Catskill Brick

On Monday, my partner-in-crime and I had to drop off his friend at the Double Happiness Chinatown bus stop. While we waited for his NYC-bound coach, I tried unsuccessfully to photograph a small stained glass window on a nearby building. Unfortunately, the light was wrong and tree branches were in my way.

And then this brick embedded in the grimy, rock-salted encrusted, cigarette-littered sidewalk caught my eye. It's not the first time I've noticed bricks stamped with the names of their manufacturers...in fact, there's some pale yellow bricks further up the Avenue that need to have their picture taken, too.

The town of Catskill...not to mention much of the Hudson Valley...has long been a center of brick manufacturing. A bit of quick research at a brick collecting web site (yes, people do collect bricks) shows about a dozen such companies. I believe this one came from the Catskill Vitrified Paving Brick Company.

There's a stack of old bricks in my garage. I'm just a little tempted to go out and see if they have any interesting markings. But it's snowing and I don't feel like venturing off the back porch.