What do the Brooklyn Bridge, Henry Mancini, the Molly
Maguires, and a Postmaster General who served a critical role during the
Revolutionary War and Elvis's Pink Cadillac have in common?
Anyone who has lived in Jim Thorpe for any period knows
that coincidences abound in the shadow of Mt. Pisgah. Interestingly enough, the
connection is an artist, Victor Stabin, who resides in Jim Thorpe with his
studio in an old stone wireworks factory.
Victor has opened The Stabin Museum at 268 West Broadway
in a building connected to a history that spans more than two hundred years of
industrial, economic, and political
change, tracing—in the microcosm of this one factory-campus—the arc of
industrialization and post-industrialization of Mauch Chunk, Jim Thorpe,
Pennsylvania, and indeed the world.
Red brick and stone facades, an underground aqueduct,
original maple hardwood floors, and an exposed rock wall at the base of the
mountain all lend a distinct architectural ambiance to the complex, which
throughout its history has been a place for innovation and fabrication using
the most innovative technology of the day.
Often compared to
Dr. Suess, Salvador Dali, and M.C. Escher, Stabin ‘s work is a world unto its
own that defies description. His work itself, is an homage to the arc of art history
from the influences of centuries old Japanese watercolor print artists to
contemporary graphic arts. His work is inspired by many facets of his own life
including his family, an interest in the connection between man and nature,
water and the water’s edge.
This is a building once owned by the Hazard family – the
child (Erskine) and grandchild (Fisher) of Ebenezer Hazard who was a US
Postmaster General and contemporary of Benjamin Franklin and George Washington.
Americans stopped patronizing the British postal service
in 1775 and created their own postal service. Ebenezer Hazard became Postmaster
of New York City during the revolution while Ben Franklin was named postmaster
general for the continent. Franklin subsequently appointed Hazard “surveyor”
(inspector) for the continental post office.
Stabin’s artistic resume includes a commission to design
nine U.S. Postage stamps - eight American Scientists and a portrait of noted
composer, Henry Mancini. In addition to such well-known film scores as THE PINK
PANTHER and MOON RIVER, Mancini also wrote the film score for THE MOLLY
MAGUIRES starring Sean Connery. THE
MOLLY MAGUIRES was filmed in downtown Jim Thorpe in the late 60’s - a stone's
throw from the building where Mancini's portrait would one day be painted by
Stabin and displayed on over 80 million U.S. postage stamps.
Stabin was born in Brooklyn and Brooklyn's most famous
landmark, The Brooklyn Bridge, wouldn't have been possible without the
technology that was developed at 268 West Broadway, by Erskine and Fisher
Hazard.
The Hazards invented the first mechanized wire rope
machine that created the twisted cables used in suspension bridges. Over 200
million tons of wire rope were produced per year at the building with water
power supplied by the Mauch Chunk Creek - the creek now visible in the dining
room of the museum cafe named after his youngest daughter, Cafe Arielle.
Following its useful life as the Hazard Wire Rope factory
(the rope factory moved to Wilkes-Barre), the building was used as a silk mill,
The Mauch Chunk Silk Company. The concrete bunker where the silk was stored is
still in use as the kitchen for the cafe and the old cutting tables are now
dining room tables - making the building a case study in creative
industrial reuse.
The silk mill became MaryAnn Manufacturing, one of
several dress factories owned by the Merluzzi family, employing a number of
residents in the area throughout the 1960s and 70s.
The dress factory once again transformed...by making
transformers (for model railroads) and converted to a toy factory, The Hobman
Corporation. They made remote controls for model railroads as well as model cars
including Elvis's Pink 1955 Cadillac) and transformers for model
railroads. The factory was shuttered in 2000.
In 2004 Stabin
purchased and resurrected a 15,000 square ft 172-year-old factory, where for
the last fifteen years he's been filling it with his brand of art. The factory
now has galleries, a projection room, a cafe and bar where the Mauch Chunk
Creek is visible through an elegantly designed glass enclosure come dining
table. There's even a magical "avant garden", a performance space for
jazz and more. The museum even has off-street parking for patrons who wish to
visit.
The Stabin Museum and Cafe Arielle are open on weekends.
For more information call 570-325-5588 or visit their www.victorstabin.com
