American Bank Note Company Printing Plant
1201 Lafayette Avenue | also 894 Garrison Avenue, 888 Garrison Avenue, 1239 Lafayette Avenue | Hunts Point | built 1910
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The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.
Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1908
American Bank Note buys former Faile estate land for a Bronx printing plant
The securities printer closed its purchase of 123 lots from the George F. Johnson's Sons Company on November 20, 1908, land that had belonged to tea merchant Edward G. Faile's estate. The company chose Hunts Point partly for the New Haven Railroad line, which would carry about 10,000 tons of paper and supplies a year. The project was budgeted at more than $2 million.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1911
A fortress-like plant with a crenellated tower opens in Hunts Point
Kirby, Petit & Green finished the plant in 1911 with an arsenal-like exterior: a crenellated central tower, massive brick piers forming multi-story arcades, and pointed-arch Gothic windows. Saw-tooth roofs and broad industrial windows lit the pressrooms and the engravers' fine work, and every press ran on its own electric motor, the most advanced drive of the day.
- 1958
The chief engraver of 46 years is the son of one of the company's official counterfeiters
Will Ford, the plant's chief engraver in 1958, had worked for American Bank Note for 46 years. The company employed in-house counterfeiters who tried to copy its own products from a locked office in the tower, so that better engraving, paper or ink could be added when they succeeded. Ford's father, William F. Ford, was one of those official counterfeiters.
“In 1958, the chief engraver was Will Ford, who had been with the company for 46 years.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1963
Engravers fill stock certificates with bare-chested figures to foil forgers
The company's engravers served apprenticeships of ten years or more, and some came from families in the trade for three or four generations. In 1963 there were 33 of them on staff. Their house style ran to folded robes and half-naked figures because stock exchange rules required certificates to show a human figure with visible skin, which was considered the hardest thing for counterfeiters to copy.
“In 1963, there were 33 engravers on staff…”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1977
An FALN bomb blows out windows at the Lafayette Avenue entrance
The Puerto Rican group FALN set off a bomb near the Lafayette Avenue entrance on March 20, 1977, breaking windows as high as the fourth floor. The group picked the plant because it printed money for Latin American countries. The next day a local man drove up while police combed the rubble, claimed to be carrying a hand grenade and let it fall. It was a harmless practice device.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1984
American Bank Note moves its printing to Rockland County
In 1984 the company moved its presses to a newer, more secure plant in Rockland County after more than seven decades in Hunts Point, employing about 500 people at the time. One draw upstate was a three percent discount on its huge electric bills. The building then became the Bronx Apparel Center for garment makers.
- 1998
The Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance opens a 70-seat stage in the plant
In 1998 the Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance made its first home here, turning vacant space into a 70-seat venue for performances and workshops that hosted Arthur Aviles Typical Theatre. The neighborhood group The Point brokered the deal, recruiting local artists to rent small studios in exchange for donated space for the dance company.
“The Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance had their first home in the complex in 1998, converting a previously vacant area into a 70-seat space…”
Source: Wikipedia
- 2002
Lady Pink leads women graffiti artists in an anti-war mural on the Barretto Street wall
In 2002 the graffiti artist Lady Pink organized a group of women painters to cover a brick wall along the property's Barretto Street edge with an anti-war mural. The group came back to the wall for several years, until the site's new owners tore it down in 2013.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2008
The printing plant is designated a New York City landmark
The Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the plant on February 5, 2008, after a January hearing where the owners, the Municipal Art Society and the Historic Districts Council spoke in favor. Bronx Community Board 2 asked for more time at the hearing and later sent a letter of support. The commission had first held hearings on the site in 1992.
Further reading
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