WRITTEN BY Jack Coraggio • PHOTOGRAPHED BY Michael Kabelka
Evolution In Oakville
Beginning in the early 19th century, and peaking with lucrative World War II contracts, the Greater Waterbury area was unquestionably the leading manufacturer of brass products in the United States. But after the Allied Forces' victory, business slowed and then fell off precipitously, denoted by the now darkened factory buildings that help define the city's skyline.
These buildings once symbolized the Industrial Revolution's heart, which mechanically beat with inner machinery made by advancements in metallurgy, ironmaking techniques and refined coal usage, and made possible America's climb to economic supremacy.
Today, what use are those old factory machines, the ones that churned out buttons and screws and alarm clock pieces in the Brass City and beyond, and essentially catapulted the American textile, transportation and communication industries into state of prominence? Are they forever scrap metal artifacts relegated to junkyards, while countries abroad increasingly overtake our once flourishing industrial market?
Many people think so. Tim Byrne thinks not.
When he sees a discarded old machine, he envisions a piece of equipment just as useful and viable now as it was in the 1800s or early 1900s. Steel tables, cast iron cranks and gears are not obsolete clutter, best to be melted down and reused for a contemporary purpose. Instead, they are to be cleaned up, and put back to work-not for a factory floor production process but as the foundation of highly-stylized and utilitarian home furnishings and accessories.
That's his business, Get Back Inc., a furnishings company that has become his own personal Industrial Revolution. Salvaging these apparatuses, resurrecting them from the graveyards, making them again part of the national market, in a sense, is Mr. Byrne's American dream in action. "I'm an Irish immigrant with a deep love of the American Industrial Revolution era, " Mr. Byrne explained in his distinct Dublin brogue. "I was always attracted to this antique [machinery,] the fine craftsmanship of it. I could always appreciate good work, and that's what these are."
It's an interesting perspective, perhaps often overlooked, but undeniably legitimate. As he walked through his showroom floor, fittingly located on the fourth floor of a converted pin
factory on the Oakville/Waterbury line in Watertown, he explained the birth and purpose of each table, chair, desk, cart and lamp he both designed and constructed.
With bases developed from cast iron pieces, sturdy doesn't begin to describe some of these furnishings. And sleek, so sleek that when looking down through a glass top kitchen table, one sees beams, gears, threads and, most often, a hand crank to adjust height. It's symmetrical with a lustrous grace of lines that makes it strangely modern, revitalized and clean. These pieces are antiques, but not delicate Litchfield County vintage shop pieces. They're heavy-duty, durable, industrial-strength versions.
It's a whole new concept in furniture making. Martin Prew, a concept director who helped brand Mr. Byrne's image, calls it "Industrial Modern," saying it is barely identified in the modern marketplace.
"He's taking these beautiful pieces and adding a modern flare," noted Mr. Prew, who is reshaping the company image to Tim Byrne Get Back Inc. "He'll find a piece half-sticking out of the mud and see something completely different, try to return much of its function of the past but completely reassign it."
Mr. Byrne describes his offerings, particularly the antique machines upon which they were built, with a quiet passion, like an admirer of Impressionist artwork might describe a piece by Claude Monet. As he ran his hands over a table once used for welding, with the indented grooves from decades of high heat dating it like the rings of a fallen tree, he doesn't see it as worn, or ruined, but "just so, so beautiful."
Highlighting a then-and-now juxtaposition of how things are perceived, photographs of old factories often reveal soot-covered workers, standing before greasy, oily machines that look forbidding, not at all like a potential dining room table.
"I want to show how beautiful they were at the time they were built," said Mr. Byrne. "Along the way, I'd see pieces that prompted my imagination. I know I could take it, redesign it, and turn it into art. "
Along the way, he says. What was the way this Irish immigrant traveled to get to where he is today?
A cabinetmaker by trade, he brought his family here more than two decades ago, when work in Ireland was sparse. He won citizenship through a lottery, which allowed him to practice his woodworking craft more freely and without fear of extradition.
Working out of Connecticut, Mr. Byrne often found himself hauling pieces down to New York City flea markets, where he increasingly noticed, in chic urban fashion, artisans marrying' industrial steel pieces with contemporary fittings. The work was loud and overstated, but he was inspired by the idea, even if the creators were, in his, opinion, doing it all wrong.
"I would drive down in the freezing cold, and I'd see bits of industrial pieces here and there, and I said to myself, "I can do better than that,'" Mr. Byrne recalled. "I saw what these guys were doing and they missed the point completely, They were doing too much to ,it, when the beauty is already in the, piece."
So, taking himself up on his own offer, he shifted gears and started seeking out vintage pieces of factory equipment from wherever he could find them. In 2000, he opened Get Back in that old pin factory building. The quality of his merchandise, the utter appeal of it, attracted a high-end clientele in a considerably short period.
Some of his repeat customers include actors John Lithgow and Harvey Fierstein, and musical icon Bruce Springsteen, a man whose working-class anthems, if rock n' roll had existed in the 19th century, would surely have been the musical score of the factory floor workers.
Restaurateur Phil Scotti, CEO of New York's P.I. Clarke's Group, is so loyal to Mr. Byrne's work, that some of his P.I. Clarke restaurants, his corporate office and his Millbrook, N.Y., home are heavily furnished with it. "Nobody's ever seen tables like his before," said Mr. Scotti, who during a recent phone interview, as he peered around his home, seemed somewhat surprised by how much of Mr. Byrne's work he owns. "It has a very sophisticated sensibility, and it goes with everything."
"I live in a traditional Shaker house, and I use Tim's industrial pieces," he continued. "There's an art to it, but I can see it working anywhere, it's so utilitarian-in Tuscany, in a London flat, I don't think there's anywhere where they wouldn't fit."
Mr. Scotti laughed as he recalled a glass table he owns, converted from an old autopsy table. He says that it isn't until after guests admire it for an evening that he tells them what it was used for generations ago.
Anyway, to keep up with his demanding and expanding popularity, Mr. Byrne kept pushing his Oakville space further out. Now, with a handful of employees working for him, he takes up the entire fourth floor of three attached buildings, encompassing an area of some 40,000 square feet.
Only part of it is that brick-lined showroom. Most of it is storage space, where he stockpiles enough spare machinery equipment to supply a new Ford facility.
He would never do that, of course. If an idea comes to him, something new he wants to create, like a lamp that hangs from a handmold for glove-casting, or a stand made out of a mill saw on which to hang flat-screen televisions, he'll need the inventory.
Like so many immigrants before him, he's benefiting from the Industrial Revolution, but his story wouldn't be so unique if it were 100 years ago. Today, he's one of a kind.
"I couldn't do this anywhere else in the world," he said. "Not anywhere else."
Get Back Inc., which will also restore old pieces, can be reached at 860-274-9991. A tour of the showroom is by appointment only.