This is an 1895 view of the J.B. King Co. Plaster Mills. The New Brighton plant was acquired by the United States Gypsum Co. in 1924 and operated there until 1976.

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Every time I drive on Richmond Terrace in New Brighton and pass the heap of salt at the Kill Van Kull, I say, “Mount Saltmore” to myself — in jest, mostly, but also in actual awe at the mammoth amount of street salt stored at the 10-acre site.

The land and buildings that today are owned by the Atlantic Salt Co. once were the site of one of Staten Island’s largest employers — United States Gypsum, which closed the Island facility in the 1970s.

When I lived blocks away from the site in the mid-1980s, my neighbors would tell me how, when the plant was functioning, when they’d take in their laundry from the clothesline it was covered in white powder. Any wonder this site was once listed on a Superfund web site? (Superfund was the name given to the environmental program established in 1989 to address abandoned hazardous waste sites.)

This aerial view taken in 1972 offers a view of the rear of U.S. Gypsum, which overlooked the Kill van Kull.

But, let’s go back to the beginning.

The original building on the site was erected circa 1876 as the home of J.B. King Plaster Mill. That building and the site were purchased by the gypsum company, whose strongest economic growth occurred in its first 25 years, when gypsum board production increased from 12 million board feet to 200 million board feet, using 500,000 tons of raw gypsum annually.

Gypsum is a type of rock mined in Nova Scotia that was crushed and pulverized before being marketed as gypsum wallboard, cement, plaster, drywall, paste paint and other fireproofing materials.

Although organized in 1901, U.S. Gypsum, which had corporate offices in Chicago and eventually owned about 46 plants across the United States and Canada, did not buy the mill from J.B. King until 1924. Two years later, a new automatic wallboard plant was erected to replace the old, burdensome method of producing wallboard.

The factory was fitted with additional equipment for the manufacturing of partition tile in 1933 and paste paint products in 1936, which helped make it one of the country’s leading manufacturers of building materials.

The New Brighton plant was served by rail lines of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and employed in excess of 500 workers for decades. Chances are, if you bought a new house on Staten Island from the end of World War II through the mid-1970s, it was erected with materials manufactured at the U.S. Gypsum Company plant in New Brighton.

A MOVE TO NEW JERSEY

In 1976, having made the decision to close the New Brighton plant, the company’s Staten Island employees were given the chance to relocate to other U.S. Gypsum plants located in New Jersey in Jersey City, Kearny, South Plainfield and Clark.

Once the Island plant was idle, having closed permanently in 1976, it was inspected by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

According to research conducted by the EPA on the wallboard/Sheetrock industry, raw vermiculite would have been used in the mix to produce fire-rated materials. The vermiculite would prevent wallboard from shrinking during a fire, thus maintaining its shape and form for a short period of time during a fire.

At the time of the EPA’s visit, Atlantic Salt was using the site as an industrial and road salt distribution terminal. In October 1977, after lying dormant for more than a year after U.S. Gypsum left the area, the plant, along with its half-mile-long property, was purchased by Eastern Minerals, Inc., of Lowell, Mass., Atlantic Salt Co.’s parent firm. The company primarily utilized an outdoor area for salt storage, however, during the winter months, one of the former U.S. Gypsum buildings also was used to store the salt.

Many of the original U.S. Gypsum buildings were still present on the property at the time of the EPA’s inspection and were severely deteriorated. According to the agency, although vermiculite was not apparent during the site visit, a large number of transite siding panels, which may contain asbestos, but not the more dangerous type found in Libby vermiculite ore, were found on only one of the buildings then still standing on the 10-acre site. (Vermiculite ore from Libby, Montana, has been proven to alter the chest wall linings and lungs of people who sustained extended periods of exposure to the substance.) A referral was made to the EPA Region 2 Air Compliance Branch Regional Asbestos Coordinator to check on the need for possible transite asbestos abatement.

Salt is loaded onto trucks at Atlantic Salt Inc., located at the former home of the U.S. Gypsum Company.

With this referral, EPA did not anticipate any further actions related to asbestos-contaminated vermiculite at this site, but as a result of the findings in the one building, it was listed on a New York Superfund web site, as follows: STATEN ISLAND US GYPSUM PLANT 561 RICHMOND TERRACE NYD986894780. The web site does state that many of the Superfund sites listed have had asbestos remediation completed, thank goodness. In the intervening years, a few of the old U.S. Gypsum buildings have been demolished and the debris removed.

During spring, summer and into the fall months, a fruit and vegetable vendor, that also sells shrubs and annual and perennial flowers, occupies the façade of one of the former U.S. Gypsum buildings.

The massive former factory, therefore, still is active in the life of Staten Island year-round, whether it be a venue for purchasing produce and garden items, or to provide the means of melting street snow so we can travel the roads more safely.

What once was a facility devoted to materials for the building trades has been adapted and reborn as one of many and varied uses.

Present, Past, Future appears on the final Friday of the month in Home.

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