Colgate & Company Jersey City Plant, Building No. B-5, 39 York Street, Jersey City, Hudson County, NJ

Significance: B-5 was significant as one of the oldest and most decorative Colgate & Company structures surviving in 1988 with original fabric, and as the oldest surviving structure built for laundry soap manufacture. Located in the Exchange Place area of Jersey City, the structure was part of B Block, the oldest part of the Jersey City plant and the heart of Colgate soap manufacture. The brick-bearing building was characteristic of mid-to-third-quarter 19th-century industrial design which utilized Italianate features, and was one of several such structures built along the south side of York Street at this time. The decorative features on the five story soap-producing building were confined to the exterior masonry, and included a granite basement level, round- and segmentally-arched window openings, brick buttress strips supported by brownstone brackets, and a dentillated brick entablature. The structure was modified several times for manufacturing purposes, but retained much of its original character. It was demolished in early 1989.
Survey number: HAER NJ-71-H
Building/structure dates: 1989 Demolished