The American Bank Note Company Printing Plant is endearingly referred to as the "Penny Plant" by locals. According to its landmark designation, it was "built at a time when industrial engineering was expressed in the design of industrial buildings." The arsenal-like quality of the three-building complex "embodies a sense of strength and efficiency."

American Bank Note Company Printing Plant ca. 1925 Squeezed out of lower Manhattan by rising land prices and the need to expand and modernize its production line, in 1909 The American Bank Note Company began construction of a new plant in the Hunts Point section of the Bronx designed by Kirby, Petit & Green. Completed in 1911, the steel-framed, T-shaped building was organized along the sloped site and divided into two wings. A narrow five-story building with a crenellated tower containing the engraving and lithography departments fronted Lafayette Avenue, while the printing presses were housed in a larger interior three-story rear building with sawtooth skylights that flooded the spaces with glare-free northern light. Massive brick piers articulate the street façade, contributing to the building's fortress-like character. Two thousand employees worked in the factory which was considered the most advanced printing plant of the time. The building was designated a New York City landmark in 2009 and will be renovated for mixed office and retail uses.

2020 marks HDC's 50th anniversary! To celebrate 50 years of preserving history, we've picked out 10 sites (two from each borough) to highlight. The sites selected highlight the diverse and varied types of buildings and structures that HDC works to honor and promote.

Edward G. Faile Mansion, 1908. Edward Faile was a wealthy tea and sugar importer who constructed a massive mansion in 1832. The larger estate had been in his family since prior to the Revolutionary War and included other structures that dated to that century. Called "Woodside" the home was fronted with massive Doric columns and surrounded by forest woods. A late 19th century account of the home also noted three other random but specific features of the estate: a flock of peacocks, a large Cedar of Lebanon tree, and two sturdy wooden chairs that supposedly came over on the Mayflower. Faile died in 1870 and his family continued to reside in the home until the 20th century. In 1908, the American Bank Note Company purchased the large estate. The homes on the tract were soon after razed. Today the massive American Bank Note Company occupies the land that once included the stone mansion.

American Bank Note Co.'s Plant, ca. 1911. The American Bank Note Company was incorporated in 1858 (though its history dates back to the 1790s and the work of engraver Joseph Perkins). For the rest of the 19th century it was the nation's most prominent printing and engraving company, producing bank notes, postage and revenue stamps, bonds, stock certificates, checks drafts and letters of credit for governments and institutions. American Bank Note produced American currency from 1858 to 1879 and even made Confederate money for a year or so during the Civil War. In 1911, they built this five-story brick plant in the Bronx, designed by Kirby, Petit & Green, a firm who were known for other printing facilities including the plant that produced the San Francisco Examiner. The Gothic, fortress-like character of the building with its large and complete frontage of Lafayette Avenue from Tiffany to Barretto Streets makes it an imposing structure in this neighborhood. The American Bank Note Plant moved out of this building in 1986 (to a modern facility in Rockland County) and in the ensuing decades the building housed garment manufacturing, an alternative high school, and most recently a luxury condo named The Banknote.