VILLAS — Buttons or Velcro? Old school versus new technology. We rarely consider these philosophical questions as we contend with daily life, but well…somebody has to do it.
According to demolition contractor and local resident Jack Porter, the Emsig Button Manufacturing plant at 301 Fulling Mill Road provided steady employment to many local residents for decades.
This nondescript, white, cinder-block building produced millions of those simple little devices (two holes or four?) that are so crucial to such mundane tasks as getting dressed in the morning.
His job now is to turn the bones and cinder blocks of the old plant into rubble and remove the debris, a task he finds a little off putting because he and his family knew some of the people who worked there.
Porter’s own connection goes back to 2010 when he performed a site remediation to remove huge deposits of rejected buttons and other substances from the site as required by current EPA law.
Now, he marvels at how solid the building is as he points to poured concrete reinforced sections that are resisting his demolition equipment, a testament to how well the building was constructed in the early 1950s.
The Emsig Button company was established in 1928 in New York City and for years made buttons, and just buttons, of different substances both natural like ivory (in the old days), and synthetic.
They continue to operate to this day in various locations here and abroad.
In 1952 the company moved a part of its operation to this site in Lower Township where they molded urea and melamine into buttons for civilian and military markets. Why they chose this particular site remains a mystery.
Wayne Gittle, 56, the last employee who literally turned out the lights for the last time at the old plant in 2001, characterized the company as the manufacturing anchor of the community.
He related that “the plant opened in 1952 and that at any given time, 50 local residents and families relied on the button company for their livelihood.” He reminisced that it was “amazing to see how buttons were made by compressing different chemical powders into pill-like pellets at high pressure and temperature.
Those “pills” were then formed and sized according to need. He recalled his tenure from 1979 to that final closing in 2001.
“This company always treated their people well and paid them good wages over the years” he recalled.
He remembered that at least during his time, employee turnover was not an issue and that a family atmosphere pervaded the plant for the last 20 or so years of its life in Villas.
He also recalled that oddly enough, the company never placed a sign on the building to identify it; it was just a large solid building where ordinary buttons were made by the millions over several decades.
As time marches on and plants open and close, the memory of a place where the old technology of the button once ruled Villas will continue, just as Velcro will never completely replace the humble button.
To contact Jim McCarty, email jmccarty@cmcherald.com.
