This sign, obscured at one end by scaffolding, is difficult to show in a single image. Between "Bowl" at one end and "arehousing Co." at the other, would have been wording that added up to Bowling Green Warehousing Co. They were a relatively short-lived company in business from 1902 to approximately 1920. Entries in the New York telephone directory locate them here on Greenwich St. near Rector St. from 1903 to 1906. In 1907 they moved to 38 Laight St. in an area that was a prominent storage and warehousing district for many years.

Original partners in the business were Simon Hess (1853-1933) and Louis H. Ryder (1859/60-1938).

Simon Hess appeared in the 1880 U. S. Census the son of Gohe Hess, a butcher from Hesse Darmstadt, Germany. Simon, age 26, was also a butcher. In the 1900 census Simon Hess was 47 years old, a contractor, with a son, Julian, age 21, and a daughter, Maud, age 17. In 1910 Simon Hess, now 57, was listed as "president, various companies." By 1920 he was retired. On his death, the following obituary appeared in the New York Times, 26 January 1933, "Simon Hess, former president of the American Transfer Company and the Bowling Green Warehouse Corporation, died yesterday at his residence, 47 West Eighty-eighth Street, of heart disease after a week's illness. He was in his eightieth year. Surviving are a daughter, Miss Maud Hess; three grandsons, Harry H., Frank S. and Julian S. Hess, and a sister, the Countess Nasselli of Rome. Mr. Hess was a brother of the late Charles Hess, a lawyer, and of the late Jacob Hess, who was a member of the last Bipartisan Police Board, School Commissioner and head of the Board of Electrical Control and the Department of Charities and Corrections. Like his brother, Jacob, Mr. Hess was active in local politics as a Republican. For many years he was leader of the Twenty-seventh Assembly District. Over a long period he held the contract for trucking for the United States Public Stores and Ellis Island. He was a director of the Arundel Corporation of Baltimore, a large dredging concern."

In the 1910 U. S. Census Louis H. Ryder, age 50, was recorded as "book keeper, storage house." In 1920 he was listed as "secretary, butcher," when he lived in the home of Ludwig Scholem, a wholesale butcher. In the 1925 New York State Census his occupation appeared as "treasurer, motion picture concern."

Also employed at Bowling Green Warehousing was Simon Hess's son, Julian Speers Hess (1878-1925). He was listed as a vice-president in New York city directories in 1916, 1917 and 1920-21. On his 1918 World War I draft registration he gave he occupation as "Broker, Own Business." He died, age 46, 3 January 1925.

Copyright © 2017 Walter Grutchfield