The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Radium found at site of former clock factory
‘Residual radioactive contamination’ must be removed before site redevelopment
NEW HAVEN >> Those radium painted dials on millions of wristwatches produced in the city at the New Haven Clock Company are once again a “hot” item.
An environmental review of the long-closed factory, which at one point employed as many as 1,500 people, found radium-226 in parts of what is left of the sprawling campus on Hamilton, St. John and Wallace streets in the Wooster Square neighborhood.
Helen Rosenberg, an economic development officer, said the report by the environmental engineering firm Fuss and O’Neill found “residual radioactive contamination present throughout portions of the building.”
Rosenberg said the cost of removing the radium is an estimated $1 million.
Developers have always shown interest in finding reuses for the city’s diminishing examples of its 19th century manufacturing past.
Rosenberg said the buildings at 133 Hamilton St. will have to be cleaned up before they can be brought back to life. She said the next move is the look for funding to reclaim what essentially is a brownfield site.
She said the radium is not present in all the buildings and she does not believe it is dangerous. The NRC said most of the windows have been covered, but there do not appear to be any signs or restrictions on use.
That portion of the factory connected by a bridge across Hamilton has been taken down, but multiple other buildings remain.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission earlier in the month wrote to the current owners of the site, Rosanne Yagovane and Paula Yagovane of Milford, who are principals in T.S.J. Inc.
The family, which bought the buildings in 1987, has been working with Bill Kraus, who specializes in preservation and redevelopment of historic buildings. He could not be reached for comment.
The NRC wanted to get onto the site to determine whether there was any radium contamination and to start planning a scoping survey. The agency is responsible for making sure these sites are not a public health problem.
It was unaware of the study being undertaken with the state grant, but Rosenberg said David Misenhimer, project manager at the NRC, contacted her Tuesday and wants a copy of Fuss and O’Neill’s report.
When a previous study was done on the factory in 1998, there were three occupants at that time: Club International, Goodies Small Engine Repair and St. John’s Restaurant. Most of the total building space then and now remains unoccupied.
The only business still there is Primo Gentleman’s Club, formerly the Key Club Cabaret — which was the site of a shooting in October 2013 in which a young woman was killed and five others wounded.
No radiological contamination was found in the club or the restaurant, but a small area in Goodies had a positive reading.
Converting the factory to loft spaces where renters could work and live would fit into the city’s Mill River District plan.
The NRC said the New Haven Clock Company was formed in 1853 as a supplier of brass clock movements. It produced more than 40 million watches between 1880 and 1959, it said, many of the watches with radium painted dials.
Radium was widely used in consumer and medical goods after it was discovered in 1898, according to the commission. The danger of being exposed to radium became clearer over time.
One of the better known stories concerned the “‘radium girls,’ who painted watch faces with glow-in-the dark radium paint and developed infections and jaw cancer from licking their brushes into fine points,” the commission wrote.
Colin Caplan, an architect and local historian, said the factory was built by Hiram Camp and at one point it was the largest clock maker in the world.
In an earlier interview, another local historian, Al Proto of North Haven, a retired teacher, said the factory was built in a former carriage construction warehouse.
Proto said they had their greatestsuccess from 1902 to 1923 when Walter Camp, the All American football player, took over the plant, and under his direction, they developed a wristwatch that was distributed worldwide.
Proto said during World War II, the company, at the request of the government, developed and manufactured fuses that were attached to bombers to make them more accurate — something they produced from 1941-45. By the time they got back to making clocks and wristwatches, the competition from others proved too great and the factory closed around 1956.
“It was a great place to work because they gave great bonuses. I can still see the men coming out of the shop from the 7-to-3 shift carrying their lunch buckets,” said Proto, who grew up in this area of Wooster Square.
The factory was sold at public auction in 1960, according to the NRC.