A skull is usually a warning. A symbol of death, a sign to keep out. But for a brief, electric moment in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, a painted skull did the exact opposite. It drew people in. In 2017, this haunting image, splashed across the face of a derelict brick building, became an unlikely landmark, sparking a frenzy of media attention and inspiring pilgrimages to the industrial waterfront.
This lonely structure, however, was not just a canvas. It was a ghost, the last remnant of a colossal industrial machine that had burned spectacularly in 2006. This was once the home of the American Manufacturing Company, a name that has faded from memory but once defined the neighborhood. Covering 14 acres and six city blocks, it was the largest rope-making factory in the United States, its buildings dating back to 1890.
This was a city within a city, employing over 2,500 workers, mostly female Polish and Lithuanian immigrants who lived in the tight-knit community nearby. Their hands twisted jute and hemp, producing a staggering 400,000 pounds of cotton bagging and ties every single day. The company that started as a humble two-story mill had, by 1920, become an empire built on fiber and sweat.
In its later years, the complex became known as the Greenpoint Terminal Market. Then came the fire. On a spring day in 2006, a massive blaze engulfed the historic warehouses, requiring a force of 350 firefighters to control it. The timing was a gut punch to preservationists. The Municipal Art Society of New York was in the very process of referring the site to the Landmarks Preservation Commission, hoping to save its unique industrial architecture. The fire turned that history to ash.
A few buildings survived, eventually transformed into residential spaces. But one outlier remained on the river’s edge, a forgotten postscript to the story. It sat in silence until the fall of 2017, when graffiti artist Greg Suits, known as Suitswon, gave the ruin its final, defiant identity. He painted the skull. When photographer Raphael Gonzalez captured the image, it went viral, and the forgotten building was suddenly famous.
For a few years, it lived a second life. It served as a gritty, atmospheric backdrop for a drive-in movie theater, its skull staring out past the East River ferries toward the glittering Manhattan skyline. There was even a quirky urban camping venue on the site, a safe adventure for those who feared the woods more than the city.
But in New York, even beloved ruins live on borrowed time.
By the fall of 2025, the end had come. The Greenpoint Skull was erased. Its demolition was part of a sweeping transformation of the Brooklyn waterfront. The industrial grit that once defined the area is being systematically replaced by a new vision of urban life. The former CitiStorage building across the Bushwick Inlet had already vanished a year prior, and the former Bayside Oil Depot had vanished years ago. In their place, luxury residential skyscrapers and pristine new parks rise, catering to a new, wealthier demographic.
The skull’s fate was sealed by its new neighbors. The towering Greenpoint West Wharf development had already claimed the adjacent lot. A new park, 1 Wharf Plaza, was taking shape right in front. In the new Greenpoint, there was simply no room for a ghost. A shabby, graffiti-scarred relic, however cherished, does not fit the marketing brochure for a multi-million dollar apartment with a zen-like view of the Manhattan skyline. It was, you might say, bad for the Feng Shui.
To learn more about the storied history of Greenpoint Terminal Market, you can read a well-written and in-depth piece by Bedford and Bowery, here. To see the last vestiges of the market, check out Nathan Kensinger's historical write-up on his old blogger website.
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