Finding A Home In Syracuse
(Syracuse, N.Y., Nov. 4, 2002) ¿ It was 1937 and the economy was beginning to emerge from the throes of the Great Depression. The city of Syracuse, New York rounded up $250,000 plus tax incentives in an attempt to draw Willis Carrier and his corporation from Newark, N.J. and three other cities across New Jersey and Pennsylvania. It worked. Carrier consolidated its manufacturing, engineering and administrative facilities and set up shop at the old Franklin Motor Car plant on Geddes Street in Syracuse.
It was here that Carrier switched over to making equipment for the war effort. After World War II, the demand for air conditioning skyrocketed. But demand would have been silenced quickly if Willis Carrier hadn¿t figured out how to design and manufacture products diverse enough to cool hotels, skyscrapers or classrooms.
In 1947, as a result of increasing manufacturing operations, the Thompson Road plant was built in the Town of DeWitt, at a cost of $10 million. Thoroughly modern in every respect, the 10 buildings that occupy the 59-acre site are a miniature city in its own right. When built, the plant included a cafeteria building with facilities to prepare food for 3,000 people and a self-contained fire department with the latest word in fire-fighting equipment.
 |
|
|
|
The one-story main manufacturing building, TR-1, containing in excess of 581,000 sq ft of floor space under a 41 ½-ft ceiling, was ideally suited for the production of heavy machinery. In 1947, this large space allowed for the transfer of entire departments across town to the new facility. Machines were installed that were able to produce five small compressors in the time it once required to turn out two. A Food Freezer production line was also set up complete with a 2,200-ft overhead conveyor system, modern dehydration rooms, automatic boards, test rooms and spray booths. This state of the art equipment allowed 2,500 Food Freezers to be built each month, one every ten minutes of each working day.
Today, the Syracuse campus contains 23 buildings, including some 3 million sq ft of manufacturing, warehouse and test lab space. This year marks the 65th anniversary of Carrier¿s relocation to Syracuse, and the 55th anniversary of the Thompson Road facility.
Although Willis Carrier passed away before the Thompson Road plant was completed, his legend is kept alive there. An office suite in the Administration & Research building at the Thompson Road location is dedicated to Dr. Carrier. Decorated in a late-1930s motif, the office reflects the era when the company moved to Syracuse from Newark. Many historical pieces are on display, such as the slide rule Dr. Carrier used to develop his ¿Rational Psychometric Formulae¿ and blueprints of the U.S. Capitol, which was air conditioned by Carrier in 1929.
|
|
