Intricately woven history

The building at 275 Duckworth St. was originally built as the new home of the Newfoundland Clothing Factory. Owned by Moses Mayers, the company specialized in making custom suits and other clothing for men.

At the time of its construction, the building was something of a technological marvel with its state-of-the-art sprinkler system and clothing machinery that made production quicker and cheaper.

“It’s amazing what they built in the early 1900s without the equipment we have now,” says Vic Lawlor, the building’s new owner, who plans to turn it into a boutique hotel.

Even journalists of the time marvelled at its wonders.

“The button-holing machine is another automatic wonder,” Warwick Smith wrote in The Newfoundland Magazine in November 1919. “By pressing a lever a round knife comes down with a certain amount of force and cuts a small slit where the cloth has been previously marked for the buttonhole. The machine then sews around the buttonhole with a specially strong thread. An expert hand-sewer can make eight buttonholes per hour. This machine can make as high as a hundred and fifty.”

The factory stayed open into the mid 1950s, when The Evening Telegram moved in and stayed until 1981.

In the mid-1980s, Compu College moved in and stayed until 2010. The building has

been mostly vacant ever since.

KENN OLIVER/THE TELEGRAM Following extensive interior and exterior renovation and restoration roughly five years ago, the heritage building at 275 Duckworth St. has been purchased by St. John’s businessman and developer Vic Lawlor, who hopes to open a 40-room boutique hotel...

THE NEWFOUNDLAND MAGAZINE A photo of the old Newfoundland Clothing Factory taken in 1919 for a profile story in The Newfoundland Magazine. After serving as a clothing factory, the building was home to The Evening Telegram for close to 30 years, followed by Compu College from...