Pioneer Works
159 Pioneer Street | also 156 King Street, 149 Pioneer Street | Red Hook | built 1866
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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.
- 1866
Pioneer Iron Works is built, and Pioneer Street is later named for it
The red brick Pioneer Iron Works was built in 1866 and owned by Alexander Bass, a Caribbean sugar magnate. His factory turned out steamrollers, railroad tracks and sugar-refining machinery for Cuba and other islands. It became a local landmark, and Pioneer Street was named for it. The works stayed in use through World War II and served as a warehouse for decades afterward.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1881
Fire burns the ironworks to the ground and it is rebuilt
The Pioneer Iron Works building, put up in 1866 a few blocks from the Red Hook piers, was destroyed by fire in 1881 and rebuilt soon afterward. It had been built as a factory for large machines, among them railroad tracks and equipment for sugar plantations.
“The building was burned to the ground by a fire in 1881 and rebuilt shortly thereafter…”
Source: Wikipedia
- 2011
Artist Dustin Yellin buys the former ironworks building for $3.7 million
Artist Dustin Yellin bought the large brick building in 2011 for $3.7 million. His cousin Gabriel Florenz became founding artistic director, and Sam Trimble was lead architect for a renovation that added 100 windows. Yellin first called the space Intercourse, and it opened to the public in 2012.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2013
After Hurricane Sandy floods the new arts space, it reopens as Pioneer Works
Months after the first renovation was largely finished, Hurricane Sandy put five feet of water into the building, badly damaging the ground floor and forcing reconstruction to start over. After cleanup and repairs the space reopened in 2013 under the name Pioneer Works.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2014
Astrophysicist Janna Levin joins as founding director of sciences
Janna Levin, an astrophysicist at Columbia University and an author, became Pioneer Works' Founding Director of Sciences in 2014. Its science programs include a Scientific Controversies series, whose guests have included Nobel laureate Rainer Weiss and biologist Richard Dawkins.
“In 2014, Janna Levin, a Columbia University astrophysicist and author, joined as the organization's Founding Director of Sciences…”
Source: Wikipedia
- 2019
A Dutch studio's industrial installation turns Pioneer Works back into a factory
On March 1, 2019, Atelier Van Lieshout, a Rotterdam studio led by Joep Van Lieshout, opened an installation called The CryptoFuturist and The New Tribal Labyrinth. It referenced factories and the Industrial Revolution, pairing a furnace sculpture with a press that crushed objects daily, and temporarily turned the space back into the factory it once was. It was the studio's largest US show. Gabriel Florenz and Natalie Kovacs curated it, and it ran through April 14.
Source: brownstoner.com
Further reading
- Pioneer WorksWikipedia
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