Henry Gordy International

Photo courtesy of LoopNet.com

This marks the start of a new series I am calling “The Forgotten Ledger.”

Think of it as a record of places that slipped through my fingers. These are the mills and foundries that came down before I could photograph them, the churches and farmhouses that vanished behind fences and “No Trespassing” signs, the offices, barns, factories, and odd little buildings that were gone before I had the chance to step inside.

Over the years, I have built a long list of locations I meant to visit. Some were already abandoned and waiting. Others were still hanging on by a thread. Many of them are gone now. Demolished. Redesigned. Paved over. Erased from the map but not quite erased from memory.

“The Forgotten Ledger” is where I go back to those missed chances.

Each entry in this series will be a brief look at one of these places. You might see old notes, rough research, scraps of history, half-finished maps, or a single blurry photo taken from the road. Sometimes all that remains is a story from a local or a line in a newspaper. Other times, there are records of who owned the land, what was made there, and when it shut down for good.

While I work in the background on the larger, in-depth histories many of you have come to expect here, this series will help keep the pace steady. It gives me room to share more of the process. The near misses. The “almost” visits. The buildings that were struck from the ledger of time before I could arrive.

Urban exploring changes fast. One day, a structure is just sitting there, empty but intact. The next day, it is a pile of bricks and dust. I hope that “The Forgotten Ledger” keeps these places alive just a little longer, even if only through memory and documentation.

I would truly value your thoughts on this idea. Tell me what works and what does not. Share what you want to see more of, or less of. Criticism, questions, suggestions, or simple encouragement, it all helps shape what comes next.

Thank you for reading, for caring about forgotten places, and for supporting this ongoing project.

The North Avenue industrial site in Plainfield once echoed with the sounds of toy-making.

For decades, the low brick plant, built in 1935, housed Gordy International, a toy manufacturer whose products ended up on store shelves across the country. By around the year 2000, at the latest, Gordy had quietly stopped operating in Plainfield. The building did not sit empty for long. Howell Electric Motors moved in and used the space into the late 2000s before it too shut down, leaving the site to slip into blight.

Even after Gordy had left town, its name lingered in the records. In 2011, the company was still listed as being based in Plainfield when it was sued over the choking deaths of three children who had played with one of its toys. The case centered on the Auto Fire Target Set, a dart gun set with soft plastic darts. Those darts could lodge in a child’s throat and block the airway.

Federal investigators said Gordy knew about the defect as early as May 2006 but failed to report it to the Consumer Product Safety Commission. In the end, the company agreed to pay a civil penalty of 1.1 million over the dart gun set linked to the three deaths.

That dart gun was not the only problem product tied to Gordy. Over the years, several of its toys drew federal attention and forced recalls.

One recall involved Eggscavators toy trucks. On the cement truck model, the mixer could detach, turning into a small part that young children could swallow or choke on. Another recall focused on the Auto Fun ’N Games Magnetic Dart Boards. The magnets on the darts could come loose and be swallowed or inhaled, creating the risk of serious internal injury.

In 2007, yet another Gordy toy line came under scrutiny. The company’s Galaxy Warriors figures were found to be coated in paint with excessive levels of lead, in clear violation of federal lead paint standards intended to protect children.

By the time demolition crews arrived in the first weeks of January 2025, the North Avenue building had been empty and decaying for years. Windows were broken out. Paint peeled from the walls. Vines crept up the brick. For people driving past, it was just another abandoned factory on the street, a relic with a business name most did not know.

Yet behind those boarded doors stood the shell of a company that put toys into children’s hands and, in some tragic cases, put them in harm’s way. The plant is gone now, reduced to rubble and cleared away, but its story still lingers in court records, recall notices, and the memories of the community that once worked there.

Long before the North Avenue plant turned out toys, it had a very different life.

The story starts in 1910, when a small business called Century Rubber Trading Company set up shop on the site. They made tires, not toys, and were part of the early wave of rubber and auto-related industry that spread through New Jersey in the first years of the car age.

Century Rubber was eventually replaced by a new name, one that would become well known to anyone who worked with tools. Sometime between 1927 and 1929, two men, Ernest T. Walker and William Brewer Turner, started a hardware manufacturing firm that became the Walker-Turner Company Inc. The exact details of their beginning are a little fuzzy, like many small companies of that era, but we know they were first based in Jersey City.

By 1931, Walker-Turner had moved its operations to Plainfield. Early on, the company focused on what it called the “Driver Line,” a series of low-cost drill presses and machines sold through department stores. These were the kinds of tools a handyman, shop teacher, or small shop might buy. Over time, the line grew to include larger, sturdier light industrial machines that could handle heavier work in small factories and workshops.

In its Plainfield years, Walker-Turner did not stay put in a single building. At one time, the company was located at 593-767 Berckman Street. Records also place them at 649 South Avenue, though that address does not appear on Sanborn fire insurance maps from that period, which leaves a small mystery in the paper trail. After 1937, the company shifted to the North Avenue site that would later house Gordy International. The building that stood there until its demolition in 2025 dates from 1935, so it likely saw Walker-Turner in its prime.

As the years went by, Walker-Turner became part of a long chain of corporate buyouts that would define the site’s history. In 1948, machine tool maker Kearney and Trecker bought the company and folded it into its operations as the Walker-Turner Division. Less than a decade later, in 1956, Rockwell Manufacturing Company purchased the division. Through the late 1950s and into the early 1960s, the name survived as the Walker-Turner Division, Rockwell Manufacturing Company, before slowly fading away.

While the Walker-Turner name was easing off the machines, another part of Plainfield’s industrial story was forming. In 1899, a company called the Seneca Falls Machine Company was founded in New York. Decades later, in 1970, that firm acquired Howell Electric Motors of Plainfield, a manufacturer of specialty motors. Howell’s products were not glamorous, but they were everywhere in the background of daily life. Their motors powered blowers in air conditioning systems, drove floor scrubbing and polishing machines, and ran pump systems used in food processing equipment.

After the acquisition, Seneca Falls Machine reorganized itself as SFM Inc. and moved its headquarters to Plainfield. What had once been a small specialty motor maker now sat at the center of a modest industrial group.

In 1984, a shift in leadership changed the course of the company again. David A. Segal, who owned about ten percent of SFM’s stock, took control as CEO. Under Segal, the company began to move more aggressively into new product lines.

In 1987, SFM acquired Henry Gordy Inc., a Yonkers-based manufacturer, importer, and marketer of toys. After the deal, SFM changed the company’s name to Henry Gordy International and moved it to Plainfield. The North Avenue building carried the proud label “Plant No. 1” on its title, signaling that this was now the flagship manufacturing site.

Henry Gordy International would later become known simply as Gordy International, but at its core, it remained a toy company. In 1994, SFM reached further into the toy and hobby market by buying Hi-Flier, a major Colorado-based maker of kites and model airplanes. It is not yet clear how much of Hi-Flier’s production, if any, actually moved to Plainfield, but the name did. Faded window signs at 768-900 North Avenue still show the Hi-Flier brand, hinting that, at the very least, the site served as an office or warehouse for its products.

That same year, 1994, SFM changed its own name to EXX Inc. EXX became the holding company that sat above a cluster of divisions: Gordy International, Howell Electric Motors, and other smaller units. Gordy International itself was run as a division of EXX and, on paper, remained tied to Plainfield even as its manufacturing footprint began to shrink.

By 2010, David Segal tightened his control over the company. He took EXX private, buying up all of the outstanding Class A and Class B shares. What had once been a publicly traded company became a closely held one, harder to track from the outside.

The physical story of the North Avenue plant mirrors this corporate maze. Over time, production wound down. Gordy stopped making toys in Plainfield by around 2000, at the latest. Howell Electric Motors also left town in the late 2000s. Ownership of the building eventually sat with Howell Electric Motors out of Hermann, Missouri, which is now the only remaining physical plant for that division of EXX.

Gordy International, once a manufacturer with a real factory full of workers in Plainfield, appears to have transformed into something very different. By the time lawsuits and recalls cast a harsh light on its name, the company seemed to have become mainly an importer of toys made elsewhere, with an office address in Las Vegas and no American manufacturing facilities at all.

On the heels of demolition, the North Avenue site is already being folded into a very different future.

A 13-million-dollar redevelopment, led by Warehouse OZ Urban Renewal LLC, is reshaping the land that once held nearly a century of industry. Where tire makers, tool builders, motor manufacturers, and toy companies once worked, a mix of warehousing and leisure space is taking shape.

The project is unfolding in two phases.

Phase I focuses on the south side of North Avenue. It centers on a new industrial warehouse with a footprint of roughly 119,000 square feet. Inside, the space will be divided into seven separate units, each ranging from about 14,570 to 22,000 square feet. The design is geared toward logistics and light industrial users. Plans call for 12 interior loading docks, 4 exterior loading docks, and 68 parking spaces, signaling a clear shift toward modern distribution and small-scale industrial tenants rather than large manufacturers.

Phase II pulls the story in another direction entirely, toward recreation and entertainment. Sited on the north side of North Avenue, near the corner with 336 to 346 Johnston Avenue, this part of the project is set to house a sports facility and restaurant.

At the center of Phase II is Pickle Rage, which is billed as the largest pickleball facility in New Jersey. The building has a 1,500 square foot lobby on the ground floor that will hold restrooms, elevator and stair access, and utility rooms. Above that, the second floor opens into a large, enclosed sports complex of about 60,000 square feet. Inside, plans call for a mix of uses. There will be courts for pickleball and tennis, space for indoor soccer fields, and room for other activities under a sports dome structure. A restaurant and arcade are also planned within the enclosed roof area, turning the facility into more than just a place to play; it will be a destination for families and leagues.

Parking for Phase II is expected to include 116 spaces, a reminder of how car-oriented this kind of recreational development has become, even within older urban centers.

As of Sunday, November 16, 2025, construction is far along. The shell of the facility is largely in place, and interior work is underway. Signage and promotional material are beginning to appear, pointing toward a grand opening in the near future.

In the span of just a few years, the North Avenue address has moved from an abandoned, blighted factory to a tightly planned site split between warehouse bays and a sprawling indoor sports hub. For Plainfield, the change marks a turning point. The ghosts of rubber, motors, and toys have given way to pallets, loading docks, and pickleball courts. What remains constant is the land itself, still being pressed into service, just in a new form that reflects the city’s latest chapter.

If you worked or have photos, employee badges, catalogs, or ads tied to Century Rubber, Walker‑Turner, Howell, Henry Gordy, EXX, or Hi‑Flier, I would love to add them here. Memories help fill the gaps that maps and filings cannot.

Source(s):

1. Rutherford, D. (2024, December 27). City of Plainfield to celebrate demolition of blighted warehouse, learn what will replace it. TapInto Plainfield. https://www.tapinto.net/towns/plainfield/sections/government/articles/city-of-plainfield-to-celebrate-demolition-of-blighted-warehouse-learn-what-will-replace-it

2. Rutherford, D. (2024, July 7). Tax incentives for 3 developments on Monday's Plainfield council agenda; learn about the projects. TapInto Plainfield. https://www.tapinto.net/towns/plainfield/sections/government/articles/tax-incentives-for-3-developments-on-monday-s-plainfield-council-agenda-learn-about-the-projects

3. Damon, D. (2011, October 18). Plainfield toy company pays $1.1M penalty [Blog post]. Blogger. http://ptoday.blogspot.com/2011/10/plainfield-toy-company-pays-11m-penalty.html

4. Reuters Staff. (2011, October 16). Henry Gordy firm to pay $1.1 million over recalled toy dart gun. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/article/world/us/henry-gordy-firm-to-pay-11-million-over-recalled-toy-dart-gun-idUSTRE79D3S9/

5. Sanborn Map Company. Insurance maps of the city of Plainfield, Union County, and the borough of North Plainfield, Somerset County, New Jersey (Sheet 53). [TIFF]. New York: Sanborn Map Company, 1910. Retrieved from https://maps.princeton.edu/catalog/princeton-mk61rj847

6. (1951) Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Plainfield, Union and Somerset Counties, New Jersey. Sanborn Map Company, - Jan 1951. [Map] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/sanborn05601_006/