Spear and Company Factory
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Spear and Company Factory | |
 Looking west into interior view of cellular tower infrastructure | |
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| Location | 94-15 100th Street., Queens, New York City |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 40°41′19″N 73°50′38″W / 40.68861°N 73.84389°W |
| Built | 1906 |
| Architectural style | Cast-in-place reinforced concrete |
| NRHP reference No. | 100001807 |
| Added to NRHP | November 17, 2017 |
The Spear Building is an 85,000-square-foot, four-story building that was a hat factory and wax novelty manufacturer in its 1920s heyday. It is located at 94-15 100th Street, between 94th and 95th Avenues one block from in the Woodhaven neighborhood of Queens, New York City, and is best known as the location of the Worksman Cycles Factory, a manufacturer of iconic pushcarts, tricycles and heavy duty bicycles.
The building was listed on the New York State Register of Historic Places in 2017.[1] The same year, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places as an example of an intact early 20th-century reinforced concrete factory complex.
The Regal Hat company of Chicago and the Spear Company of New York merged on May 1, 1920, to become the Regal-Spear Co., manufacturers of cloth headwear and children's novelties. The Spear company experienced labor unrest later in 1920 when the labor force was locked out of the Woodhaven factory in Ozone Park, Queens.[2] At the time the company was listed as serving 22,000 customers.
The factory building on 100 St., was once home to Regal-Spear Co., which produced hats and was touted as the largest cloth headwear house in the world. It was also home to the Columbia Wax Products Co., a manufacturer of novelty candles. It was later home to the Worksman bicycle manufacturer.[3] Constructed in 1906 for Spear & Company, was one of the first cast-in-place concrete structures in New York City.[4]
