Microsoft Word - final Factory press release[1].docx
Contact:
Margaret Anne Tockarshewsky, Executive Director, New Haven Museum
203-562-4183, ext. 20, matockarshewsky@newhavenmuseum.org
Julie Winkel, Media Specialist
203-815-0800, jwinkel@live.com
Avant-Garde Past of Clock Factory
to be Exhibited at New Haven Museum
New Haven, Conn. (February 3, 2020)—
For more than a century, waves of humanity found
their way to The New Haven Clock Factory. They came first to build clocks in what for a time
was the largest timepiece manufactory in the world. In leaner times, they came for other
purposes—some avant-garde, others grittier—but all in pursuit of freedom of expression or
experience. “FACTORY,” the newest exhibit at the New Haven Museum (NHM), which opens
February 20, 2020, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., documents the post-industrial, underground history of
the massive building on Hamilton Street that housed visual and performance artists, punk bands,
skateboarders, and a succession of music and adult-entertainment clubs in the decades following
the factory’s closure. “FACTORY” will remain will be on view through August 29, 2020.
Using original and archival video and photography and artifacts, “FACTORY” highlights some
of the people, personalities and artistic endeavors once present in the building. The aim of Jason
Bischoff-Wurstle, the exhibit’s curator and NHM director of photo archives, was to portray the
spirit of Elm City counterculture in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. He is fascinated by the
many layers of the building’s afterlife. “To passersby it looked abandoned, but it was teeming
with life and most people weren’t even aware of it.”
Another goal, Bischoff-Wurstle says, is to break down the canon of history. “Our day-to-day
lives become history,” he explains. “But these days so much is lost in the flurry of incoming
information that we felt it was important to preserve these very recent memories before they are
lost forever.”
The New Haven Clock Company was founded in 1853. Two years later it acquired the assets of
Jerome Manufacturing Co., the first factory to produce well-made, inexpensive brass clock
movements in the U.S. The New Haven Clock Company eventually filled nearly two city blocks
was world-renowned and the bedrock of a growing neighborhood. More than 1,500 men, women
and children, and generations of families, produced 40 million watches between 1880 and 1959.
The G.I. Bill, post-war economics, new transportation infrastructure, and an ill-fated corporate
takeover led to the demise of the company, and ambitious urban renewal dealt a final blow to the
once-thriving neighborhood. New Haven was torn apart, rebuilt, and connected to two major
interstates. By 1970, the surrounding neighborhood had been leveled and replaced with industrial
warehouses and parking lots.
Left to languish, the structure attracted the attention of artists in need of space.
Among them was
Paul Rutkovsky, founder of the Papier Mache Video Institute (PMVI). Focused on activist art not
typically found in museums and galleries, PMVI addressed feminism, war, capitalism, elitism,
urban renewal and “'TV mono-culture” with works of music, dance, poetry, visual art,
performance, mixed media, papier-mâché and video. PMVI events offered opportunities to be
videotaped smashing TVs, to make Xerox art, and for both men and women to compete in an
annual Miss America Spectacle.
Later, experimental artist Beverly Richey took over PMVI and developed groundbreaking work
in feminist art and the subject of food as a political statement. She was the driving force behind
PMVI's legendary one-day “1984” exhibition in the former factory, which had crowds of visitors
lined up around the block.
The New Haven Clock Company building was the ideal setting for the Yale School of
Architecture’s annual, decadent Beaux Arts Ball thanks to its distinct industrial architecture
heritage, general mystique and relative remoteness. It was considered the party of the year for
architecture students throughout New England. For the notorious “Sex Ball” in 1984, the walls
were decorated with original murals painted by Yale Fine arts students featuring neo-classical
hermaphrodites. Decades later they remain on the factory walls.
During the same period, a notable artist live/work community was being pioneered by a troupe of
mimes, the Petaluers, led by Dimitri Rimsky. Intrepid and resourceful, the artists improvised
DIY electric, gas, and plumbing lines with the help of a lawnmower repairman named Goodie,
and salvaged materials from the factory and dumpsters to create lofts with the comforts of home.
Rimsky devised a series of security measures to confound would-be burglars, including doors
with dummy doorknobs and concealed locks, broken glass on windowsills, and greased
drainpipes.
Bischoff-Wurstle notes that everyone worked toward a shared goal of absolute artistic freedom—
working class and far from elitist. Throughout it all, residents, community activists and the
building’s owner, Tony Yagovane, sought ways to create legitimate artist live/work lofts at the
site. True to the mindset of the 1980s, however, the city refused to allow residential housing in
an industrial zone.
The visual and performing artists who worked and lived in the factory went largely unnoticed by
those who frequented a succession of the nightclubs on the other side of the building, a block
away. The lively music scene included the Country Palace, and Brick N’ Wood—the region’s
leading upscale R&B dance club—where patrons could rub shoulders with the likes of Bobby
Brown and Carl Weathers, and with Cornel West and bell hooks as they took a break from their
studies and teaching at Yale University to bond on the dancefloor. Hardcore punk and deathmetal performance spaces followed, as did J. P. Monroe headlining as drag-queen performer
Candy Monroe at the 10,000 square foot LGBTQ club Kurt’s 2.
The “FACTORY” exhibit is one of three concurrent projects related to the building. A
documentary on the factory’s colorful history is in development by filmmaker/director Gorman
Bechard, with Connecticut entrepreneur and historic real estate consultant Bill Kraus producing.
Bechard, the indie filmmaker known for creating the New Haven-focused film “Pizza, a Love
Story,” and founder of the New Haven Documentary Film Festival, NHdocs, will kick off a
second Kickstarter campaign and begin honing 100-plus hours of footage into a film this
summer.
“Much of New Haven has been lost to urban renewal and redevelopment,” says Bechard. “We
need to preserve both the legacy of New Haven and what made it great to begin with. Projects
like this exhibit and the film are essential to raise awareness and build support, hopefully we will
make people want to see more.” Bechard, Bischoff-Wurstle and Kraus share the goal of piquing
the public’s curiosity about the secrets the old buildings hold, prompting questions on who lived,
worked, died, dreamed, fell in love, performed, made art, and experienced difficult or possibly
the best times of their lives in the process.
“This is unsanitized, authentic history’” says Kraus, who specializes in the redevelopment of
historic buildings for urban revitalization and plans to transform the space into 130 affordable
live/work lofts for artist and affordable apartments. He adds that the clock-factory narrative can
make history and historic buildings more relevant to younger generations. “The depth, breath,
diversity and sheer quantity of the stories is astonishing,” he says, “as is the juxtaposition of an
august, international industrial giant becoming the post-industrial den of crazed dreams and
dreamers.”
Bischoff-Wurstle stresses the importance of recording the unique nature of the former clock
factory, and those who occupied it, before the site is remediated and transformed into light-filled,
airy lofts. Many of the exhibit’s images capture the character wrought by human inspiration, the
elements, time and decay. A particularly riveting image shows the spectral imprint of a wall
clock in The New Haven Clock Company’s former main entrance lobby dating from 1872, an
ethereal reminder of the building’s original purpose, uncovered recently during interior
demolition.
About the New Haven Museum
The New Haven Museum has been collecting, preserving and interpreting the history and
heritage of Greater New Haven since its inception as the New Haven Colony Historical Society
in 1862. Located in downtown New Haven at 114 Whitney Avenue, the Museum brings more
than 375 years of New Haven history to life through its collections, exhibitions, programs and
outreach. As a designated Blue Star Museum, the New Haven Museum offers the nation’s active duty military personnel and their families, including National Guard and Reserve, free admission
from Memorial Day through Labor Day. For more information visit www.newhavenmuseum.org
or Facebook.com/NewHavenMuseum or call 203-562-4183.
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