularly make money playing at the Atlantic City casinos, at left.
So what can we say about all the changes that have occurred over the last few decades? If I could go back in time and show the young me how things would change in the next 40 years, some of the changes would be quite surprising, while other things that I thought would change have actually remained the same.
Driving over the Whippany River bridge on Cedar Knolls Road, 1905.
Same bridge crossing today. Interstate 287 now rams through, and the course of the river was altered to accommodate the highway.
As a comparison, someone who lived in 1905 would find the township radically changed by the 1950s, and the person driving that brass era car over that little bridge would never dream of the overpowering changes that man would impose on the landscape.
Nighttime traffic on Route 287 looking down from the Cedar Knolls Road bridge. (Author’s own photograph)
I sometimes wonder what things will be like say, 40-50 years from now. Of course, it’s impossible to accurately predict, but I suspect the same observations will be true: Certain changes will be surprising and quite unexpected, while other things we thought would change have actually remained the same! I’m quite sure that any typical artifact, building, or thing from the 20th century will be considered quaint, outmoded, largely forgotten–and hard for the people living in 2070 to relate to.
Great article! You sure put a lot of efford into these photo’s. In my country (Holland) a lot of older office buildings and shopping malls are being replaced by housing projects.
Never an open plain after something is demolished!
I looked it up on the map; it’s around New Jersey.
Great post of an area I should recognize, but sadly I do not. I only moved here (Northern NJ) a scant 33 years ago and then mostly spent my time commuting to and from NYC or EWR (Newark Airport)..
My take on local retail is that while some people like to visit brick and mortars and do touch and feel, many more don’t have the time and prefer to do their shopping online and have their goods delivered to the door.
Starting somewhere in the 1980s, big companies started to “gently demand” more from their employees in terms of time spent on the job. When cell phones and online access became common, company time demands increased thereby leaving less time to cruise retail stores, malls and restaurants.
Also, physical stores have limited space for inventory. If one wears an odd or hard to find size, most online sites will have what you want it in stock while brick and mortars might not.
There are corporate sites just off 287 in Piscataway that I believe were never occupied at all, let alone used and then torn down.
Some people think that unused corporate buildings, especially in NYC, might be converted to low and middle income housing that is always in short supply, but I’ve not read about any of these plans being successfully completed.
Bell Labs only hired the best and the brightest – kudos to your father. Most Bell Lab sites were designed so the outdoor parking lots were not visible to people driving by those locations.
That ’58 Ford is a delight to look at. I vaguely recall an ad for that year Ford that focused on the unique indented hood ornament and that it won a [foreign?] design award.
I immediately saw that 58 Ford because yesterday I saw a decent one on Craigslist for sale. A 4dr. hardtop with great sun-fried paint. I am so tempted but then I just had my 20th anniversary so there is that…
There was a cluster of court yard motels on the old federal highway that led into New Orleans. One of the hotels was visited by a prostitute and a famous preacher which made national headlines. As time progressed, the cluster was replaced with a wealthy, high class gated community.
Go figure!!
Great article! I love the history of “everyday places” like office buildings and shopping centers that folks tend to overlook.
– Industrial parks became very popular for localities due to the tax revenue. This was especially true in places like New Jersey with small local governments (the townships and boroughs). Having one successful industrial park in a township would be a gold mine.
– Commercial real estate trends are definitely in flux right now, and it’s tough to figure out where things will land. Employees have greatly benefited from the freedom offered from telework (either full-time or part-time), and many employers have also seized the opportunity to reduce their real estate costs. It’s unclear how much office employers will offer telework in the future, but it sure seems that the days of the giant office buildings/parks are over. Many larger employers are shifting to smaller-footprint offices.
– Meanwhile, there’s a lot of demand for apartments, so property owners are favoring building mid- to high-rise apartments wherever possible. Of course, these are not so favorable to local tax revenue, and rental apartments tend not to age well, so look for a lot of eyesore mid-rise apartments in 30 years from now.
– I like seeing your examples of shopping center architecture over the years. Shopping center operators often give their properties facelifts every 20 years or so, and it’s amusing in hindsight to see the little changes they thought would make their properties look more alluring. Like those rose-colored archways, or the Whippany example with a metal roof with little dormers. Very period stuff… again, largely forgotten through the haze of time.
– Oh, and kudos to Schmeeds Music, which has by far the most eye-catching listing in the multitenant Pine Plaza sign. Creative artwork, there.
– The trend of combining residential and commercial uses on a single site is popular here in Virginia too. However, often the commercial component flops because there’s not enough (or just plain inconvenient) parking included in the plans. It’s happened a lot, and by now it’s pretty ridiculous that folks haven’t learned what it takes to make that concept actually succeed.
– I like the 1982 picture of you at Grandma’s house – I can just picture the conversations taking place. And I remember that design of Canada Dry; my folks would buy it for special occasions.
– Finally, I’ll leave you with one local picture that goes with the theme, and also with the background from today’s Chrysler New Yorker pictures – which is a commercial building with “breeze blocks.” This was a regional electric company building from the mid 1980s – the building still stands, but the breeze blocks and the aluminum-lettered sign are long gone.
Those “breeze blocks” were really popular in Southern California in the mid-20th century. Lots of houses in Palm Springs had them in addition to office buildings.
I never knew they were called “breeze blocks”. They used to be quite common, but now I rarely see them.
Here’s a 1959 Lincoln I photographed in 1989 in Chatham NJ with the “breeze blocks” in the background. It’s a bank building which still stands at Fire House Plaza.
I googled the term to make sure I had it right – and in doing so, was surprised to see that there’s many retailers who still sell these blocks. I’d assumed that new ones were unobtainable.
Never knew they were called ‘breeze blocks’ either. An episode of an HGTV renovation show had young ‘house flippers’ calling them “ugly”, and tearing them out, unfortunately.
Here in my suburb, Elmhurst IL, former Keebler snacks [bought out by Kellogg’s] HQ building, built in 1986, torn down for warehouses. Also a Caterpillar facility, which had heavy equipment built in. Same with Allstate’s sprawling HQ in Glenview IL.
Big corporate park called Bishop Ranch in San Ramon. Early on HQ for Pacific Bell and Chevron. Pac Bell gone and Chevron now moving to a smaller building and also to to Texas where Gulf was. Some of the massive buildings have been torn down for housing. Bishop Ranch started in the 70’s when hardly anyone lived out here in the San Ramon Valley. BART parking lot up in Concord is still pretty much deserted. All those cars belonged to people going over the S.F. in the early morning but not anymore. BART hurting big time these last 3 years.
Your photo of the power company building reminds me of the changes in the names and logos of this company. When we first moved to Virginia in 1979, the name was VEPCO (for Virginia Electric and Power Company). It rhymed with PEPCO (Potomac Electric Power Company) in the MD suburbs of Washington, DC.
Then the company was rebranded as Virginia Power in 1980. Two decades later after expansion and acquisitions, the company became Dominion Power, followed by Dominion Energy in 2017.
All of those name and logo changes for a utility company are sort of a head-scratcher. When most people still just call it “the power company.” Branding consultants have made lots of money there.
Here’s the building now, with the Dominion Energy sign out front. And despite rising real estate costs, this will probably be around for a while because in back of this building is a several-acre storage area for power poles and related equipment. Virtually impossible to find new space for that sort of use in Northern Va. these days.
I remember when VEPCO changed to Virginia Power. It caused a problem for a lady in northern Virginia by the name of Virginia Power. Apparently the 411 operators using a new computer generated phone number request system began giving out her phone number when callers requested the phone number for Virginia Power!
When the area was hit by big storms, her phone would ring non-stop for days! I have a vivid memory of a CBS local station [channel 9] interviewing Mrs Power, with her phone unplugged. When the reporter plugged the cord into the phone, it would immediately ring!
I seem to recall there was a lawsuit involved, but don’t know the results.
As for the hilarious video of the 2 teens trying to figure out how to use a rotary phone, it reminded me of when I showed a young 14 year old family relative my 1915 Victor phonograph. Her immediate response was that it sounded terrible. She couldn’t believe it didn’t have an electric motor, battery, or other power source, and it had to be manually wound with a crank EVERY time I played a record. And that was after I explained how a record groove works!
While one part of me truly hates that some of our great old companies and traditions are being torn away, at least the state of New Jersey is not rebuilding some of the old sites when the buildings are torn down. I noticed several shots of empty land with just grass and trees where the old buildings once stood. Now if they’re going to leave the land alone that way, fine, but if they’re going to rebuild on it, I say “NO”. Just wish they’d quit building so much down here in Texas. Gotten to be NYC of the 21st century. I’m tired of all the people, cars and construction here.
You know you’re getting old indeed. My long term employer had a building in a light industrial area, we engineers at work bemoaned that the businesses that built or manufactured things were gradually replaced with housing and retail. Last year we left our office/workshop building for leased “fancy” office space, completing my transition from machinery guy to paperwork guy.
As another example, this view going into Toronto is entirely different than it was 30 years ago. With the exception of the CN tower, industrial areas and single homes have been replaced by condo towers. No there’s nowhere to work, and a bunch of people living there. Where do they all work??
I have started noticing recently (and far too late) the effects of how our country/economy has made efficiency the primary metric for measuring everything. The result has been a steady process of consolidation where companies become divisions of larger companies, and that both the divisions and entire companies are bought and sold like a big game of Monopoly. Every city has lost at least one major company headquarters though this process. Your pictures of old HQ buildings being razed seems to document this well.
I have seen the same thing here. One of my college age jobs was working for a potato chip company in Fort Wayne. Seyfert Foods built a big, sprawling factory in one of those industrial parks, complete with the huge sprawling lawn. By the time I was there, the Seyfert family had just sold out to Borden Foods. Within about another decade, that plant (which I always considered so modern) was closed and (I believe) torn down. Banks, insurance companies, consumer products companies, all of them have been eaten by much bigger fish until I am having trouble thinking of a locally owned/locally headquartered bank or insurer.
Back in 80’s, Chicago’s Jay’s Potato Chips company was considered a ‘good place to work’, and seemed steady. Had a plant near the Ford Assembly facility.
2007, years later, company went bankrupt, and plant closed. Assets sold to Snyder-Lance food company and only warehouse remains, with production moved elsewhere.
It’s a contrast to Germany and Austria, where medium size companies (“Mittelstandt”) are very common and typically have been in the ownership of the same families for long periods of time, sometimes going back 100-150 years. And these companies tend to be located in small/smaller towns that are heavily dependent on them.
These companies typically specialize in one type/area of product, and because they constantly reinvest to improve that, they have been able to withstand cheaper competition from places like China, even though the Chinese have often copied their technology. The focus on quality and trust with their clients has allowed them to thrive. And they hardly ever sell. The family owners feel a sense of duty to their employees and their towns, and place that ahead of maximizing income from a sale or consolidation. They’re in it for the long haul, and it works for them. These companies typically dominate their categories, due to their relentless focus on constantly improving the product.
Germany has significantly more of these middle-sized companies than the US, despite being a much smaller country, and its share of large conglomerates is relatively much lower. The same applies to Austria, on a relative basis.
There’s something about the mind set in these two countries that differs distinctly from the Anglo capitalist mind set. I can feel it in myself too; I decided years ago not to leverage my rental properties into buying more of them, as is the normal recommended approach. This allows me to keep directly involved in the 14 units I have, screen tenants, and have a very good relationship with all of them. Costs are low, which means I can also keep rents a bit lower than others. It’s all very stable and low stress, and I don’t really want to keep growing for the sake of growing.
Meanwhile, Wall Street has gotten into rental houses with a vengeance, nickle and diming tenants with fees and aggressive rent increases.
I do not doubt that there are differences in history and culture at play, but I would also suspect that there are some significant differences in the legal, taxation, and regulatory mechanisms of both countries. We would do well to study how Germany gets these plentiful medium-sized businesses and keeps them stable.
I’ve read a number of in-depth articles about this, including one at Bloomberg recently. None of them had any references to legal, taxation or regulatory mechanisms. What would they be?
It’s just a reflection of a different culture. If you’ve not been exposed to it, then I can see why you might think that.
It’s a different flavor of capitalism.
The whole notion of social safety nets stems from this part of the world, and not just governmental one. Companies/firms felt a deeper long-term connection and responsibility to their workers.
Keep in mind that every corporation in Germany has mandated worker representation on its governing board. That applies to the large corporate entities, but not to family-owned ones, but they also tend to reflect the same values, if not more so.
The differences cannot possibly be restricted to culture alone. Otherwise, we would see no difference between North and South Korea. An even better example would be East and West Germany in the four decades after WWII. You even mention mandated worker representation on corporate boards – that requirement was no doubt informed by culture, but it is also an example of a differing legal environments.
The Bloomberg article is interesting, but I see it as little more than a surface-level dip into some particular examples of companies.
For contrast, here is an in-depth look at the differences in corporate legal and governance environments of both countries. (https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1001&context=fisch_2016). (Be patient, it takes a minute to load). The nub is that German corporate governance requires/permits structures that encourage stability while the American system encourages maximum freedom and individuality and results in a system that rewards (my words) short term thinking.
These differences were undoubtedly influenced by cultural factors, but they have also created two distinct environments for how corporations operate. I am not suggesting that you can plop one country’s legal and taxation structures into another country and get duplicate results, but I am saying that such changes would push things in directions closer to the source country. While there are significant differences in the histories and cultures of different parts of the world, there are also significant parts of human nature that are universal. The secret is encouraging the good parts and discouraging the bad within the culture you have.
Our laws inherently reflect our culture, unless we live in a very undemocratic society.
No need for me to read that treatise; I’m quite familiar with the corporate board differences. The key difference is that the German system is based on the concept of stakeholder corporatism; the Angla-American neo-liberal one on shareholder corporatism. Stakeholder values were once much more prevalent in the US too, reflecting the post-Depression social contract, that we’re all in it together. This has of course been deeply eroded since the rise of the neo-liberal order since Reagan, although aspects started earlier already.
The German system is based on the deep cultural values that fruits of commerce is for the benefit of the whole society, not just the shareholders. The inevitable consequence is of course the large gap in income disparity between the two systems.
And it’s not that these Mittlestand companies can’t or couldn’t be bought by larger and/or international conglomerates. It does happen; Carrier is buying a German firm that makes heat pumps. But there is an inherent tendency to resist that on the ownership level.
A small but key difference: last time we were in Innsbruck, we spent a few days in an old small hotel that’s been in the same family for over 100 years. The level of competence and service (given that it was also quite cheap) was completely different, as a number of those working there were family members. I could go on…as I said, it’s different.
Yes, it’s a lot to do with the careful-with-money, afraid-of-inflation and long-termist German mindset. Most Mittelstand AGs are largely owned one bank plus the family. A classic example would be the Quandts and Deutsche Bank, who were able to rescue BMW after the “accounting error” was discovered. Carl FW Borgward did not have a ‘captive’ bank (he distrusted them as much as I do) and so he was despised as an upstart and had no-one to help him.
Sadly, there appear to be Globalist movements to drive that German business model to the wall, in favour of crony-corporatism.
Businesses do have a life-cycle too – a brilliant, hungry entrepreneur creates something new, his children inherit a thriving business, but another upstart replaces it with something new and his grandkids are forced to sell out – invariably to Global Consolidated INC…
You will see more of those ‘fifteen-minute city’ retail/residential units springing up everywhere – we have them in the UK too. There was a bit of a furore over that in Holland, recently.
Not far from me in North London, we had the electrical/electronic hub of the UK. Many big businesses started there (Carl Gstettner’s copying machines, Thorn EMI TVs, Edison/Swan lamps…I could go on, but they didn’t and are all sprawling flats (apartments) now. Johnson Matthey (you might have heard of them!) still have their original refining plant.
Oh, and Lotus, of course…my mother was a temporary PA to ACBC at Cheshunt, because his real PA was already re-located to Hethel, Norfolk.
Point is, I remember all of these North London businesses as a kid, but I’m now 60…does make one feel old, sometimes.
It’s even more cynical than that. Having seen a few mergers in my business (law), I can tell you that a fair number are done for the purpose of enriching a relatively few individuals, who get big payouts for having done the merger, and then usually are gone within a few years. Of course, that’s not the stated reason for the merger – usually it’s “synergies” which do not happen, and the surviving company (having shed workers in the meantime) is now weaker due to having taken on debt to finance the merger. One less company, fewer workers, no real benefits and a few people walking away with big paydays. The shareholders may benefit but usually a merger bump in securities is relatively short-lived. It’s a shame, really.
Nice work! Appreciate the time you invested.
I grew up in Los Angeles in the 60’s and 70’s and escaped in the 90’s and recall some of the businesses you listed having branch locations in LA. A few were my clients and I watched them go the way of the wrecking ball or morph into an acquiring company. Unsettling at the time but became almost normal.
This strikes so close to home. Living in the same community for all of my life, I have seen it grow from a small, friendly, middle class Town. Originally growth was good. We had several local family owned manufacturing companies, numerous stores selling just about everything you could want, and many beautiful homes (in various price ranges). The town motto was A Proud Heritage, A Prominent Future. Then we got a mayor and rubber stamp council determined that everything must be UP scale. So many significant structures have been destroyed, one long term manufacturer has shutdown, another has moved to a nearby community. We only have Specialty shops, law offices, expensive restaurants in our central business district. No more family restaurants, stores. Even one major bank has closed its main office 🏬 and moved it to a less convenient location! A couple of properties using Historic buildings are also being targeted at the upper crust. We have become a Country Club City. The attitude is If you can’t afford to live here, go somewhere else. Between the city and the local University, hundreds of acres of vacant land, parks, and other TAX EXEMPT properties have caused property taxes to rise on the middle class. And I forgot to mention health care facilities! We had a county owned hospital in town. Due to some questionable actions by the board, it was sold to a corporate group and moved out of the city! For years a small group of us spend many hours and much energy attending city meetings asking for moderation to NO avail. There is a ReDestruction Commission which favors the CHOSEN FEW construction companies. Like the old song, PAVE 🎵PARADISE 🎵 to put 🎵up a🎶 PARKING 🎵 LOT🎶 . 😔. 😠 😡 😤
Ronald Reagan’s tenure as the 40th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 1981, and ended on January 20, 1989.
We have friends who are natives of Schveningen-Villengen (sp?) near the Black Forest who own one of these small “fabriks” a machine shop that makes metal parts for Braun or Krupps, forget which. Started by the grandfather post WWII (he was an Allied prisoner for 2 yrs) and now run by the sons and grandsons, (none of the female family is involved, it is sort of patriarchal). They employ 30-40 people and are very involved and proud of their company. Wish the US followed this model instead of the “Anglo/American Predatory Capitalism” model as the French like to call it, with its resulting prosperity divide. The Europeans also don’t seem so quick to tear down perfectly good buildings so quickly, avoiding much of our resulting sprawl and ugliness. The book “The Geography of Nowhere” by Jim Kunstler is a perfect summation of the problem.
Over the years (I/m 79) I have been through many of the are was that Steve has written about to us. Excellent article, Steve! Sad realities as described by Rick. I try to patronize Mom and Pop stores and businesses so that they do not die. We need them. They are the backbone of a good economy (Economics Major talking). One wonders why buildings are razed and not repurposed. I frequently went to The Nabisco Headquarters in East Hanover, NJ. I also learned how to get there via back roads from I-80 to avoid traffic backups. This enabled me to see lovely homes aa a portion of the meandering Passaic River. Great memories from you, Steve!
“Creative Destruction”, Joseph Schumpeter, the essence of capitalist renewal.
Corporate takeovers and consolidation
Private equity debt schemes
Tax policy
Because our economy is built upon consumption, retail was way overbuilt. Ten years ago we had TEN times the retail space per capita of any other advanced economy. (Look it up).
As residential infrastructure–“places to live”–have morphed over the last 40 years into “places to make money” (housing as “investment”) the resulting housing crisis has encouraged redevelopment of commerce into housing (at prices, of course, that the victims cannot afford).
I know that area well – I worked for WMTR in Cedar Knolls for years, and would schlepp up 287 every Friday night to do a doo wop show from 7P to Midnight. The one article notes WDHA was doing quadraphonic broadcasting…that fizzled out. As did the C-QUAM AM Stereo that WMTR tried in the 80’s.
Never ceases to amaze me how some places change in what feels like the blink of an eye, while others feel frozen in time. Eastern Long Island is one of those “frozen in time” places…check out the Modern Snack Bar if you love old neon. One of the best signs around, and the food inside is amazing too.
We have one landline phone in our house – it’s a turqioise Princess phone…and I wanted one with a Jersey area code. Love having a “New Jersey Bell” piece of property hooked up in the house. Thank you Bell Labs for all the innovations over the years…
I feel the same way driving around Central NJ – Route 33 used to be almost nothing but farmland between the NJTP and Freehold back when my family moved down from Manville in ’97. Now? Almost all developed. At least there’s a Wawa nearby instead of having to use the always crowded one by Great Adventure….
As home to Bell Labs, northern NJ was assigned the “first” area code, 201. And NYC was assigned a code that was easy and quick to dial on a rotary phone, 212.
If you mean the phone pictured it’s of course not a Princess but the standard Bell 500 desk phone. Are there any phone services that still understand the clicks of a dial or non-tones but clicks generating pushbutton phones that were available for a while? I thought the last clicks understanding landline service recently dropped the clicks understanding function. Clicks were how they worked when exchanges were mechanical and eventually the electronic ones had (I assume) a click to tones translator.
My Verizon FiOS VOIP handles pulse dialing fine, as well as DTMF (TouchTone) dialing. Grandstream VOIP adapters have the pulse profile in them as well (I program them as part of my side gig).
Excellent article Stephen, and clearly a subject that resonates with many. Me too.
As many have said, the tear it down when it’s still functional movement seems to exist everywhere…and the churn in companies letting go of locations due to merger, acquisition, consolidation, relocation is a whole other yet related matter. I’m intrigued by what Paul says about companies in smaller German cities; and overall applaud the idea of keeping business at a scale where everyone has the opportunity for success, but it’s still possible to know who the “everyone” is. I do the same in my own business.
I do often feel fortunate to live in a part of the country – New England – where there seems to be somewhat greater interest than in other parts of the country in preserving the look and feel of both the built and natural landscape. This is far from a nirvana of historic preservation, but still there’s often considerable interest in what things look like and how changes impact inhabitants. Maybe this is a more recent phenomenon (e.g., Boston was very nearly destroyed by Interstate highways in the 1950s/60s), but every time I go down the Atlantic seaboard and see what has been done to areas south of NYC and even worse from say DC further south, I cringe. The acres of pavement and mulch for parking lots, housing developments, and office parks that have taken over the farmland that I recall being there in my youth is shocking to me…and makes me glad that I live somewhere where land is much harder to build upon and the population is slowly shrinking instead of rapidly growing.
My office is in a rehabbed rope factory from the late 19th century. Across the street is a much larger office complex that was a woolen mill starting in the 1850s until the 1960s. My office before that was in a rehabbed textile mill from the early-mid 19th century. These are just a few examples of industrial/commercial spaces that have been rebuilt instead of leveled and covered with new boxes over and over again. This is a common arrangement in most New England cities. Most of which in their centers still look much like they have for 100 years or more. And it sure beats tearing down and rebuilding stuff that is less than 50 years old. In my opinion at least.
The historical aspects, and older architecture, are why my wife and I road trip thru New England every summer, with a few days spent on Cape Cod. Most places still have a quaint feel to them, and we love seeing how everything is taken care of.
Not to mention the great food!
Parking in downtown Boston is tight given our fleet of Cadillacs & Buicks, but we manage.
In the western Suburbs of St. Louis, where I grew up, so much has been removed and or replaced. old cloverleaf intersections are now flying ramp directional or diamond. Every school I attended form Elementary through High school is gone, sites of first jobs are gone. The huge shopping plaza is mostly razed and rebuilt as government agencies and small shops. The large park I knew and at the time seemed so rural is now surrounded by development, including an elevated portion of freeway as it comes off the ridge and across the Missour River flood plain.The entire Mid Century Modern neighborhood I knew and lived in my adolescence is now wildland. As a friend called it when we visited. “The tour of places no longer there.” It is true, You can’t go home again, particularly if there is no longer there.
Had to check the net, but found that Bowcraft on 22 had closed in 2018 and was plowed under for residential development.
Also – the current Mondelez site in E Hanover on Deforest and River Rd. (maybe Kraft BITD) – wasn’t that a sledding hill years ago – now fully fenced off?
By then the company that had bought the building years before had torn down a large extension and let the rest deteriorate until they could claim it would cost too much to renovate plus I assume less demand for that kind of space. Some preservationist opposition but they lost.
Ah man…I remember when that building was built. My family had just moved to Raleigh and my dad had taken a job in the NC State Planning Office. RTP was the showcase of modernity, and a typical Sunday was spent driving around looking at the buildings like that going up. That Burroughs-Wellcome building was something else.
Wow – I can’t believe that building was torn down. When I lived there, some of those buildings were almost like tourist attractions.
Back in the late 1990s, I worked briefly as a lab technician in Philadelphia. Most of the researchers there were foreign, and I remember mentioning to one visiting researcher, who was Japanese, that I was moving to North Carolina. He said, “I’ve heard of North Carolina. Is that near the Research Triangle Park?”
What’s interesting to me is how immediate the teardown process happens now a days, in the 90s and even into the 2000s I remember when I’d go into Chicago I’d see a bunch of the really old abandoned brick industrial buildings still standing probably 20 or more years after the companies that occupied them left, enough time for renovating or repurposing some of them. But it seems like demolition now happens almost the second after they leave, and not even necessarily to clear the space for new development to replace it as seen here.
I know this area very well. I was the IBM Office Products sales representative for all of this territory from 1963 to 1973.
P.S. There is more IBM Office Products division anymore.
Quick demolition gets the building off the tax rolls and cuts the tax bill. Saving old construction has its plusses but in many/most cases new building are hugely more energy efficient and are much better for the users.
Your father was extremely fortunate to work at Bell Labs. I hope he enjoyed it. Losing Bell Labs was a huge tragedy for the entire country, not just New Jersey
As a New Yorker I tried to avoid New Jersey but I saw the same thing across the river in Westchester County where downtown White Plains has changed out of all recognition since the early 70s, with the train station and old downtown bulldozed for “urban renwal”, 60s stores turned into 90s malls turned into something else entirely and various suburban corporate headquarters changing hands and often uses. I also see it across the country, When we moved ot Beaverton Oregon in 1994 the Viewmaster factory was still in operation and Powell’s Book’s had a branch in a nearby building, then it got turned into a shopping center to complement the existing 1980s office buildings and Powell’s moved into the former GI Joe’s space in the heavily remodeled Beaverton Mall/Cedar Hills Crossing, which was originally a small airport. The shift has occasionally produced creative reuse as in the case of the Hillsboro Public Library moving from a former supermarket to a vacant office building. I’m curious to see how the nearby Washington Square Mall evolves now that Sears closed.
It was really neat to read an article focusing on an area that I know quite well. I lived in that neck of the woods (Cedar Knolls, Denville, Randolph) for a good part of the early 90s, and in a previous career servicing photocopiers and other office equipment for a company with many large corporate and governmental accounts, I had spent a decent amount of time inside at least a few of the locations that you have highlighted here (Bell Labs, Varityper, Sandoz/Novartis, and several operations in Gatehall all come to mind). I’m still close enough to that area to be able to occasionally drive through it from time to time, and it is indeed amazing how much the corporate landscape has changed in a relatively short time span. Interestingly, for the longest time, we were certain that Novartis would one day swallow up the bowling center that is right next door on Route 10. Having also bowled and worked there for a time, we would often hear of rumors that the center would eventually be bought out, as it seemed that Novartis had been consistently expanding and building around the side and back of the alleys… but it looks like the lanes remain in business, and have managed to outlast the pharma giant. Thanks again for a very-well constructed piece, and also for lots of great memories.
Interesting past and present contrast. Spring 1971 westbound on the Queensway in Ottawa, Canada. And the same interchange, midday in July 2020. Early in the pandemic.
Excellent article, Stephen! You along with Eric703 and Jeff Sun have become the most prominent authors of car-adjacent stories on this site, broadening the reach of CC.
Perhaps someone can explain the fairly recent phenomenon in the Midwest of building high-end condos and apartments in the parking lots of dying shopping malls. I understand buying a dying mall for relatively cheap and then selling the parking lot space to developers for a nice profit. What I don’t understand is who on earth buys an expensive condo surrounded by a sea of asphalt next to a dying mall? Disused malls are huge eyesores and suffer from protracted downward spirals of failed attempts to revitalize them. It just makes no sense to me.
Wow. This article really makes clear to me how much time has passed since I left home as a 19-year-old. Growing up in Maplewood, my first real job was as a flower delivery driver (full-length E-150 w’ 300 six!). I had Hagstrom maps to guide me through Essex, Morris, Union counties…I passed so many of these buildings so many times. I remember coming home once in maybe ‘03 and seeing that River Rd had been so incredibly built up with subdivisions, and had a dream the other day about Nettie Ochs’ cider mill, now nearly 15 years gone. It really was a different time. I’ve just moved back to Brooklyn after nearly a decade in the Bay, and it astounds me how much here is truly unchanged.
Didn’t work in New Jersey, but 40 years ago (before the divestiture) my first job out of school was for the Bell System, I worked at the Merrimack Valley Works in North Andover (they had a small Bell Labs location there). That was a large location, built in the 50’s but is no longer used for that purpose. Almost to the month, I left in May 1983, for Austin, Tx where I worked for IBM, retiring 7 years ago. IBM only established the site in 1967, but they are all but gone now, the large sprawling site was bought by a retail developer (I think Simon properties) and now high-rise buildings (maybe 14 floors) and outdoor shopping plus apartments and hotels dominate the area. One of my ex-co-workers still works there, and when I go to pick him up for lunch, he has to brief me on the best way to get to the building I used to go to work in daily…there’s lots of construction, and they built a high-rise building right in the middle of the road that I used to drive on to get to work…used to be lots of surface parking, now almost all parking garages due to the density. It’s become a desirable place for people living in apartments, though when he was alive I used to tease my Father, telling him I was going to rent him an apartment there with a view of the building he used to work in…he would take the cue and make an ugly face…to him it was akin to having a view of a garbage dump. One of the buildings I used to work in for a time became a cooking school, something I couldn’t come to terms with, knowing the history of the building, which was used for manufacturing circuit boards, with lots of chemicals that would hardly be associated with a place you now prepare food.
I’m almost 50 years out of high school, and it is also amazing to me that so few of the schools I went to still exist (at least in the form I knew them). We moved around a lot, so for instance I attended 2 different high schools (1 exists, 1 doesn’t) middle school (none still exists), but the parochial school I attended 1st grade only in 60 years ago does still exist. Some of the buildings were torn down, but most were re-tasked to something else, bought by another entity (even public schools now private building). The high school I started in moved to another town in the 70’s then moved back to the same location I’d gone to, but they tore down the original building and built a more modern one (the one I attended, built in the 50’s didn’t have air conditioning, though in northern Virginia we had a few days back then they called off school due to it being to warm)…
Great article! You sure put a lot of efford into these photo’s. In my country (Holland) a lot of older office buildings and shopping malls are being replaced by housing projects.
Never an open plain after something is demolished!
I looked it up on the map; it’s around New Jersey.
Great post of an area I should recognize, but sadly I do not. I only moved here (Northern NJ) a scant 33 years ago and then mostly spent my time commuting to and from NYC or EWR (Newark Airport)..
My take on local retail is that while some people like to visit brick and mortars and do touch and feel, many more don’t have the time and prefer to do their shopping online and have their goods delivered to the door.
Starting somewhere in the 1980s, big companies started to “gently demand” more from their employees in terms of time spent on the job. When cell phones and online access became common, company time demands increased thereby leaving less time to cruise retail stores, malls and restaurants.
Also, physical stores have limited space for inventory. If one wears an odd or hard to find size, most online sites will have what you want it in stock while brick and mortars might not.
There are corporate sites just off 287 in Piscataway that I believe were never occupied at all, let alone used and then torn down.
Some people think that unused corporate buildings, especially in NYC, might be converted to low and middle income housing that is always in short supply, but I’ve not read about any of these plans being successfully completed.
Bell Labs only hired the best and the brightest – kudos to your father. Most Bell Lab sites were designed so the outdoor parking lots were not visible to people driving by those locations.
That ’58 Ford is a delight to look at. I vaguely recall an ad for that year Ford that focused on the unique indented hood ornament and that it won a [foreign?] design award.
I immediately saw that 58 Ford because yesterday I saw a decent one on Craigslist for sale. A 4dr. hardtop with great sun-fried paint. I am so tempted but then I just had my 20th anniversary so there is that…
There was a cluster of court yard motels on the old federal highway that led into New Orleans. One of the hotels was visited by a prostitute and a famous preacher which made national headlines. As time progressed, the cluster was replaced with a wealthy, high class gated community.
Go figure!!
Great article! I love the history of “everyday places” like office buildings and shopping centers that folks tend to overlook.
– Industrial parks became very popular for localities due to the tax revenue. This was especially true in places like New Jersey with small local governments (the townships and boroughs). Having one successful industrial park in a township would be a gold mine.
– Commercial real estate trends are definitely in flux right now, and it’s tough to figure out where things will land. Employees have greatly benefited from the freedom offered from telework (either full-time or part-time), and many employers have also seized the opportunity to reduce their real estate costs. It’s unclear how much office employers will offer telework in the future, but it sure seems that the days of the giant office buildings/parks are over. Many larger employers are shifting to smaller-footprint offices.
– Meanwhile, there’s a lot of demand for apartments, so property owners are favoring building mid- to high-rise apartments wherever possible. Of course, these are not so favorable to local tax revenue, and rental apartments tend not to age well, so look for a lot of eyesore mid-rise apartments in 30 years from now.
– I like seeing your examples of shopping center architecture over the years. Shopping center operators often give their properties facelifts every 20 years or so, and it’s amusing in hindsight to see the little changes they thought would make their properties look more alluring. Like those rose-colored archways, or the Whippany example with a metal roof with little dormers. Very period stuff… again, largely forgotten through the haze of time.
– Oh, and kudos to Schmeeds Music, which has by far the most eye-catching listing in the multitenant Pine Plaza sign. Creative artwork, there.
– The trend of combining residential and commercial uses on a single site is popular here in Virginia too. However, often the commercial component flops because there’s not enough (or just plain inconvenient) parking included in the plans. It’s happened a lot, and by now it’s pretty ridiculous that folks haven’t learned what it takes to make that concept actually succeed.
– I like the 1982 picture of you at Grandma’s house – I can just picture the conversations taking place. And I remember that design of Canada Dry; my folks would buy it for special occasions.
– Finally, I’ll leave you with one local picture that goes with the theme, and also with the background from today’s Chrysler New Yorker pictures – which is a commercial building with “breeze blocks.” This was a regional electric company building from the mid 1980s – the building still stands, but the breeze blocks and the aluminum-lettered sign are long gone.
Those “breeze blocks” were really popular in Southern California in the mid-20th century. Lots of houses in Palm Springs had them in addition to office buildings.
I never knew they were called “breeze blocks”. They used to be quite common, but now I rarely see them.
Here’s a 1959 Lincoln I photographed in 1989 in Chatham NJ with the “breeze blocks” in the background. It’s a bank building which still stands at Fire House Plaza.
I googled the term to make sure I had it right – and in doing so, was surprised to see that there’s many retailers who still sell these blocks. I’d assumed that new ones were unobtainable.
I like that Lincoln picture.
Never knew they were called ‘breeze blocks’ either. An episode of an HGTV renovation show had young ‘house flippers’ calling them “ugly”, and tearing them out, unfortunately.
Here in my suburb, Elmhurst IL, former Keebler snacks [bought out by Kellogg’s] HQ building, built in 1986, torn down for warehouses. Also a Caterpillar facility, which had heavy equipment built in. Same with Allstate’s sprawling HQ in Glenview IL.
Big corporate park called Bishop Ranch in San Ramon. Early on HQ for Pacific Bell and Chevron. Pac Bell gone and Chevron now moving to a smaller building and also to to Texas where Gulf was. Some of the massive buildings have been torn down for housing. Bishop Ranch started in the 70’s when hardly anyone lived out here in the San Ramon Valley. BART parking lot up in Concord is still pretty much deserted. All those cars belonged to people going over the S.F. in the early morning but not anymore. BART hurting big time these last 3 years.
Your photo of the power company building reminds me of the changes in the names and logos of this company. When we first moved to Virginia in 1979, the name was VEPCO (for Virginia Electric and Power Company). It rhymed with PEPCO (Potomac Electric Power Company) in the MD suburbs of Washington, DC.
Then the company was rebranded as Virginia Power in 1980. Two decades later after expansion and acquisitions, the company became Dominion Power, followed by Dominion Energy in 2017.
Current logo is pictured.
All of those name and logo changes for a utility company are sort of a head-scratcher. When most people still just call it “the power company.” Branding consultants have made lots of money there.
Here’s the building now, with the Dominion Energy sign out front. And despite rising real estate costs, this will probably be around for a while because in back of this building is a several-acre storage area for power poles and related equipment. Virtually impossible to find new space for that sort of use in Northern Va. these days.
I remember when VEPCO changed to Virginia Power. It caused a problem for a lady in northern Virginia by the name of Virginia Power. Apparently the 411 operators using a new computer generated phone number request system began giving out her phone number when callers requested the phone number for Virginia Power!
When the area was hit by big storms, her phone would ring non-stop for days! I have a vivid memory of a CBS local station [channel 9] interviewing Mrs Power, with her phone unplugged. When the reporter plugged the cord into the phone, it would immediately ring!
I seem to recall there was a lawsuit involved, but don’t know the results.
As for the hilarious video of the 2 teens trying to figure out how to use a rotary phone, it reminded me of when I showed a young 14 year old family relative my 1915 Victor phonograph. Her immediate response was that it sounded terrible. She couldn’t believe it didn’t have an electric motor, battery, or other power source, and it had to be manually wound with a crank EVERY time I played a record. And that was after I explained how a record groove works!
While one part of me truly hates that some of our great old companies and traditions are being torn away, at least the state of New Jersey is not rebuilding some of the old sites when the buildings are torn down. I noticed several shots of empty land with just grass and trees where the old buildings once stood. Now if they’re going to leave the land alone that way, fine, but if they’re going to rebuild on it, I say “NO”. Just wish they’d quit building so much down here in Texas. Gotten to be NYC of the 21st century. I’m tired of all the people, cars and construction here.
You know you’re getting old indeed. My long term employer had a building in a light industrial area, we engineers at work bemoaned that the businesses that built or manufactured things were gradually replaced with housing and retail. Last year we left our office/workshop building for leased “fancy” office space, completing my transition from machinery guy to paperwork guy.
As another example, this view going into Toronto is entirely different than it was 30 years ago. With the exception of the CN tower, industrial areas and single homes have been replaced by condo towers. No there’s nowhere to work, and a bunch of people living there. Where do they all work??
Sadly no sweet 58 Ford in that scene either 😉
“Where do they all work??”
From home, 😉
Same spot, 2007
Wow – that’s a remarkably quick transformation.
I have started noticing recently (and far too late) the effects of how our country/economy has made efficiency the primary metric for measuring everything. The result has been a steady process of consolidation where companies become divisions of larger companies, and that both the divisions and entire companies are bought and sold like a big game of Monopoly. Every city has lost at least one major company headquarters though this process. Your pictures of old HQ buildings being razed seems to document this well.
I have seen the same thing here. One of my college age jobs was working for a potato chip company in Fort Wayne. Seyfert Foods built a big, sprawling factory in one of those industrial parks, complete with the huge sprawling lawn. By the time I was there, the Seyfert family had just sold out to Borden Foods. Within about another decade, that plant (which I always considered so modern) was closed and (I believe) torn down. Banks, insurance companies, consumer products companies, all of them have been eaten by much bigger fish until I am having trouble thinking of a locally owned/locally headquartered bank or insurer.
Back in 80’s, Chicago’s Jay’s Potato Chips company was considered a ‘good place to work’, and seemed steady. Had a plant near the Ford Assembly facility.
2007, years later, company went bankrupt, and plant closed. Assets sold to Snyder-Lance food company and only warehouse remains, with production moved elsewhere.
It’s a contrast to Germany and Austria, where medium size companies (“Mittelstandt”) are very common and typically have been in the ownership of the same families for long periods of time, sometimes going back 100-150 years. And these companies tend to be located in small/smaller towns that are heavily dependent on them.
These companies typically specialize in one type/area of product, and because they constantly reinvest to improve that, they have been able to withstand cheaper competition from places like China, even though the Chinese have often copied their technology. The focus on quality and trust with their clients has allowed them to thrive. And they hardly ever sell. The family owners feel a sense of duty to their employees and their towns, and place that ahead of maximizing income from a sale or consolidation. They’re in it for the long haul, and it works for them. These companies typically dominate their categories, due to their relentless focus on constantly improving the product.
Germany has significantly more of these middle-sized companies than the US, despite being a much smaller country, and its share of large conglomerates is relatively much lower. The same applies to Austria, on a relative basis.
There’s something about the mind set in these two countries that differs distinctly from the Anglo capitalist mind set. I can feel it in myself too; I decided years ago not to leverage my rental properties into buying more of them, as is the normal recommended approach. This allows me to keep directly involved in the 14 units I have, screen tenants, and have a very good relationship with all of them. Costs are low, which means I can also keep rents a bit lower than others. It’s all very stable and low stress, and I don’t really want to keep growing for the sake of growing.
Meanwhile, Wall Street has gotten into rental houses with a vengeance, nickle and diming tenants with fees and aggressive rent increases.
I do not doubt that there are differences in history and culture at play, but I would also suspect that there are some significant differences in the legal, taxation, and regulatory mechanisms of both countries. We would do well to study how Germany gets these plentiful medium-sized businesses and keeps them stable.
I’ve read a number of in-depth articles about this, including one at Bloomberg recently. None of them had any references to legal, taxation or regulatory mechanisms. What would they be?
It’s just a reflection of a different culture. If you’ve not been exposed to it, then I can see why you might think that.
It’s a different flavor of capitalism.
The whole notion of social safety nets stems from this part of the world, and not just governmental one. Companies/firms felt a deeper long-term connection and responsibility to their workers.
Keep in mind that every corporation in Germany has mandated worker representation on its governing board. That applies to the large corporate entities, but not to family-owned ones, but they also tend to reflect the same values, if not more so.
It’s just…different.
The differences cannot possibly be restricted to culture alone. Otherwise, we would see no difference between North and South Korea. An even better example would be East and West Germany in the four decades after WWII. You even mention mandated worker representation on corporate boards – that requirement was no doubt informed by culture, but it is also an example of a differing legal environments.
The Bloomberg article is interesting, but I see it as little more than a surface-level dip into some particular examples of companies.
For contrast, here is an in-depth look at the differences in corporate legal and governance environments of both countries. (https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1001&context=fisch_2016). (Be patient, it takes a minute to load). The nub is that German corporate governance requires/permits structures that encourage stability while the American system encourages maximum freedom and individuality and results in a system that rewards (my words) short term thinking.
These differences were undoubtedly influenced by cultural factors, but they have also created two distinct environments for how corporations operate. I am not suggesting that you can plop one country’s legal and taxation structures into another country and get duplicate results, but I am saying that such changes would push things in directions closer to the source country. While there are significant differences in the histories and cultures of different parts of the world, there are also significant parts of human nature that are universal. The secret is encouraging the good parts and discouraging the bad within the culture you have.
Our laws inherently reflect our culture, unless we live in a very undemocratic society.
No need for me to read that treatise; I’m quite familiar with the corporate board differences. The key difference is that the German system is based on the concept of stakeholder corporatism; the Angla-American neo-liberal one on shareholder corporatism. Stakeholder values were once much more prevalent in the US too, reflecting the post-Depression social contract, that we’re all in it together. This has of course been deeply eroded since the rise of the neo-liberal order since Reagan, although aspects started earlier already.
The German system is based on the deep cultural values that fruits of commerce is for the benefit of the whole society, not just the shareholders. The inevitable consequence is of course the large gap in income disparity between the two systems.
And it’s not that these Mittlestand companies can’t or couldn’t be bought by larger and/or international conglomerates. It does happen; Carrier is buying a German firm that makes heat pumps. But there is an inherent tendency to resist that on the ownership level.
A small but key difference: last time we were in Innsbruck, we spent a few days in an old small hotel that’s been in the same family for over 100 years. The level of competence and service (given that it was also quite cheap) was completely different, as a number of those working there were family members. I could go on…as I said, it’s different.
A good recent article at Bloomberg:
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/features/2023-04-11/germany-s-economic-future-depends-on-its-non-fortune-500-companies?srnd=premium&sref=LoTvRBZZ
Yes, it’s a lot to do with the careful-with-money, afraid-of-inflation and long-termist German mindset. Most Mittelstand AGs are largely owned one bank plus the family. A classic example would be the Quandts and Deutsche Bank, who were able to rescue BMW after the “accounting error” was discovered. Carl FW Borgward did not have a ‘captive’ bank (he distrusted them as much as I do) and so he was despised as an upstart and had no-one to help him.
Sadly, there appear to be Globalist movements to drive that German business model to the wall, in favour of crony-corporatism.
Businesses do have a life-cycle too – a brilliant, hungry entrepreneur creates something new, his children inherit a thriving business, but another upstart replaces it with something new and his grandkids are forced to sell out – invariably to Global Consolidated INC…
You will see more of those ‘fifteen-minute city’ retail/residential units springing up everywhere – we have them in the UK too. There was a bit of a furore over that in Holland, recently.
Not far from me in North London, we had the electrical/electronic hub of the UK. Many big businesses started there (Carl Gstettner’s copying machines, Thorn EMI TVs, Edison/Swan lamps…I could go on, but they didn’t and are all sprawling flats (apartments) now. Johnson Matthey (you might have heard of them!) still have their original refining plant.
Oh, and Lotus, of course…my mother was a temporary PA to ACBC at Cheshunt, because his real PA was already re-located to Hethel, Norfolk.
Point is, I remember all of these North London businesses as a kid, but I’m now 60…does make one feel old, sometimes.
It’s even more cynical than that. Having seen a few mergers in my business (law), I can tell you that a fair number are done for the purpose of enriching a relatively few individuals, who get big payouts for having done the merger, and then usually are gone within a few years. Of course, that’s not the stated reason for the merger – usually it’s “synergies” which do not happen, and the surviving company (having shed workers in the meantime) is now weaker due to having taken on debt to finance the merger. One less company, fewer workers, no real benefits and a few people walking away with big paydays. The shareholders may benefit but usually a merger bump in securities is relatively short-lived. It’s a shame, really.
Too true.
We used to call them asset-strippers back in the ’70s/80s (looking at you, Hanson Trust…), but it’s become much more sophisticated than that since.
Nice work! Appreciate the time you invested.
I grew up in Los Angeles in the 60’s and 70’s and escaped in the 90’s and recall some of the businesses you listed having branch locations in LA. A few were my clients and I watched them go the way of the wrecking ball or morph into an acquiring company. Unsettling at the time but became almost normal.
This strikes so close to home. Living in the same community for all of my life, I have seen it grow from a small, friendly, middle class Town. Originally growth was good. We had several local family owned manufacturing companies, numerous stores selling just about everything you could want, and many beautiful homes (in various price ranges). The town motto was A Proud Heritage, A Prominent Future. Then we got a mayor and rubber stamp council determined that everything must be UP scale. So many significant structures have been destroyed, one long term manufacturer has shutdown, another has moved to a nearby community. We only have Specialty shops, law offices, expensive restaurants in our central business district. No more family restaurants, stores. Even one major bank has closed its main office 🏬 and moved it to a less convenient location! A couple of properties using Historic buildings are also being targeted at the upper crust. We have become a Country Club City. The attitude is If you can’t afford to live here, go somewhere else. Between the city and the local University, hundreds of acres of vacant land, parks, and other TAX EXEMPT properties have caused property taxes to rise on the middle class. And I forgot to mention health care facilities! We had a county owned hospital in town. Due to some questionable actions by the board, it was sold to a corporate group and moved out of the city! For years a small group of us spend many hours and much energy attending city meetings asking for moderation to NO avail. There is a ReDestruction Commission which favors the CHOSEN FEW construction companies. Like the old song, PAVE 🎵PARADISE 🎵 to put 🎵up a🎶 PARKING 🎵 LOT🎶 . 😔. 😠 😡 😤
Totally agree with you. The wealthiest elites are the ones destroying our country.
Ronald Reagan’s tenure as the 40th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 1981, and ended on January 20, 1989.
We have friends who are natives of Schveningen-Villengen (sp?) near the Black Forest who own one of these small “fabriks” a machine shop that makes metal parts for Braun or Krupps, forget which. Started by the grandfather post WWII (he was an Allied prisoner for 2 yrs) and now run by the sons and grandsons, (none of the female family is involved, it is sort of patriarchal). They employ 30-40 people and are very involved and proud of their company. Wish the US followed this model instead of the “Anglo/American Predatory Capitalism” model as the French like to call it, with its resulting prosperity divide. The Europeans also don’t seem so quick to tear down perfectly good buildings so quickly, avoiding much of our resulting sprawl and ugliness. The book “The Geography of Nowhere” by Jim Kunstler is a perfect summation of the problem.
Over the years (I/m 79) I have been through many of the are was that Steve has written about to us. Excellent article, Steve! Sad realities as described by Rick. I try to patronize Mom and Pop stores and businesses so that they do not die. We need them. They are the backbone of a good economy (Economics Major talking). One wonders why buildings are razed and not repurposed. I frequently went to The Nabisco Headquarters in East Hanover, NJ. I also learned how to get there via back roads from I-80 to avoid traffic backups. This enabled me to see lovely homes aa a portion of the meandering Passaic River. Great memories from you, Steve!
Great write-up. Getting old is certainly a bitch but it beats the alternative!
“Creative Destruction”, Joseph Schumpeter, the essence of capitalist renewal.
Corporate takeovers and consolidation
Private equity debt schemes
Tax policy
Because our economy is built upon consumption, retail was way overbuilt. Ten years ago we had TEN times the retail space per capita of any other advanced economy. (Look it up).
As residential infrastructure–“places to live”–have morphed over the last 40 years into “places to make money” (housing as “investment”) the resulting housing crisis has encouraged redevelopment of commerce into housing (at prices, of course, that the victims cannot afford).
And so it goes . . . . .
Re: The Warner Lambert pic…..at least they left the flag poles there.
I know that area well – I worked for WMTR in Cedar Knolls for years, and would schlepp up 287 every Friday night to do a doo wop show from 7P to Midnight. The one article notes WDHA was doing quadraphonic broadcasting…that fizzled out. As did the C-QUAM AM Stereo that WMTR tried in the 80’s.
Never ceases to amaze me how some places change in what feels like the blink of an eye, while others feel frozen in time. Eastern Long Island is one of those “frozen in time” places…check out the Modern Snack Bar if you love old neon. One of the best signs around, and the food inside is amazing too.
We have one landline phone in our house – it’s a turqioise Princess phone…and I wanted one with a Jersey area code. Love having a “New Jersey Bell” piece of property hooked up in the house. Thank you Bell Labs for all the innovations over the years…
I feel the same way driving around Central NJ – Route 33 used to be almost nothing but farmland between the NJTP and Freehold back when my family moved down from Manville in ’97. Now? Almost all developed. At least there’s a Wawa nearby instead of having to use the always crowded one by Great Adventure….
Thanks for the memories, and the stories!
As home to Bell Labs, northern NJ was assigned the “first” area code, 201. And NYC was assigned a code that was easy and quick to dial on a rotary phone, 212.
If you mean the phone pictured it’s of course not a Princess but the standard Bell 500 desk phone. Are there any phone services that still understand the clicks of a dial or non-tones but clicks generating pushbutton phones that were available for a while? I thought the last clicks understanding landline service recently dropped the clicks understanding function. Clicks were how they worked when exchanges were mechanical and eventually the electronic ones had (I assume) a click to tones translator.
My Verizon FiOS VOIP handles pulse dialing fine, as well as DTMF (TouchTone) dialing. Grandstream VOIP adapters have the pulse profile in them as well (I program them as part of my side gig).
It is Bell 500, not a Princess – my mistake.
Excellent article Stephen, and clearly a subject that resonates with many. Me too.
As many have said, the tear it down when it’s still functional movement seems to exist everywhere…and the churn in companies letting go of locations due to merger, acquisition, consolidation, relocation is a whole other yet related matter. I’m intrigued by what Paul says about companies in smaller German cities; and overall applaud the idea of keeping business at a scale where everyone has the opportunity for success, but it’s still possible to know who the “everyone” is. I do the same in my own business.
I do often feel fortunate to live in a part of the country – New England – where there seems to be somewhat greater interest than in other parts of the country in preserving the look and feel of both the built and natural landscape. This is far from a nirvana of historic preservation, but still there’s often considerable interest in what things look like and how changes impact inhabitants. Maybe this is a more recent phenomenon (e.g., Boston was very nearly destroyed by Interstate highways in the 1950s/60s), but every time I go down the Atlantic seaboard and see what has been done to areas south of NYC and even worse from say DC further south, I cringe. The acres of pavement and mulch for parking lots, housing developments, and office parks that have taken over the farmland that I recall being there in my youth is shocking to me…and makes me glad that I live somewhere where land is much harder to build upon and the population is slowly shrinking instead of rapidly growing.
My office is in a rehabbed rope factory from the late 19th century. Across the street is a much larger office complex that was a woolen mill starting in the 1850s until the 1960s. My office before that was in a rehabbed textile mill from the early-mid 19th century. These are just a few examples of industrial/commercial spaces that have been rebuilt instead of leveled and covered with new boxes over and over again. This is a common arrangement in most New England cities. Most of which in their centers still look much like they have for 100 years or more. And it sure beats tearing down and rebuilding stuff that is less than 50 years old. In my opinion at least.
The historical aspects, and older architecture, are why my wife and I road trip thru New England every summer, with a few days spent on Cape Cod. Most places still have a quaint feel to them, and we love seeing how everything is taken care of.
Not to mention the great food!
Parking in downtown Boston is tight given our fleet of Cadillacs & Buicks, but we manage.
In the western Suburbs of St. Louis, where I grew up, so much has been removed and or replaced. old cloverleaf intersections are now flying ramp directional or diamond. Every school I attended form Elementary through High school is gone, sites of first jobs are gone. The huge shopping plaza is mostly razed and rebuilt as government agencies and small shops. The large park I knew and at the time seemed so rural is now surrounded by development, including an elevated portion of freeway as it comes off the ridge and across the Missour River flood plain.The entire Mid Century Modern neighborhood I knew and lived in my adolescence is now wildland. As a friend called it when we visited. “The tour of places no longer there.” It is true, You can’t go home again, particularly if there is no longer there.
Had to check the net, but found that Bowcraft on 22 had closed in 2018 and was plowed under for residential development.
Also – the current Mondelez site in E Hanover on Deforest and River Rd. (maybe Kraft BITD) – wasn’t that a sledding hill years ago – now fully fenced off?
Burroughs-Wellcome building in Research Triangle Park in North Carolina 1972-2021.
Interior
2021
By then the company that had bought the building years before had torn down a large extension and let the rest deteriorate until they could claim it would cost too much to renovate plus I assume less demand for that kind of space. Some preservationist opposition but they lost.
Ah man…I remember when that building was built. My family had just moved to Raleigh and my dad had taken a job in the NC State Planning Office. RTP was the showcase of modernity, and a typical Sunday was spent driving around looking at the buildings like that going up. That Burroughs-Wellcome building was something else.
Wow – I can’t believe that building was torn down. When I lived there, some of those buildings were almost like tourist attractions.
Back in the late 1990s, I worked briefly as a lab technician in Philadelphia. Most of the researchers there were foreign, and I remember mentioning to one visiting researcher, who was Japanese, that I was moving to North Carolina. He said, “I’ve heard of North Carolina. Is that near the Research Triangle Park?”
What’s interesting to me is how immediate the teardown process happens now a days, in the 90s and even into the 2000s I remember when I’d go into Chicago I’d see a bunch of the really old abandoned brick industrial buildings still standing probably 20 or more years after the companies that occupied them left, enough time for renovating or repurposing some of them. But it seems like demolition now happens almost the second after they leave, and not even necessarily to clear the space for new development to replace it as seen here.
I know this area very well. I was the IBM Office Products sales representative for all of this territory from 1963 to 1973.
P.S. There is more IBM Office Products division anymore.
Did you mean “more” or “no more”?
Quick demolition gets the building off the tax rolls and cuts the tax bill. Saving old construction has its plusses but in many/most cases new building are hugely more energy efficient and are much better for the users.
Your father was extremely fortunate to work at Bell Labs. I hope he enjoyed it. Losing Bell Labs was a huge tragedy for the entire country, not just New Jersey
As a New Yorker I tried to avoid New Jersey but I saw the same thing across the river in Westchester County where downtown White Plains has changed out of all recognition since the early 70s, with the train station and old downtown bulldozed for “urban renwal”, 60s stores turned into 90s malls turned into something else entirely and various suburban corporate headquarters changing hands and often uses. I also see it across the country, When we moved ot Beaverton Oregon in 1994 the Viewmaster factory was still in operation and Powell’s Book’s had a branch in a nearby building, then it got turned into a shopping center to complement the existing 1980s office buildings and Powell’s moved into the former GI Joe’s space in the heavily remodeled Beaverton Mall/Cedar Hills Crossing, which was originally a small airport. The shift has occasionally produced creative reuse as in the case of the Hillsboro Public Library moving from a former supermarket to a vacant office building. I’m curious to see how the nearby Washington Square Mall evolves now that Sears closed.
Too bad about avoiding the great Garden State. Perhaps you could have learned the humility that branching out brings.
It was really neat to read an article focusing on an area that I know quite well. I lived in that neck of the woods (Cedar Knolls, Denville, Randolph) for a good part of the early 90s, and in a previous career servicing photocopiers and other office equipment for a company with many large corporate and governmental accounts, I had spent a decent amount of time inside at least a few of the locations that you have highlighted here (Bell Labs, Varityper, Sandoz/Novartis, and several operations in Gatehall all come to mind). I’m still close enough to that area to be able to occasionally drive through it from time to time, and it is indeed amazing how much the corporate landscape has changed in a relatively short time span. Interestingly, for the longest time, we were certain that Novartis would one day swallow up the bowling center that is right next door on Route 10. Having also bowled and worked there for a time, we would often hear of rumors that the center would eventually be bought out, as it seemed that Novartis had been consistently expanding and building around the side and back of the alleys… but it looks like the lanes remain in business, and have managed to outlast the pharma giant. Thanks again for a very-well constructed piece, and also for lots of great memories.
Interesting past and present contrast. Spring 1971 westbound on the Queensway in Ottawa, Canada. And the same interchange, midday in July 2020. Early in the pandemic.
Amen. (Doooooon’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone…
…they paved paradise; put up a parking lot!)
Excellent article, Stephen! You along with Eric703 and Jeff Sun have become the most prominent authors of car-adjacent stories on this site, broadening the reach of CC.
Perhaps someone can explain the fairly recent phenomenon in the Midwest of building high-end condos and apartments in the parking lots of dying shopping malls. I understand buying a dying mall for relatively cheap and then selling the parking lot space to developers for a nice profit. What I don’t understand is who on earth buys an expensive condo surrounded by a sea of asphalt next to a dying mall? Disused malls are huge eyesores and suffer from protracted downward spirals of failed attempts to revitalize them. It just makes no sense to me.
Wow. This article really makes clear to me how much time has passed since I left home as a 19-year-old. Growing up in Maplewood, my first real job was as a flower delivery driver (full-length E-150 w’ 300 six!). I had Hagstrom maps to guide me through Essex, Morris, Union counties…I passed so many of these buildings so many times. I remember coming home once in maybe ‘03 and seeing that River Rd had been so incredibly built up with subdivisions, and had a dream the other day about Nettie Ochs’ cider mill, now nearly 15 years gone. It really was a different time. I’ve just moved back to Brooklyn after nearly a decade in the Bay, and it astounds me how much here is truly unchanged.
Didn’t work in New Jersey, but 40 years ago (before the divestiture) my first job out of school was for the Bell System, I worked at the Merrimack Valley Works in North Andover (they had a small Bell Labs location there). That was a large location, built in the 50’s but is no longer used for that purpose. Almost to the month, I left in May 1983, for Austin, Tx where I worked for IBM, retiring 7 years ago. IBM only established the site in 1967, but they are all but gone now, the large sprawling site was bought by a retail developer (I think Simon properties) and now high-rise buildings (maybe 14 floors) and outdoor shopping plus apartments and hotels dominate the area. One of my ex-co-workers still works there, and when I go to pick him up for lunch, he has to brief me on the best way to get to the building I used to go to work in daily…there’s lots of construction, and they built a high-rise building right in the middle of the road that I used to drive on to get to work…used to be lots of surface parking, now almost all parking garages due to the density. It’s become a desirable place for people living in apartments, though when he was alive I used to tease my Father, telling him I was going to rent him an apartment there with a view of the building he used to work in…he would take the cue and make an ugly face…to him it was akin to having a view of a garbage dump. One of the buildings I used to work in for a time became a cooking school, something I couldn’t come to terms with, knowing the history of the building, which was used for manufacturing circuit boards, with lots of chemicals that would hardly be associated with a place you now prepare food.
I’m almost 50 years out of high school, and it is also amazing to me that so few of the schools I went to still exist (at least in the form I knew them). We moved around a lot, so for instance I attended 2 different high schools (1 exists, 1 doesn’t) middle school (none still exists), but the parochial school I attended 1st grade only in 60 years ago does still exist. Some of the buildings were torn down, but most were re-tasked to something else, bought by another entity (even public schools now private building). The high school I started in moved to another town in the 70’s then moved back to the same location I’d gone to, but they tore down the original building and built a more modern one (the one I attended, built in the 50’s didn’t have air conditioning, though in northern Virginia we had a few days back then they called off school due to it being to warm)…