The Fortress is a massive building located in South Troy.  Growing up in Waterford and attending preschool through 2nd grade in Albany, I would spend the drive to and from gazing across the Hudson River, and see what looked like a castle right near the water’s edge.  For the many subsequent years of my adventures around the capital region, with many moves to different areas and now being a resident of Troy, I’ve driven past it and never knew what it was there for (when googled it is categorized as an antique store for some reason).  It rises above most of the buildings around imposingly. At the same time, the tower and architectural aspects make it seem almost majestic, like a tiny rendition of Neuschwanstein Castle.

As most cities near water do, Troy has its roots in industry, with one of the largest being the detachable shirt collar industry.  Up until the 20th century, that industry, pioneered by a local woman and dominated by women, flourished in Troy. Other industries, of course, were present, but this is the one that was clearly prominent and stuck with the city, even though the Cluett, Peabody & Company, the largest business in the town making detachable collars and other textile goods, moved out their headquarters out of Troy, now called the Collar City, in 1989.  By then, the name had already stuck, and most residents of the area now know the Collar City Bridge, and the various indie companies that have populated the historic storefronts, like Collar City Candles, Collar City Sweet Shoppe, and Collar City Guitar to name a few.

The Fortress, while not a collar factory, has ties to the industry, and was used by the United Waste Manufacturing Company, which had their head facility in Cohoes.  Built in 1902, it was used to store and process cotton, wool, and merino shoddies, which are reconstituted cloths made from the wastes and clippings of fabric from other industries.  The cloth was then used for a variety of purposes, including soldiers uniforms. This industry was very dangerous and only paid eleven dollars a week, so the jobs were generally worked by lower-class young immigrant women who could not get better work, and were helping provide for their families, or save some money to send home.  The process included acid, high temperatures, and confined space, a likely recipe for a fire. In September 1908, a spark caught on a pile of dried out fabric and within minutes, the flames consumed many rooms of the Fortress. This fire caused $50,000 in damages and injured several workers. Because the United Waste Company had not installed fire escapes on their building, and hallways and stairways became filled with smoke, women had to resort to jumping from the windows in order to escape, and the majority of women were injured this way instead of by the fire itself.  When working in a dangerous field, at least all precautions should be met, and the safety features should be provided by a business in the case that anything were to go wrong in order to ensure everyone’s well being, but they weren’t. As we know by now, it’s a sad truth that a company never has its employees best interests in mind, and United Waste proved no different.

 The process by which shoddy was made also created clouds of irritating dust which if inhaled caused flu-like symptoms in an illness called “shoddy fever”.  Because it was so unsafe, labor laws prohibited children under sixteen from working and were very strict about that rule. In 1914, James Maloney sued United Waste for the injuries his son, Peter, sustained while working at the shoddy factory. Peter was under sixteen at the time and therefore working illegally at the plant.  When this was revealed, the insurance company defending United Waste refused to defend the actions any further, because the labor laws of the time were strictly toward children being in school instead of working in factories. The company then had to pay by default for the injuries sustained by a child in its employment.

Due to these, and surely other reasons, the workers of United Waste felt as though they needed to make some kind of change.  Many joined unions and participated in meetings. On May 7, 1913, both United Waste workers and those from another company, Star Woolen, went on strike from their jobs at the mill, protesting their pay of $11.10 a week and claiming to have been misled about the conditions of the mill before coming to work there.  The company itself was holding up its end of the bargain, as it was not even able to afford the food necessary to feed its employees. However, the protest was not very successful, and some of the non-union workers were forced to enter the plant. A year later, two employees ask for a raise to $12 a week and are subsequently fired. As a result, there was yet another strike, and fourteen more workers left their jobs in search of something better.

Troy, is now seen as a hip and artsy downtown, and a place where people love to spend sunny afternoons wandering the riverside, but of course, it wasn’t always like that.  Like most places, it has its fair share of gruesome history which the city would rather people forget. The influx of new businesses has completely taken over the once industry city and given it a far more bohemian vibe than that of the United waste company. Many of the once factory buildings are being converted into luxury lofts, because an artsy downtown is nothing without its overpriced apartments. Now privately owned and used for storage, the Fortress was even once considered for renovation into one of these bastions of luxury, like the castle I once dreamed it was.

Works Cited

“Cohoes Mills Are Deserted.” The Times Union, 7 May 1913.

Corsaro, James S, and Kathleen D Roe. Labor And Industry in Troy and Cohoes: A Brief History. Edited by Gerald Zahavi and Susan McCormick, Dec. 2015.

Hedlund, Mark. “Troy, New York.” Encyclopedia Of Forlorn Places | Troy, New York, 2012, eofp.net/troy.html.

“Injured In Fire.” Troy Daily Times, Sept. 1908.

“Insurance Map.” Troy, Green Island, and Watervliet , vol. 2, Sanborn Map Company, 1904.

“Rudds Decides Important Case.” The Times Union, 23 May 1914.

“Strike at United Waste Plant.” The Troy Times, 15 May 1914.

“Strike-Breaker Induced to Quit Work.” The Bennington Evening Banner, 8 May 1913.

The Blue Book–Textile Directory: United States and Canada, 1897-1898. 1901st-1902nd ed., vol. 14, Davison Publishing Company.

United States, Congress, Department of the Interior, et al. “United Waste Manufacturing Company Building.” United Waste Manufacturing Company Building, National Park Service, 2012.

“United Waste Plant Strike.” The Troy Times, 16 May 1914.