MIDDLETOWN — A new documentary will examine the history of the 19th-century typewriter factory that fell into disrepair before becoming a thriving business incubation space.
Photographer and filmmaker Peter Oberc and marketing consultant Jon Barton, founder of Integral solutionswill launch a 1,000 square foot film production studio in the RM Keating Historial Enterprise Park in the North End.
A chance encounter with a tenant in the building last fall prompted the men to visit the facility. Oberc, who has 30 years of experience in photography, was looking for locations for test drone footage.
He came across the canoe/kayak launch near the transfer station, next to the Keating building at 180 Johnson Street, and spoke to the co-owner of Spoke & Spy Cider House.
Oberc visited the factory and was impressed, he said.
“Here’s a story right in front of us,” he remembers thinking.
The building, which was constructed between 1896 and 1897, has been transformed since it housed the Keating Bicycle Co. Over the years, tenants have included the Keating Wheel and Automobile Co., Eisenhuth Horseless Vehicle Company, Noiseless Typewriter Co .and Remington Rand Corp. .
Purchased in 2010, the city-owned building offers entrepreneurs a place to start their fledgling business with reduced rent in hopes of encouraging their growth and hopefully encouraging them to stay in Middletown.
The documentary project, with a budget of $60,000, recently received a $5,000 matching grant from the city.
The two saw the potential to create a video story of the site to show that once forgotten and neglected areas can be redeemed to create economic growth, according to their proposal.
Barton calls the venture a “passion project.”
“The Keating Wheel factory is one of the big players and an incredible part of history was born here,” he said.
There was once a violent labor strike in which 1,200 unionized factory workers protested their dissatisfaction with wages in 1936. The protest later led to the firing of those employees, Barton said. .
“After that, the building never saw the peak of employment it once had,” and eventually fell into disrepair in the 1980s and 1990s, said Oberc, a Middletown native. “It’s turned into a rundown, piecemeal area with companies not doing things by code — that sort of thing,” he said.
He called it a “turning point” when the city bought the plant.
“I remember what it was like growing up as a kid going to St. John’s school,” said Barton, who had friends on Johnson Street and attended daycare on the High Street as he was younger.
“It was still a rundown, abandoned building,” where his friends would hang out and throw rocks at windows for entertainment, he added.
The factory was considered a “break with traditional industrial design”, according to the report compiled by Historical Perspectives of Westport.
It has a “relatively narrow width, the use of pier and floor beams spaced 10 feet apart, and an extensive bank of windows to allow light and air circulation,” the report states.
At first, the immigrant population, many of whom migrated from Sicily, played an important role in building this part of the city, Barton said.
The factory provided much-needed jobs for those looking for work during the Great Depression, Oberc said.
For the project, the two will interview those who remember the building from before the 1990s. “We want to bring history to life for all types of people, especially young people, to learn about the history of the city,” said Oberc.
“We also really want to show what good leadership and visionary people can do for the community,” he added.
“It will be a labor of love for us,” Oberc said.
Barton said the story is an “amazing story”.
“It went from being a building at the turn of the century during the second industrial revolution to bringing so much life to Middletown. Now that’s the life of all these micro businesses in town,” Barton said.
“It’s really a small micro-economy in itself,” he added. “It’s a really cool space to go in and spend the day,” for example, in breweries, cider houses and gymnasiums, as well as future projects moving into the facility.
“I don’t know if many other cities do this,” Barton said. “I think that’s an incredibly selfless thing for residents to do.”
He hopes the film will inspire other municipalities in Connecticut and beyond to reinvest in their own resources.
Oberc and Barton plan to visit Robert Keating, author of the book “Wheel Man”, who lives in New Hampshire. Keating shares the same name with the company, but there is no relationship.
“I wonder how successful these companies would be if they hadn’t been given the opportunity,” Barton said. “If the city can do this to help small businesses, it will have a ripple effect…and increase the tax base.
“Middletown has given me so much,” he said. “I want to give something back.”
The two hope to complete the project by the end of the summer and offer a free screening of the film in town. Barton hopes to eventually pitch the film to Netflix or Amazon Prime, he said.