You’ve probably seen the brick. If you’ve ever taken the 7 train through Long Island City or walked past the towering skeletons of industrial Queens, you’ve felt the weight of it. These buildings weren't always luxury lofts with floor-to-ceiling windows and rooftop pools. They were loud. They were hot. And for decades, they were the domain of the Paper Factory Queens—the women who built the literal backbone of New York’s industrial age.
The term "Paper Factory Queens" isn't just a catchy nickname for a boutique hotel on 36th Street. It’s a nod to a gritty, sweat-stained reality. Between the late 19th century and the mid-1900s, Long Island City (LIC) was the manufacturing capital of the world. Huge players like the American Papeterie Company and West Virginia Pulp and Paper (Westvaco) set up shop here. But the history books usually focus on the titans of industry—the guys in the suits. They forget the thousands of women who actually ran the floor.
Why Long Island City Became the Paper Capital
Location is everything. LIC had the perfect storm: deep-water access for barges, rail lines connecting to the rest of the country, and a massive labor pool of immigrants living in nearby tenements.
By the early 1900s, the paper industry was booming. People needed envelopes. They needed stationery. They needed cardboard boxes for the newly emerging world of consumer goods. To meet that demand, companies built massive concrete and brick structures that still define the skyline today. The building that people now know as "The Paper Factory" was originally a radio factory before transitioning into paper manufacturing, a common pivot for these versatile industrial spaces.
Inside these walls, the demographic was starkly female. Why? Honestly, it was because factory owners could pay women less. But the "Queens" of these factories turned it into something else. They created a culture of resilience and specific skill sets that men often lacked the patience for. We're talking about high-speed folding, precision sorting, and the kind of repetitive, high-dexterity labor that kept the city's administrative heart beating.
The Reality of the Factory Floor
It wasn't glamorous. Far from it.
The heat in a Long Island City paper mill in July was suffocating. Imagine the smell of wet pulp, heavy grease, and unwashed wool. The machines were massive, rhythmic, and dangerous. A moment’s distraction could cost a finger or a hand. Yet, these women thrived. They formed tight-knit social circles, often based on shared languages—Italian, Polish, Irish, and German.
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They weren't just workers; they were the economic engines of their households. In many Queens neighborhoods, the "Paper Factory Queens" were the most stable earners in the family. While men’s work in construction or at the docks was seasonal or weather-dependent, the paper mills ran year-round. They were the ones paying the rent.
Architecture and the Luxury Shift
Walk down 36th Street or 37th Avenue today. You’ll see the legacy in the windows. Those giant, multi-pane steel windows weren't for the "industrial chic" aesthetic. They were for light. Before high-wattage electric lighting was cheap and reliable, factories needed massive windows to allow women to see the fine details of the paper they were sorting.
The adaptive reuse of these buildings in the 2010s sparked a massive debate. On one hand, you’ve got preservation. It’s better to have a hotel or an office space in an old factory than to see it torn down for a glass tower. On the other hand, there’s a certain irony in someone paying $400 a night to sleep in a room where a woman once worked a 12-hour shift for pennies.
The "Paper Factory Hotel" (now the Collective Paper Factory) is the most famous example. It kept the old machinery as decor. The giant gears and pulleys are now conversation pieces. It’s a strange juxtaposition. You’re sipping a craft cocktail next to a machine that probably caused a lot of backaches and noise-induced hearing loss back in 1925.
What Most People Get Wrong About the History
People tend to romanticize the "good old days" of manufacturing. Or they do the opposite and paint it as a Dickensian nightmare. The truth is somewhere in the middle.
The Paper Factory Queens were unionizing. By the 1930s, organizations like the International Brotherhood of Pulp, Sulphite and Paper Mill Workers were making inroads. These women fought for better hours. They fought for safety guards on the machines. They weren't just passive victims of the industrial machine; they were active participants in the labor movement that eventually built the American middle class.
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Another misconception is that these factories were "low skill." Try feeding a high-speed folding machine for ten hours without a jam. It’s a rhythmic, technical craft. The institutional knowledge these women possessed was the only thing keeping the factories profitable. When a veteran worker left, production often dipped until the next "queen" could be trained.
The Cultural Impact on Modern Queens
The DNA of these factories is still in the neighborhood. Long Island City isn't just a bedroom community for Manhattan; it’s still a place where stuff gets made. You’ve still got printing shops, film studios, and artisanal workshops tucked into the corners.
The grit of the Paper Factory Queens influenced the art scene, too. In the 70s and 80s, after the paper industry moved south or overseas, these empty factories became the playground for artists. The high ceilings and low rents (at the time) birthed the LIC arts movement. Without the paper industry’s infrastructure, we wouldn't have MoMA PS1 or the Noguchi Museum in their current forms.
How to Explore This History Yourself
If you actually want to feel the history, don't just stay in the lobby of a renovated hotel. Take a walk. Start at the 36th St station and head toward the East River.
Look for the "ghost signs"—faded paint on the sides of brick buildings that still advertise paper companies or box manufacturers. Visit the Greater Astoria Historical Society. They have the records. They have the photos of the women standing on the assembly lines, hair tied back, eyes on the work.
Check out the "sunken" loading docks. You can still see where the trucks backed up to take the paper to the printers in Manhattan. It’s a physical map of a lost economy.
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Actionable Steps for the History-Minded Traveler
If you're visiting or living in Queens and want to honor this legacy, here’s what you actually do.
First, skip the generic tourist guides and look at the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission reports for the Long Island City Industrial District. They contain the architectural blueprints and company histories that explain why these buildings look the way they do.
Second, support the local businesses that still occupy smaller industrial spaces. The local breweries and makers are the modern descendants of that "maker" culture.
Third, visit the LIC waterfront. Standing there, you can see exactly how the logistics worked—raw materials in by water, finished paper out by rail and truck. It’s the best way to visualize the scale of what the Paper Factory Queens managed every single day.
Finally, look at the labor history. The struggle for women’s rights in the workplace didn't just happen in law offices; it happened on the floors of these paper mills. Recognizing that work as a skilled, vital part of New York’s history is the best way to keep the legacy of the Paper Factory Queens alive.