A Matzo Factory Reincarnated

Four years ago in the spring of 2015, Brooklyn-based photographer Joseph O. Holmes carried his camera into the timeworn Streit’s matzo factory on New York City’s Lower East Side. Inside the factory he discovered the chief mechanic wrestling with failing machinery and witnessed first hand why the Streit family reluctantly decided to build a brand new factory 26 miles up the Hudson River.

Holmes ended up spending five weeks at Streit’s, navigating six floors over four buildings and capturing the longtime workers and their decaying machines. Ninety years after Aron Streit built the factory on the Lower East Side, and soon after Holmes took his final photo, the family abandoned the old plant forever. In its place today stands a new condo building, 150 Rivington. To honor the history of the site, the building has hung 11 large prints from Holmes’s series “Streit’s: The Last Days of the Lower East Side Matzo Factory” in its lobby. Visits are allowed, but a call must be made in advance.

“Streit’s: The Last Days of the Lower East Side Matzo Factory”
By Joseph O. Holmes
150 Rivington Street, New York, NY
To visit call 212-979-1503