Star Corrugated (CONT’D FROM PAGE 1)
Star Box and Lumber and Star Corrugated coexisted for quite a while, but inevitably the corrugated segment displaced wooden crates. As volume grew, the factory ex- panded in 1937, 1948, and 1957. Finally, in 1998, an adja- cent building was acquired and connected to the plant, resulting in a 325,000-square-foot facility producing in excess of one billion square-feet of corrugated per year. For many years, Star Corrugated shipped carloads of boxes every day by rail to tobacco companies in the south. Izzy, who was both a guiding strategist and a consummate salesman, called upon their corporate offices in New York City. He was known to stock his desk drawer with every customer’s brand of cigarettes and be sure to pull out the appropriate brand when visited by customers. Star’s cartons were used to ship products to the Pacific Theater of Operations during World War II, for which it re- ceived commendations from the War Department. At one time, Star had an ownership interest in two pa- per mills and two other corrugated companies. The plant was originally equipped with a non-pressure single facer, shaft type roll stands, letterpresses using oil- based inks, and a whole lot of semi-automatic tapers, glu- ers, and stitchers. Working in a box plant in those days required strength, stamina, and a disregard of hazards. Roll stand shafts were heavy, presses were adjusted and cleaned while operat- ing, and feeding semi-automatic tapers at high enough rates to earn incentive bonuses was difficult. Interestingly, the most productive taper operators were women. S&S Corrugated and Langston were both suppliers of machinery. Langston was an early provider of corrugators and V-type letterpresses. S&S developed ZA and ZB fold- er tapers which Star acquired, and which displaced most of the semi-automatic tapers. Between 1957 and 1961, Star constructed a new ship- ping building and replaced its outdoor roll storage with a warehouse with capacity of seven to nine thousand tons, depending on roll width. Rolls were stored four and five high without space between columns and were handled by an overhead crane that deposited them on a second floor balcony adjacent to the corrugators. During that period, they also upgraded the primary cor- rugator, replacing the C-flute single facer with a state-of- the-art S&S HKD model, and a new S&S cutoff knife, which utilized a World War II surplus submarine motor generator set purchased by S&S from the Brooklyn Navy Yard, which was practically in their backyard. The corrugator stacker was configured so that it could discharge directly into an S&S vacuum stream-fed six bar slitter. In addition, in 1961 the plant was one of the first North American facilities to install a Bobst 1575EE autoplaten die cutter, then distributed by Thompson National Press, and a four-color Hooper Swift (later acquired by Koppers and then United) letterpress. Together, these allowed the com-
Star Box and Lumber, founded in 1906, was located near the South Street Seaport and the old Fulton Fish Market in New York City. Above, a worker cuts wooden planks to size, and below, a worker assembles a crate.
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April 21, 2025
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