United Lacquer Manufacturing Corporation

Looming over 2.72 acres, adjacent to the bustling Amtrak and New Jersey Transit lines, the desolate skeleton of the United Lacquer Manufacturing Corporation once stood. Now reduced to rubble, the echoes of its past cling stubbornly to the air. This trio of structures, variegated in height from one to three stories, once bustled with the production of lacquers, varnishes, and enamels. For 15 to 20 years, however, they were consigned to silence, abandonment, and ruin. This forsaken property was regularly subjected to a grim cycle of fires and illegal dumping, underscoring its tragic trajectory of decline.

The land’s history, as told by the city of Linden, reads like a litany of chemical contamination from multiple manufacturers, and of a previous owner disappearing into the ether, leaving behind a weighty tax burden. Unsurprisingly, the city eventually lost patience with this bleak tableau of human-initiated fires and neglect. As a consequence, the ownership was transferred via condemnation to a development company.

Coal Tar on West Elizabeth Avenue

Transition of 1920s coal tar manufacturer to chemical company in a 1951 map survey. A rail spur was originally laid in the very beginning of its operation before disappearing through the ownership and mergers of railroad companies. Currently, NJTransit operates the rail line.

Transatlantic Chemical Corporation, manufacturers of coal tar intermediates, contracted a hundred-thousand-dollar two-storey factory of 100 by 150 feet to M. Bvorn & Co of 430 Westfield Avenue, Elizabeth. What the company made there is worth naming, because it explains a great deal about what is still in the ground. Its own advertising lists nitro toluol, ortho- and para-nitro-toluol, aniline oil, mixed toluidine, ortho- and para-toluidine, benzidine, benzidine sulphate, tolidin and tolidin sulphate — works at Linden, New Jersey, offices at 80 Wall Street, New York. Benzidine and tolidine are now classed as human carcinogens, linked to bladder cancer in dye workers, and both were banned from open manufacture in the United States long after this plant was running.

Adam Cook's Sons Inc, manufacturer of lubricating greases and oil compounding, best known for its Albany Grease, was founded in 1868 in Albany, New York and came to Linden in 1926. The company's own account, printed in the city's 1961 centennial book, is unambiguous: it came “occupying the old Transatlantic Chemical plant,” and the original structure was rebuilt and enlarged. By 1961 the product line had extended to a full range of metalworking lubricants and specialties, and the address on the advertisement is 5 North Stiles Street.

That address is the key to a puzzle the Sanborn sheets pose. The 1920 Linden survey puts Transatlantic Chemical Corporation, manufacturers of chemical intermediates, in the block bounded by Elizabeth Avenue and the railroad near Stiles Street. On the 1951 and 1958 Elizabeth sheets, that same ground carries Adam Cook's Sons Inc, manufacturing lubricating greases and oil compounding — while United Lacquer Manufacturing Corporation sits at a separate plant further west along West Elizabeth Avenue, with Colony Furniture and Bopp-Whittier, later Nesco Steel Barrel, beyond it. Read together, the maps and the advertisement point the same way: the Transatlantic works became Adam Cook's Sons, and United Lacquer was a different plant on the same industrial strip. That site still operates today as the United States headquarters and a production facility for TotalEnergies Lubricants.

Fire, Neglect, and 402 Apartments

Soon, this once forlorn location will pulse with the hum of daily life, home to 402 dwellers. Meridia 1001 Linden LLC has brought forward plans to transform the space at 1001 West Elizabeth Ave. Their blueprint envisions 402 residential units, alongside amenities, ground-floor retail, and a management office. The proposal doesn't stop at bricks and mortar but extends to encompass the gentler aesthetics of landscaping, lighting, and parking facilities.

In the years of its dereliction, I remember the site being all too accessible, its gate yawning open without a hint of a deterrent. It was a magnet for misadventures, its neglect arguably stoking the fires that intermittently blazed there. The grimy interior was a cocktail of domestic and construction waste, while the largest building bore the visceral scars of fire damage. Blackened wooden beams, warped into charcoal, lay strewn across the rusted metal floor. The pockmarked roof, perforated with gaping holes, threatened to cave under the weight of collapsed supports, reduced to gnarled clusters of wood and twisted metal.

In contrast, the second building managed to retain some vestiges of respectability. It seemed to have been commandeered by skateboarders, its smooth concrete floors and makeshift wooden ramps suggesting a new, illicit lease of life. Another part of the property was less fortunate. It was reduced to a mangled fusion of roofing tiles and window panes, a grim testimony to the raging fires.

In an older post titled "Chemical X Warehouse", I've shared more images that capture this evocative landscape of urban decay. Soon, the narrative of this plot will change again, this time for the better. As we bear witness to its transformation, we remember the layers of history it's seen and the potential that lies ahead.

📋 Reader Records

🏭 Did You Work at United Lacquer — or at Transatlantic Chemical or Adam Cook’s Sons?

Were you a former employee of any of the companies that worked this strip of West Elizabeth Avenue — United Lacquer Manufacturing Corporation, Transatlantic Chemical Corporation, Adam Cook’s Sons, Colony Furniture, Nesco Steel Barrel or Bopp-Whittier? Do you have photographs, product samples, labels or catalogues from the lacquer, varnish and enamel work that went on here? And does anyone have a dated Transatlantic Chemical advertisement, or know exactly when the Linden works stopped making benzidine and tolidine? Those answers are not in the public record, and this site has now been cleared for apartments.

📩 Share Your Story or drop a comment below — every contributor gets full credit

⬇️ Keep Reading

🧪 More Chemical & Coatings Plants, and What They Left Behind

Lacquer works, color factories, paint plants and rare-earth refiners — the industries that coloured the Northeast, and the ground they poisoned doing it.

📷 Chemical X Warehouse My earlier walk through this same Linden site, with more images from before the fires. › 🏭 Former Maas & Waldstein Company A Newark coatings giant in ruins, where the smell of what soaked into the ground is still in the air. › 🎨 Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company Newark Paint Plant Paint and varnish on the Passaic from 1902 to 1971, now a Superfund site. › 🌈 Before Amazon: Red Hook’s Forgotten H. Kohnstamm and Company A hidden colour factory blended out of existence for another warehouse. › ☢️ Wolff-Alport Chemical Company Demolished For Cleanup Rare earths extracted in Ridgewood, and the radiological contamination nobody nearby knew about. › 📦 Newark’s Kingsland Drum and Barrel Where the drums that carried lacquer and solvent went to be cleaned and refilled. ›

🏭 Coal tar intermediates were made on this Linden strip from about 1920 by the Transatlantic Chemical Corporation; Adam Cook’s Sons took over that plant in 1926, and United Lacquer Manufacturing Corporation ran a separate works nearby into the late twentieth century. The 2.72-acre United Lacquer site is now cleared for Meridia 1001 Linden’s 402 apartments.

Source(s):

1. Russell, S. (2017, February 16). Redevelopment planned for Linden warehouse damaged in fire. MyCentralJersey.
2. Loyer, S. (2020, January 7). Linden: Mixed-use project may be coming to West Elizabeth Avenue. MyCentralJersey.
3. Lati, M. (2017, February 18). Fire at abandoned Linden warehouse called suspicious. NJ.com.
4. City of Linden. (1961). Looking Back to Look Ahead: The Story of 100 Years of Vigorous Growth, City of Linden, New Jersey 1861–1961, p. 93 (Adam Cook's Sons, Inc. advertisement).
5. City of Linden. (2011). 1861–2011: Celebrating 150 Years.
6. Transatlantic Chemical Corporation advertisement (works: Linden, New Jersey; offices: 80 Wall Street, New York), listing nitro toluol, aniline oil, toluidines, benzidine and tolidine.
7. (1920) Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Linden, Union County, New Jersey. Sanborn Map Company, Nov. [Map] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, loc.gov.
8. (1951) Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Elizabeth, Union County, New Jersey, Vol. 3, 1923; republished 1951. [Map] Library of Congress, loc.gov.
9. (1958) Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Elizabeth, Union County, New Jersey, Vol. 3; reprinted 1958. [Map] Library of Congress, loc.gov.
10. Princeton University Library. Sanborn maps of New Jersey: Linden. princeton.edu.
11. Chemical & Metallurgical Engineering (Vol. 20). Internet Archive.
12. United States International Trade Commission. (1920). Synthetic Organic Chemicals: United States Production and Sales. U.S. Government Printing Office. Internet Archive.
13. Oil, Paint and Drug Reporter (Vol. 91, No. 22, p. 84). (1917, May 21). Internet Archive.