Hudson North American

By Katie McLaughlin

Hudson North American, a woman-owned moving and storage company with a niche in the luxury home and office furnishings industry, occupies this former horse stable of the Sheffield Farms-Slawson-Decker Company, once one of the city’s most important milk companies. The building, known as Sheffield Farms Stable, was listed to the National Register of Historic Places in 2005 for its association with the transformation of the New York City milk business and technological advances that improved sanitation.

The stable was built to accommodate the horses and wagons that delivered milk throughout Manhattan, first from a nearby milk depot and then from a major Sheffield bottling plant. Though it was “only” a stable, its design and upkeep consciously conveyed an image of cleanliness and hygiene. Its years as a stable ended in 1938 when Sheffield switched to delivery by truck, but the existing building continues to illustrate the emphasis on sanitation and health new to the milk industry at the time of its construction in 1903, as well as concepts of efficient stable design typical of the early 1900s.

The milk industry in the mid-1800s in New York City suffered from technological shortcomings, ignorance of sanitation needs, and cost-cutting efforts of distributors. Lack of refrigeration made it necessary to keep milk cows in the city, but the close quarters in which the cattle were kept and the swill with which they were fed bred bacteria and made the milk they produced unhealthy. Contaminated milk contributed to high disease and mortality rates among infants and children, but even as increased regulation of the industry improved the conditions in which cows were kept, additives to “preserve” milk (such as formaldehyde) and disease-causing agents passed from cattle through milk continued to spread tuberculosis, typhoid, and other diseases throughout the nineteenth century.

In 1902, the Sheffield Farms-Slawson-Decker Company was formed from the combination of three innovative dairy producers. Sheffield Farms, one of the three, was the first to test commercial pasteurization in the United States. Sheffield Farms also purchased fresh milk from farms throughout the region, conducting tests on the farms’ milk and cleanliness inspections of their facilities. Some questioned the safety and the effectiveness of pasteurizing milk, a process of heating and then cooling the milk to kill bacteria. Studies in Europe and in the United States, including one that specifically used Sheffield Farms milk, proved that the process drastically lowered infant mortality rates. Suspicions that tuberculosis could pass from cows to humans through milk, which led the Slawson Company (now part of the merged Sheffield Farms-Slawson-Decker) to test cows for TB years earlier, were confirmed. In 1911 milk pasteurization became compulsory for New York City.

As the importance of pasteurization and general hygiene for milk production became increasingly apparent, Sheffield Farms’ presence in New York City expanded. Its first bottling and pasteurization plant was constructed in 1907, followed a year and a half later by a second larger plant, conveniently located in Manhattanville at 632 125th St. near many modes of transportation and cold-storage facilities. This new plant was heralded in the press as the largest of its kind in the country, and a model of milk sanitation technology. Today, the former plant, with its elegant terra cotta facade and Guastavino tile vaulted ceiling, houses Columbia University’s Prentis Hall.

To accommodate the expanding business, the Sheffield Farms stable was enlarged, and four floors were added to the original two. The stable, near 129th St., was located close enough to the bottling plant to be efficient, but far enough to maintain an image of cleanliness for the plant. It was important for Sheffield Farms that the architect Frank Rooke*, who had built several other buildings for them and many other stables, apply the same hygienic image of the plant to the stable; this was done with a near-white brick and terra cotta façade.

The building also utilized standard techniques of the day for efficient stables and healthy horses, such as keeping the animals on lower floors and wagons on upper floors, and providing good ventilation for the horses. The horses’ safety was guarded with rounded edges on features such as railings and posts, and traction through scorings in the concrete floors and fire hoses draped across ramps; evidence of these are still visible today. In addition, new technology in the form of the electric freight elevator facilitated frequent changing of hay and straw, further enhancing the care of the horses. The “hay drop” door and chute are also still visible in the stable.

At the time when the Sheffield Farms Stable was built, 7,000 horses were employed for delivery and transportation in New York City, making the stable a very common building type. In 1916, there were 12 stables within a few blocks of the Sheffield Farms Stable, many serving other milk distributors. Increasingly, these businesses replaced their horses with trucks–believing them to be quieter, faster, and more efficient–and by 1924 Sheffield Farms was the only stable left in the area, with all others converted to garages. Perhaps the trainability of horses–a milk man could leave the wagon to deliver at basement steps and the tops of stoops while the horse moved alone down the block–motivated Sheffield Farms to continue this delivery system for a longer period of time. This characteristic practice is shown in a Bernice Abbott photo and caption of a Sheffield Farms wagon from 1936.

By the late 1930s, however, the company had not only switched to trucks, it also self-consciously shed its rural image for one more urban, dropping “Farms” from its name for the 1939 World Fair. The construction of Sheffield’s new plant at 57th Street and Eleventh Avenue contributed to the end of horse-and-wagon delivery in Manhattan.

Several other uses for the stable have followed since the horses and wagons left in 1938, including a real estate company, plumbing supplier, and storage warehouse. The current occupant, Hudson North American, established in 1992, is run by the daughter of the man who first purchased the former stable in the 1970s as a back-up for his storage company Despatch up the street. The original family firm, Despatch, is run by the son, and both businesses are thriving. Hudson’s owner, Anne Whitman, still maintains a commitment to preserving the former stables with careful maintenance of its historic features. She has welcomed tours and other recognition of the building’s history, and encouraged the listing of the building on the National Register of Historic Places. Today, the Former Sheffield Farms Stable is a particularly intact reminder of the history of the milk industry and the use of delivery horses in New York City.

*The architect Frank Rooke, known for his work on stables and factories, also designed another entry in our PlaceExplorer, the Claremont Riding Academy, a NYC landmark located at 175 W. 89th St.