Green Island Ford Plant

Introduction

In the Early 1920s Henry Ford announced that he was Building his largest plant yet on Green Island, just across the river from Troy New York. He had plans of utilizing hydroelectricity power his new factories.

How it Began

In the summer of 1919 a group including major leaders of the American industry such as Henry Ford, Thomas Edison and Harvey Firestone, and naturalist John Burroughs, had their summer camping trip on Green Island. The Federal Dam was being constructed at that time spanning from Green Island across the Hudson. The previous year, Henry Ford had purchased the northern 189 acres of Green Island. He had plans on building a Ford plant on the property, and building a hydroelectric powerplant using the dam. On their camping trip the four who called themselves the "Four Vagabond Gentlemen" carved their last initials into a stone that was later used as the cornerstone of the Ford Plant.

Use of the Plant

The Ford plant completed construction in 1923 and was his largest to date. There were talks of Thomas Edison opening a General Electric plant on the property, and Ford had plans to build housing for workers which could utilize power from the hydroelectric dam. Neither of these came to fruition. Although it was previously announced that the factory would be used for tractor parts, It was switched to producing automotive radiators and ring gears. Later on springs were produced there as well. The plants main production for its last sixty-five years were radiators and heating cores, which were shipped to Detroit to for assembly. It was Ford's key facility for the company's Engine and Foundry division. The plant was the Islands Largest employer during that time. In 1988 the plant was closed down as Ford could save $3 million a year producing the radiators in Plymouth, Michigan due to the shorter distance in transport.

Current times

The Plant was torn down in 2004 after being shut down in 1988 and slowly falling into disrepair with no ways to make use of it. Even though Ford stopped running the hydroelectric plant in 1961, it was renovated in 2000 after being taken over by the Green Island Power Authority, who hired Jim Besha of the Albany Engineering Corporation to help revitalize it. In 3 years, the reconstruction was complete with many new changes. The Hydroelectric Plant is still in use today. What's left of the land, about 30 of the northern acres and about 14 acres to the south, is being sought for proposals to develop in some way. The lot is assessed at roughly $1.1 million and is looking to be bought for some sort of housing, industrial, commercial or mixed-use.

Sources

[1]https://villageofgreenisland.com/gipa/about-gipa/ [2]https://www.hemmings.com/stories/2010/07/06/henry-fords-hydroelectric-dream-on-the-hudson [3]https://cdm16694.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p16694coll33/id/68/#:~:text=The%20Green%20Island%20Ford%20plant,was%20the%20island's%20largest%20employer. [4]https://www.timesunion.com/business/article/Green-Island-looks-for-development-project-16101527.php [5]https://www.timesunion.com/business/article/Green-Island-looks-for-development-project-16101527.php