From Excelsior Needle Co. to Timken: The Rise and Fall of Torrington's Standard Plant

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The Standard Plant and a Century of Making Things It was a hot May week in 2023, and J and I were already sweating through our shirts before we even made it to the entrance. We turned into the driveway off North Elm Street and passed a large Caterpillar backhoe holding up the red, white, and blue at the top of the arm. Patriotic machinery. Only in Connecticut. We moved toward the back of the complex with our eyes open, scanning for any sign of people or activity. We found cameras instead. A few of them, well-positioned across one of the buildings and up on an electrical pole, covering angles that made our original entry plan useless. We backed off, found a Plan B, and stepped into a dark room washed in tinted green light, then took the stairs down to ground level. The former Standard Plant sits along North Elm Street at a sunken grade, one story, with another building rising over the roadway to the far right when you're standing in front of it from North Street. It's the kind o...
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Hidden Gems #4: The $1.9 Million Shack




Drove by this unsuspecting gem traveling home. Immediately got out and snapped away.

Come to find out this piece of property was built all the way back in 1899 (119 years old). You can't see from the street but there is a house located behind this small building. Surprisingly, with all the huge money pouring into this neighborhood, the current owners have not sold out with the rising New York City real estate prices. This property currently has an estimated land value of $1.9 million. The house on the property is still inhabited according to sources who have looked into the property. I guess the current landowners are just sitting on it for now to maximize the most land value they can get in this increasingly hot real estate market.

Quite a jarring sight in a hip Brooklyn neighborhood.


July 4, 2018

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