Wikipedia:Peer review/American Bank Note Company Printing Plant/archive2

American Bank Note Company Printing Plant


I've listed this article for peer review because...

This was one of my earlier GAs, several years ago. Over the past few weeks I've done a bunch of work on it getting it closer to FA readiness. I'd like this review to concentrate on what it needs to be ready for FAC. One issue I'm aware of is that I may not be able to show that the Faile Mansion photo is actually public domain, so I'll probably end up pulling that. And I've still got some image alt texts I need to write. Other than that, have at it!

Thanks, RoySmith (talk) 00:15, 30 September 2023 (UTC)


 * STANDARD NOTE: I have added this PR to the Template:FAC peer review sidebar to get quicker and more responses. When this PR is closed, please remove it from the list. Also, consider adding the sidebar to your userpage to help others discover pre-FAC PRs, and please review other articles in that template. Thanks, Z1720 (talk) 02:52, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

This has been open for over a month without comment. Are you still interested in receiving comments, or can this be closed? Z1720 (talk) 20:30, 14 November 2023 (UTC)


 * Yes, I'm still interested, thanks. RoySmith (talk) 20:31, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
 * I just want to note that while I'm not responding to comments here, I am watching this page and appreciate all the input. I've been slowly working my way through the article fixing up sourcing problems and incorporating your suggestions as appropriate. RoySmith (talk) 02:36, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
 * OK, I think this is in pretty good shape now. If anybody has any additional major issues they see, let me know.  I'll leave this open for another few days to capture those.  After that, feel free to heap abuse on me at FAC :-) RoySmith (talk) 18:04, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

Comments from Z1720

 * "Modern-day Faile Street, three blocks east of the printing plant, preserves its legacy." Not sure what this fact has to do with this building, and I think it can be removed.
 * I made some edits to the article, mostly putting refs in numerical order. Feel free to revert.
 * "The Lafayette wing, spanning the south side of the block, is the longest and tallest," This is from the lede, and I couldn't find in the article where this is stated.
 * "As of 2023, it has been subdivided and rented to multiple tenants." The "Significant tenants" section talks about John V. Lindsay Wildcat Academy Charter School, but no mention of other tenants or that there are other tenants in the building. Information about the other tenants (maybe information that they are retail/performance space/whoever they are) should be included in the article.

Those are my thoughts. I hope this helps. Epicgenius, an editor who writes a lot about NYC landmarks, might be helpful in reviewing this article. Z1720 (talk) 23:56, 19 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the shout-out, @Z1720, but I'm notoriously tardy when it comes to giving timely feedback on FACs or PRs. Though I can still give some commentary if @RoySmith wants. – Epicgenius (talk) 00:19, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
 * I'd be happy to have any assistance. I figure I'm going to get raked over the coals one way or another; might as well do it before the clock starts running :-) RoySmith (talk) 00:43, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Eddie891
I'll have a read-through here Eddie891 Talk Work 18:33, 22 November 2023 (UTC)


 * Thanks. PS, no need to spot-check the refs; now that I know the drill, that's on my list of things I need to do myself :-) RoySmith (talk) 15:30, 23 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Can't say I will miss doing that! I will get to this this week. Sorry about the bit of a delay. Eddie891 Talk Work 15:42, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
 * No problem. At the rate I'm getting through my current pass, it'll be weeks before anything happens. RoySmith (talk) 17:04, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

UC
I'll give this a look, perhaps once Eddie has been over it. UndercoverClassicist T·C 11:27, 23 November 2023 (UTC)


 * Or before! :P Eddie891 Talk Work 15:42, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

A few thoughts below - lots of nitpicks, grammar and MoS things, but those do inevitably get pored over at FAC:


 * MOS:DASH: use an endash (type  or use the symbols palette) for ranges between years, pages and so on.
 * Names like The Lafayette wing are proper nouns in their entirety, so Wing should be capitalised in this context.
 * Not Roy, but the source says "Lafayette Avenue wing", "Barretto Street wing", etc., indicating that only the street names are proper nouns. The wording used in the article implies that "Lafayette wing" is a simplification of "Lafayette Avenue wing", rather than a wing that was officially named Lafayette. It would be similar to if Roy had used cardinal directions such as "south wing" or "west wing", or descriptive phrases such as "printing press wing". Epicgenius (talk) 21:11, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
 * The plant also housed an active research department: consider cutting active as WP:PUFFERY: do many plants house passive research departments?
 * The lead seems a little on the sparse side, given the length of the article.
 * : I don't fully understand what the brackets and italics are doing here.
 * : what, concretely, does preserves its legacy mean here?
 * : suggest naming them in a footnote, particularly if any have their own articles.
 * : there is a template,, which might be useful here, but MOS:CONFORM might also suggest simply amending to thorough without comment.
 * We are inconsistent as to whether the The in The Bronx is capitalised.
 * I would try to give some context for dollar amounts in the past, if only via the inflation template: they are often at odds with most readers' intuitive sense of how much that amount of money represents.
 * : would initially be employed reads better and avoids the implication that they would only initially be employed (and then would be let go, enslaved or something else).
 * : comma after Long Island (MOS:GEOCOMMA).
 * There are quite a few terms I'd consider linking: Manhattan and The New York Times stick out.
 * : WP:PROMO doesn't really apply to defunct companies, but I wonder whether this is fully encyclopaedic: is it really verifiable, beyond the usual corporate self-promotion? Has anyone neutral passed judgement on whether the engineers, designers, printers and so on really were better than anyone else's?
 * The LPC report says, "It considered itself the organization ... with ... the best- equipped plant, the most advanced employee welfare and research programs, and the most skilled designers, engineers, and printers."


 * I would explain who the FALN were and what they were doing bombing printing presses.
 * : MOS:CONFORM would correct the spelling and grammar of the last sentence, at least of unilateral: if felt important, use the sic template.
 * : why is the "main" name given here one that is no longer used?

Comments by David Fuchs
I'll drop some feedback here this week. Bug me if you don't see something. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 16:14, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

Brief comments by Epicgenius
I'll leave a few comments here in a bit. I can't promise an exhaustive review like at FAC, but I'll try to pick out the issues that jump out at me. – Epicgenius (talk) 02:32, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Initial notes:
 * "1299 lots", "2,500 to 3,000 people" - I'd be consistent with whether you include a comma after the thousands place.
 * "In 1908, American Banknote built a new building at 70 Broad Street, Manhattan" - you also need a comma after "Manhattan" per MOS:GEOCOMMA. Currently, the last part of that sentence is a clause reading "Manhattan into which they moved their administrative and sales offices".
 * "was front-page news in the next day's The New York Times." - My impression is that, at least for that era, being "front-page news" in the NYT didn't carry the connotation that it does today. Back then, the NYT was not only much more text-heavy, cramming more stories into one page, but also focused more on local events. To put this into perspective, other front-page headlines for that day include "Yale-Harvard Tickets $25", "Arrested an Heiress", and "Subway Block in Rush Hour" (the latter story being about something that disrupted subway service for half an hour, something that wouldn't even merit a NYT story today).
 * "within the next two or three years" - I'd say "within two or three years" or "in the next two or three years".
 * "describing a structure only somewhat similar to what was actually built" - You might need a more recent source for something like this, since the entire paragraph is sourced only to the 1909 description of the plant itself.
 * On that note, do the sources mention whether any alterations were filed with the Department of Buildings?
 * "The initial 1911 construction consisted of only two buildings;" - First, this should be a colon, not a semicolon, since the rest of the sentence is not a standalone clause. Second, are they wings or separate buildings? The Department of City Planning says that the block has two buildings, but one of them is the detached North Building; the other is the plant that occupies the rest of the block.
 * I need to think on the best way to address this throughout the article. As far as I can tell, what ZoLa calls the main building is three distinct structures which abut and interconnect with each other.  Sources are inconsistent about calling this one building or three, and the "wing" designations appear to be a modern marketing invention.  RoySmith (talk) 01:16, 1 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Hmm, that is strange. The DOB lists four buildings on the block, each with different BINs (1201 Lafayette Avenue, 930 Garrison Avenue, 938 Garrison Avenue, 900 Garrison Avenue). – Epicgenius (talk) 15:27, 1 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I think the real answer is that there is no authoritative definition for "a building". An engineer might be concerned with the structural framework which holds it up; i.e. do these three things have their own supporting structures?  The city government might be concerned with administrative things like how taxes are assessed and regulations applied, and it sounds like even different city agencies (Planning vs DOB) can't agree on whether it's one building or three. So I think where I'm going to land on this is to just accept that there is no clear best answer, continue to use the terms loosely, and add an explanatory note explaining all this. RoySmith (talk) 16:17, 1 December 2023 (UTC)
 * More later. – Epicgenius (talk) 21:27, 30 November 2023 (UTC)