A back-in-the-day building in the Pearl

Do you see the name on the building?  That’s not an ironically titled restaurant.  That’s an actual Bearing Service Company, left over from the time where the Pearl District was filled with blue-collar businesses and warehouses instead of wandering yuppies and tourists.  They’ve recently painted this building, so it looks like they plan to stick around.

Look at that Art Deco glass, and the super cool rounded platform entrance, topped by a neon sign.  Niiiiiiice!

From peeking through the windows, I know that there’s a tiny customer service space, and then the rest of the building is taken up with shelves of parts.  When it’s hot, the large fan they set in the doorway has tipped me off to the fact that they don’t have air conditioning.

2 thoughts on “A back-in-the-day building in the Pearl”

  1. Oh, I bet it was miserable in there during that 100 degree weather this summer! This is a building that I find aesthetically ugly but I find it interesting from a historical standpoint. I’m a little uncertain what bearing service does. Different sized ball bearings?

    1. Machine parts! My first job out of college was for Motion Industries. It’s a national company (there’s one not too far from me on Columbia) that had just bought the regional company of Berry Bearing. People (engineers? maintenance guys? I don’t know who) would call sales because they needed a specific part for their machine (like maybe factory-type machines?) and sales would sell it to them. Then the warehouse guys would either hold it for pick up, or ship it off. All those machines need things to keep them running, it turns out.

      One of the outside sales guy was near my age and was a complete Italian American cliche. Corvette, big gold rings on his fingers, gold chains on his hairy chest. There might have been hair gel involved too.

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