In the late 1860s, Brooklynite Thomas Adams carried out a series of experiments with chicle, which is extracted from Mexican Sapota trees, hoping he could make the rubber-like substance into toys, boots, or bicycle tires. The trials were a failure. He was just about to throw the chicle into the East River when he remembered that his boss, who was the ex-dictator of Mexico, regularly chewed it. Experimenting by adding sugar, he created a better-tasting gum than any other available at that time. This post can be viewed in its original format at: https://www.bklynlibrary.org/blog/2011/09/07/chewing-gum-king.

Now the headquarters of the New York City School Construction Authority, this six-story flat-slab concrete factory building was built by the American Chicle Company in 1919 as part of the Degnon Terminal industrial park. Raw chicle was unloaded onsite via a direct railway connection, brought to the top floor for spraying to keep moist, then moved by gravity conveyors to each floor for chewing gum production. The building’s façade is dominated by a two-story central tower, but was famous for its three large rooftop signs that once advertised “Dentyne,” “Adams Black Jack,” and “Chiclets” to passing commuters on the Long Island Rail Road. At the pedestrian level, the façade is enlivened at the second story of each pier by colorful tile work with designs featuring a raised floral motif surrounding a geometric diamond pattern. In 1976, an explosion that killed one worker marked the start of a decline that ultimately led the factory to close its doors and lay off 1,600 employees in 1981.

American Chicle Company ca. 1921 The American Chicle Company was the fifth major industry to move into the Degnon Terminal. A six-story flat-slab concrete factory housing 13 acres of floor area, the building occupied a 200-by-600-foot site that comprised about sixty city lots. Through an opening on the rear end of the building at the first story, two train tracks entered a central courtyard for freight loading and unloading of raw chicle, which was brought to the top floor via elevators and automatic conveyors, sprayed to stay moist, then moved by gravity conveyors down to each level for chewing gum production. In a paternalistic gesture to the workers, the owner, Thomas Adams (whose name still identifies the building's watertower), provided worker amenities such as dining rooms, a kitchen, and a rooftop recreation space.

The westernmost portion of Queens remained predominantly rural and undeveloped until around 1870, when Long Island City was incorporated from the nascent industrial communities of Astoria, Blissville, Hunters Point and Ravenswood. The start of this area’s growth began when the Long Island Rail Road moved its main terminus from Downtown Brooklyn to the East River waterfront in Hunters Point in 1861. A decade later, the Steinway piano factory opened a new industrial complex and worker settlement in nearby Astoria, stimulating growth and establishment of infrastructure in the area. As Long Island City grew to become a regional transportation and population center, the Queens County seat was moved from Clowesville (in present-day Nassau County) west to Long Island City around 1874. In the last quarter of the 19th century, its waterfront became home to oil refineries, lumber yards, factories and chemical plants, while the city’s population tripled from 15,609 in 1875 to 48,272 in 1900. After Queens was consolidated into Greater New York City in 1898, Long Island City’s connections to Manhattan were strengthened with the completion of the Queensboro Bridge in 1909. The elevated railway trains, trolleys, automobiles and pedestrians travelling across the bridge all converged at the new “Queensboro Bridge Plaza,” now known as Queens Plaza, which soon supplanted the rail yards of Hunters Point as the gateway to Queens. Transportation was further improved with the construction of the East River Tunnels and Sunnyside Yards in 1910, which provided Long Island Rail Road trains with a direct connection to Manhattan, as well as with the completion of new subway lines to Astoria and Corona by 1917. Banks and manufacturing firms soon gravitated towards this new central plaza, which became famous for the large electric signs that dotted the rooftops of its buildings, advertising products like Swingline Staplers, Chiclets and Pepsi Cola to travelers passing through. Hunters Point, on the other hand, saw its population peak in 1905 before starting a slow decline, becoming a primarily industrial area with the old brownstones and institutional buildings sitting in the shadow of the elevated trains rumbling past. By the post-World War II era, shifts in transportation, industry and demographics spelled the end of Long Island City’s role as the center of Queens. Deindustrialization left many factories shuttered and the waterfront underutilized, while Queens’ population growth and commercial activity was primarily concentrated farther east in the borough’s more suburban neighborhoods. However, the empty warehouses, with open floor plans and ample lighting, prompted artists to move across the river as early as the 1960s, which led to the founding of institutions like the Noguchi Museum and P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Centre to secure their legacy. By the 1990s, corporations, including Citibank and MetLife, were moving to Long Island City in search of affordable office space and good transit connections, converting industrial buildings or building new structures like One Court Square, the tallest building in New York outside of Manhattan. Residential development along the waterfront began with the 1997 completion of the 42-story Citylights building, the first of several luxury residential towers along the East River that now vie for the best views of the midtown skyline. Although the neighborhood is in the midst of a large-scale transformation as development spreads outward from the subway stations and the waterfront, remnants of Long Island City’s past anchor this dynamic place to its roots and serve to keep its history alive, making it an appealing place to both live and work.