American Can Company Factory (Somers Brothers Tinware)

The massive red brick building on the southeast corner of Third St. and Third Ave. in the Gowanus neighborhood was built as the Somers Brothers Tinware Factory in 1884. The business later became the American Can Company. The factory was one of the largest decorated tinware manufacturing complexes in the country and operated here until 1950.

The former factory building is a contributing part of the Gowanus Canal National Register Historic District. The rehabilitated building is now called the Old American Can Factory and is a mecca for artists, filmmakers, publishers, and craftspeople. It is the venue for the annual Rooftop Films series.

The Somers Brothers - Daniel (1841-1912), Guy (1842-1909), and Joseph (1844-1914) - were in the tin-making business by 1862 and leased space in a succession of Brooklyn locations. They perfected a method of printing images on tinplate sheets using lithography. By 1878, they were using custom equipment to cut and shape the printed sheets into containers. The brothers were long-time Brooklyn residents and chose a location near the Fifth Street basin of the Gowanus Canal to build the Somers Brothers Tinware Factory. Their company was one of the first in America to make the tin containers with integrated decorative surfaces; before this, paper labels were the norm. By the late 1880s, they were one of only three tin lithography companies in America. The factory employed 850 workers by 1892. Somers Brothers was acquired by the American Can Company in 1901, who had recently acquired 102 other American companies making tin cans. The American Can Company was the country's 31st largest business by 1917, when it manufactured gas masks with metal canisters for absorptive chemicals for World War I. The company sold the former Somers Brothers factory building in 1950; it was leased beginning in 1952 to Corrugated Container Corporation.

Daniel Somers, a civil engineer, patented a number of inventions, including a machine to make sheet metal boxes in 1878 and a rolling mechanism in 1904. Daniel also is credited with designing the factory building, plus a later addition on a separate lot. He served as a director of the Brooklyn Public Library. Daniel designed his own mausoleum in Green-wood Cemetery, where he was interred in 1912.

The new Somers Brothers factory was described by the Brooklyn Daily Eagle newspaper in 1884 as the greatest decorated tin box company in the country. Artists designed the lithographic images, and the pigments were transferred to tinplate imported from England; tinplate is a sheet of iron or steel plated in tin while flat. Steam kilns fixed the image to the tin, and enamel and gloss finishes were applied. Machine operators then bent the sheets into the shapes of containers, also called tinware. The company also manufactured tin signs and tin tobacco tags.

The factory building is American Round Arch style with a prominent corner pavilion and two wings - one along the north side of Third St. and the other on the west side of Third Ave. The building is three stories tall plus a basement and is made of polychromatic brick in red, red-orange, Black, and white, with bluestone sills. A fancy red brick cornice tops the building, above diamond-shaped window openings. A tower with a pyramidal roof was removed from the corner pavilion after 1940, as was a decorative iron balustrade that edged its roof.

An alternate address for the former can factory is 369 Third Ave. The building became popular for space for artists beginning in the 1970s. A design firm, XO Projects, leased space in the former factory in 1990 and rehabbed the structure for the owners since 1983, LMS Realty Associates. XO Projects has organized farmers markets, exhibitions, and other events held in the building.

Moses, Sarah. NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission. Designation Report LP-2640, Somers Brothers Tinware Factory (later American Can Company), Brooklyn. New York, NY. New York City Government, 2019.