Today, Pfizer is the largest pharmaceutical company in the world, with dozens of factories and research labs across the country, over 100,000 employees, and hundreds of billions in revenue. Amazing to think it all got started in a now-empty factory on the border between South Williamsburg and Bed-Stuy.

Pfizer was founded as a fine chemicals business in 1849 by German-American cousins Charles Pfizer and Charles Erhardt at the corner of Harrison Ave and Bartlett Street. Their first success was an anti-parasitic called santonin, though citric acid production was the real early moneymaker.

As the company grew, the cousins bought up land around their property, eventually occupying an entire block bordered by Tompkins, Ellery, Marcy, and Flushing.

Despite a lack of space, significant downturns in the neighborhood, and the high costs of operating in New York City, Pfizer maintained its operations here for over 150 years in what seems almost to have been a loyalty to its birthplace.

You can find a lot of great remnants from older Pfizer days, like this sign above one of the entrances:

Another entrance, with a cool art-deco motif:

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