A building along the City of Dunkirk's waterfront has been nominated for potential inclusion on the State and National Registers of Historic Places. Earlier this month, the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation announced the Macaroni and Supply Building as one of 19 recommendations by the New York State Board for Historic Preservation. The building, located at the corner of Lake Shore Drive East and Washington Avenue, reflects the growing popularity of Italian food at the turn of the 20th century that resulted in over 100 pasta factories scattered across New York by 1925. It's one of the rare surviving buildings to represent this phenomenon. Entrepreneur Fred C. Henning constructed the factory initially as a two-story building on a full stone basement in 1908 and expanded it in 1912 with the addition of a third and fourth floor to meet growing demand. The basement and first floor were used for mixing, kneading, rolling, cutting and shaping, while the upper floors housed plentiful racks for pasta drying. The company operated successfully on the site until the early 1940s. The mid-20th century consolidation of food production into larger conglomerates meant that regional small-to-mid sized independent factories like this fell out of use. The Dunkirk Macaroni and Supply Building stands as a reminder to the important role they once played.
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