Council opposes Schick annex tear-down
STAMFORD — The Blick typewriter helped bring industry to Stamford more than 100 years ago. Now, the building where they were once made faces partial destruction.
The future of the original Blickensderfer typewriter factory has been referred to Attorney General William Tong’s office, sent there by the Connecticut His
toric Preservation Council after it voted this month to oppose the destruction of the facility.
“There is a potential prudent and feasible alternative to demolition — that’s what the law says you have to be able to prove,” said Todd Levine, an environmental review coordinator with the State Historic Preservation Office. “If that threshold is met, then the Attorney General’s office may pick it up.”
Building and Land Technologies, the developer that owns the Blickensderfer factory lot and much of Stamford’s South End, plans to demolish three properties — two multi-family homes and part of the factory including the Schick Annex, added on during the 20th century, as part of a plan to widen Garden Street, which is bordered by the Blickensderfer lot.
The state preservation council had heard hours of testimony, from the property owners, historic preservationists and members of the Stamford community, about the project before appealing to the Attorney General’s Office. If the AG opts to pursue the matter, BLT could face a temporary injunction to halt demolition while the state evaluates alternatives, including a potential lawsuit.
BLT, which also offered testimony to the council, argued the need for making Garden Street capable of handling modern needs — or “complete,” an urban planning term intertwined with accessibility.
Whereas Garden is currently narrow and one-directional, complete streets are designed with safety for all modes of transit in mind.
“Those include people of all ages and abilities, regardless of whether they are traveling as drivers, pedestrians, bicyclists, or public transportation riders,” according to the United States Department of Transportation.
The council found BLT’s reasoning insufficient after two architects with a group dedicated to protecting historic structures, Preservation Connecticut, argued the street could be rendered “complete” without demolishing buildings.
Environmental impacts
Another reason for destruction, according to BLT, is the need to clean up the site. BLT has proposed preserving about 70 percent of the Blickensderfer building to the Historic Preservation Council. The company hopes to turn the old factory into retail space and floated building residential towers in proximity.
But if BLT develops the lot in a way that disturbs toxic dirt beneath the building, it must environmentally remediate the old industrial space.
Cancer-causing Polychlorinated Biphenyls, or PCBs, an integral ingredient in manufacturing in the 20th century, used in everything from hydraulic fluid to vacuum pumps, now lie in the ground beneath the Blickensderfer factory.
BLT has proposed excavating all the contaminated dirt on the Blickensderfer lot, a process that makes demolishing part of the old factory and the Schick addition necessary.
Preservationists pushed back on that claim too, citing EPA regulations that indicate thick concrete floors are sufficient barriers to PCBs.
“The decision to demolish a portion of the Blickensderfer [building] is, of itself, a disturbance of the contaminated soils,” said Brad Schide, a staff member for Preservation Connecticut, in a statement submitted to the Historic Preservation Council.
Stamford’s industrial past
Not long after the dawn of Stamford’s industrial era, city inventor George Blickensderfer in the late 19th century rented the factory space on Garden Street to manufacture his Blick typewriters. Blickensderfer later moved the facility to Atlantic Street.
Blickensderfer created the world’s first truly portable typewriter. While other turn-of-the-century machines weighed up to 30 pounds, the Blick typewriter clocked in at only five pounds.
The building was also home to Col. Jacob Schick, who pioneered the electric razor in the early 1900s, and built his innovations out of the factory’s Schick annex starting in the 1930s.
Professional preservationists and experts were not the only people fighting to keep the initial Blickensderfer factory intact before the Historic Preservation Council.
“New development should be in the context of the historic buildings, especially in a historic district,” said Judy Norinsky, president of the group Stamford Historic Neighborhood Preservation. “We’ve lost so many buildings in that Historic District already.”
Elizabeth McCauley, who owns a house on Walter Wheeler Drive with her mother, compares her preferred vision for the South End to places like New Canaan or Springfield, Mass. — two locations she thinks have worked hard to preserve their historic pasts.
McCauley has lived in Stamford’s South End her entire life. McCauley’s mother Estelle, who is now in her late 90s, even worked during the early 1940s in the Blickensderfer building for the Schick razor company.
“She walked to and from work — and even back and forth at lunchtime — from Walter Wheeler Drive, then named Walnut Street,” said McCauley. “It was a nice place to work. And the ladies did this work in skirts and dresses.”
To honor her family’s Stamford roots, McCauley pushes for renovations to the Blickensderfer building with a more nostalgic touch.
“There are so many possibilities for this building, such as food court eatery, ice-cream parlor, post office or even a boutique hotel whereby the lobby could house the history of [Blickensderfer’s] inventions,” wrote McCauley in an email to Stamford Chief Building Official Bharar Gami earlier this year.
Looking ahead
BLT maintains that its proposed development is in Stamford’s best interest.
“We’ve received tremendous positive feedback from the larger community for our collaborative effort to create a redevelopment plan that balances needs of all the various constituencies tied to the area historic preservation, environmental remediation, health and safety, and economic development,” BLT Co-President Ted Ferrarone said in a statement.
“Our concept to preserve the Blickensderfer Typewriter Factory is both viable and will make this historic building a centerpiece of the community, further strengthening Stamford’s economic future while embracing the unique historic past.”
As for the city of Stamford, its priority is seeing as much of the Blickensderfer factory’s original core preserved as possible.
“We want the old part of the building,” said Stamford Land Use Bureau Chief Ralph Blessing. “We’re not too concerned about the new addition — the Schick annex. … But we would like to see as much as possible of the old Blickensderfer building to remain.”
The Attorney General’s office declined to comment beyond confirming that the office is currently reviewing the matter.