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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Former Bayside Oil Depot



















Currently on site are ten 50-foot fuel containers. The seven-acre site is under NYC ownership for a long-awaited future park that may be called "Maker Park". Although Bushwick Inlet Park exists down the road. The city envisions a much larger park on this waterfront property to the chagrin of residential developers. Trust, there will be taller buildings close to this park with waterfront views once the building begins. As it stands, no plans have been laid out by the city for when development will begin or the long decontamination of the oil depot will take before any park can be situated here.















Bayside Oil Depot has historical roots dating back to the Civil War. Charles Pratt seeing fortune during the beginnings of Pennsylvania oil fields established Astral Oil on the banks of Bushwick Inlet in 1867. Soon other oil refineries dotted the banks of Williamsburg and Greenpoint. Astral Oil was the first modern refinery in the nation and produced what some called the best kerosene ever to be manufactured. Eventually, Astral Oil like all oil refineries was taken over by John D. Rockefeller's monolith Standard Oil.



















As of today, the site is mothballed and no longer stores gas or manufactures kerosene.  In addition, graffiti litters several tanks and other smaller buildings located on the property.








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