E . C . Stearns & Company was in the hardware manufacturing business at 116 Cedar in 1879 . By 1884, the firm produced light gray iron castings and the company's skilled machinists offered services such as pattern making and " Japanning ".
22.
The gray iron fire escape hangs like a skeleton on the battered five-story brick tenement not far from the littered sidewalk in front of the 7 Brothers Famous Deli on the the corner of Ninth Avenue and West 49th Street where the black-and-white one-way arrows tell where the Mullen brothers went.