Warner Brothers Company (Warnaco)

The news arrived as it so often does: mundanely, in a Google Alert buried between spam and a newsletter. Eight days ago, the demolition of the former Warnaco Clothing Factory in Bridgeport began.

For most people, this was a long-overdue end to a local eyesore. For me, it was a missed appointment, and I felt that familiar, frustrating pinch of an explorer beaten by the clock.

I was supposed to go back. I had even bookmarked a YouTube video that allegedly revealed a secluded entrance into the main, larger building. My chance was gone.

My first and only visit had been a tense reconnaissance. The place was a beautiful monster. I remember the floors feeling less like a structure and more like a damp suggestion. They were soft, spongy with rot, and every step was a careful calculation. Openings in the floorboards gaped wide enough to swallow a car, let alone a person. The air was thick with that specific perfume of urban decay: damp wood, swirling dust, and dark corners.

There was a rumor that kept drawing people like me to it, a legend whispered in online forums. They said if you looked closely in the cracks of the floorboards, you could still find the small, curved needles dropped by workers generations ago, tiny artifacts from its life as a corset factory.

On that first trip, I was far too busy staring at the elephant-sized holes to hunt for souvenirs. My primary goal was simple: do not become a permanent addition to the foundation.

But I had planned to go back, armed with a new entrance. Now, that window is slammed shut. The site is a swarm of hard hats and heavy machinery, and my chances of "blending in" are precisely zero. The time for quiet exploration is over, replaced by the weekday grind of dismantling 100,000 square feet of history.

This is, of course, a purely selfish grief.

For Bridgeport, this demolition is a victory. For the students at the nearby University of Bridgeport, for the residents on Atlantic Street and Myrtle Avenue, it’s the end of a looming, 5.0-acre symbol of decay. They won't miss the crumbling facade or the overgrown lot. They will, I imagine, be ecstatic.

Even the resident colony of stray cats, now evicted and scattering, is just collateral in the name of progress.

By the end of October, the structure that defined the block between Lafayette and Gregory Streets will be gone. The factory will be nothing but a flat, empty lot. Another one of the city's great, decaying giants will have fallen, and I’ll have to be content with my one nervous walk-through, forever wondering about the needles I was too afraid to look for.

Bridgeport, at the turn of the last century, was a global powerhouse. It was home to some 500 factories, a humming hive of industry shipping everything from sewing machines to ammunition around the world. But this building, the Warner Brothers Corset Company, wasn't just another factory. For a time, it was the city's beating heart.

The story begins, fascinatingly, not with a tycoon, but with two doctors. In 1874, Lucien and I.D. Warner were two practicing physicians in New York. They were deeply concerned about what the era's standard corsetry was doing to their female patients.

We’ve all heard the horror stories. These garments were rigid cages of steel and bone, known to break ribs, displace internal organs, and deaden nerves. The Warners decided to create a humane alternative.

They introduced their so-called "Health Corset."

It was a revolutionary idea. Their design was flexible, using plant fibers instead of whalebone. They innovated shoulder straps, a simple but brilliant addition that distributed the garment's weight, allowing the wearer to move and, most critically, to breathe.

Two years later, in 1876, the brothers moved their operation from McGraw, New York, to Bridgeport. The city was a perfect fit. It was close to their financial and marketing hub in New York City, it had excellent rail and water transport, and it had a growing reputation for a skilled industrial workforce.

And they exploded.

They innovated constantly, developing stiffeners from tempered steel and, remarkably, cactus fiber. By 1887, the factory employed 1,200 people, 90 percent of them women. Together, they produced 6,000 corsets a day. Many of these women lived across the street at the Seaside Institute, a building the Warner brothers built to provide them with free rooms.

By 1912, the plant had doubled in size, covering the entire block. It now employed 3,000 people, 75 percent of them women, and the daily output was a staggering 20,000 corsets.

Then the 1920s hit. The "Flapper" style and the Jazz Age arrived, and the rigid corset was suddenly a relic. This should have been the end of the line.

It wasn't. The company pivoted.

They diversified, acquiring shirt manufacturers. Then, in 1937, the company that had revolutionized the corset did it again. They invented the "ABC Alphabet Bra," assigning letters to various cup sizes. The sizing standard that is still used across the entire globe today was born in that Bridgeport factory.

The innovation didn't stop. A partnership with DuPont in 1959 led to the invention of Lycra, allowing for entirely new designs in shapewear. They acquired C.F. Hathaway shirts and White Stag sportswear, went public, and became a hundred-million-dollar global conglomerate.

The end, when it came, was a story of the 1980s—a hostile takeover. The corporate headquarters relocated back to New York. Staff were moved. Manufacturing was sent offshore.

The massive Bridgeport complex, that 100,000-square-foot giant, was slowly bled dry. What remained on Lafayette Street was a reduced footprint devoted to paper box production, offices, and storage, plus a discount outlet. Those functions ended by 1996. The plant went dark and stayed that way until 2007, when the eastern half of the complex was rehabilitated and converted into condominiums. The western portion never followed suit. It remained vacant under the ownership of Connecticut Century Gardens, a stark counterpoint to the revitalized wing across the way and a reminder of how unevenly Bridgeport’s industrial legacy has been reclaimed.

For nearly two decades, the former Warnaco Clothing Factory loomed over Lafayette Street as a promise unkept. On October 9, 2025, the City of Bridgeport stopped waiting. Crews arrived and began tearing into the three-and-a-half-story, 100,000-square-foot building that the city condemned as unsafe in the fall of 2022.

The move caps years of friction with New York City-based CT Century Gardens, which bought the property in 2004 and secured zoning approval in 2015 for a 346-unit mixed-use complex that never broke ground. In May 2023, the company listed the factory for 6.5 million dollars even as it fought in State Superior Court to block demolition. City officials and neighborhood critics questioned whether the listing was credible, noting the city’s tax assessor valued the property at 1.9 million. They have also accused the owner of land banking, the practice of holding a blighted property while waiting for values to rise. CT Century Gardens has disputed the city’s approach in court and has not publicly detailed a revised development plan for the site.

Bridgeport had hoped for a different arc. Across the other end of the complex on Lafayette Street, the complementary Warner Bros building was successfully redeveloped into lofts about a decade ago by developer Garfield Spencer. Residents expected Warnaco to follow that model. Instead, the factory sat vacant, a relic of 1891 construction with all the uncertainty that comes with 19th-century industrial sites. Any demolition and cleanup would likely require millions of dollars, from acquisition and legal fees to environmental testing and remediation.

Top floor of the dilapidated three-story L-shaped building.

City leaders began laying the groundwork for a more aggressive posture in late 2023. In November of that year, the City Council authorized the economic development office to seek control of two properties tied to developer Gad through negotiation or, if talks failed, through eminent domain. The goal was to clear the title and position the sites for reuse. While that authority remains on the table, the administration moved first to address public safety. The city opened competitive bids for demolition on July 22, 2025, and less than three months later, leveled its verdict with heavy equipment.

What happens next will hinge on two tracks. The legal disputes over demolition and ownership still matter, especially if the city pursues eminent domain to consolidate control. At the same time, the site will require environmental due diligence common to factories of its era. Those findings will set the budget and timetable for whatever comes next, whether new housing, adaptive reuse, or a public-private partnership that blends both.

For neighbors who have lived with a hulking vacancy in their backyard, the start of demolition is the first tangible change in years. The question now is not whether the old factory will come down. It is who will take responsibility for what rises in its place and how quickly Bridgeport can turn a long-running liability into something that works for the city again.

Source(s):

1. Lockhart, B. (2023, May 21). Bridgeport's Warnaco factory saved from demolition. Connecticut Post. https://www.ctpost.com/news/article/bridgeport-s-warnaco-factory-saved-demolition-18104012.php

2. Lockhart, B. (2024, March 10). Developer sues Bridgeport over demolition order for historic factory. New Haven Register. https://www.nhregister.com/news/article/developer-sues-bridgeport-over-demolition-order-18703511.php

3. Lockhart, B. (2023, July 4). Warnaco factory in Bridgeport at 330 Myrtle Avenue set for redevelopment. New Haven Register. https://www.nhregister.com/news/article/warnaco-factory-bridgeport-330-myrtle-development-18183119.php

4. Lockhart, B. (2023, May 16). Bridgeport seeks to demolish long-abandoned Warnaco factory. New Haven Register. https://www.nhregister.com/news/article/bridgeport-seeks-demolish-long-abandoned-warnaco-18095794.php

5. Lockhart, B. (2023, July 25). Bridgeport to move to take former Warnaco factory sites. New Haven Register. https://www.nhregister.com/news/article/bridgeport-move-take-former-warnaco-factory-sites-18257242.php

6. Lockhart, B. (2014, April 13). New plans in works for Warnaco property. New Haven Register. https://www.nhregister.com/local/article/New-plans-in-works-for-Warnaco-property-5399325.php

7. Lockhart, B. (2015, November 10). Housing tower planned at former Warnaco site in Bridgeport. New Haven Register. https://www.nhregister.com/business/article/Housing-tower-planned-at-former-Warnaco-site-in-6435740.php

8. Connecticut Mills. (n.d.). Warner Bros. Co. Retrieved September 9, 2025, from https://connecticutmills.org/find/details/warner-bros.-co

9. Dunavin, D., Lopez, A., Toth, K., & Basler, C. (2015, November 12). The story of Bridgeport's revolutionary corset factory. WSHU. https://www.wshu.org/news/2015-11-12/the-story-of-bridgeports-revolutionary-corset-factory

10. Warnaco Group. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved October 16, 2025, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warnaco_Group

11. Dunavin, D., Lopez, A., Toth, K., & Basler, C. (2015, November 12). The story of Bridgeport's revolutionary corset factory. WSHU. https://www.wshu.org/news/2015-11-12/the-story-of-bridgeports-revolutionary-corset-factory