The Official Haunted Hamilton Blog

In 1956:
The Reio family opens the Naples Macaroni Company.  Workers in the factory are mostly women from the Italian community living in Hamilton’s north end.  The basement was used to pack olives, the main floor a mix of pasta and doughnuts… you can only imagine the interesting smells coming from the Custom House.

With all of this food, it would take an organized business to stay clean and sanitary… Naples Macaroni wasn’t organized.  Conditions were horrendous – bugs and rats ruled this building.  The Reio family needed a quick way to solve this problem. 

They decided to spray the walls, floors, furniture… and the macaroni with dangerous pesticide!  The product was then sealed and shipped to an unsuspecting public.

The health department closes Naples in 1979:
The Custom House is left empty for its longest time ever.

The Custom House goes dark again, almost for good
From 1979 until 1988…
For almost 10 years the Custom House remained abandoned.  Decay and the elements set in, and the structure starts falling apart.  A tree grows through the main lobby.  Many times, the city contemplated demolition… then a very crafty business man walks in with a kicking awesome idea in 1988.

In 1988:
The main dojo of a martial arts academy opens in the Custom House.  A great business mind, this owner is able to get $400,000 worth of grant money for renovations and restoration.  Much of the building is saved, including the original oak staircase in the lobby.

In 1992:
For all this man possessed in business sense, he lacked in running a successful dojo.  The building was reposed by the bank and sold through power of sale to a computer company four years after the renovations.  The computer company would only last one year.

In 1995:
The Workers Arts and Heritage Centre bought the building and held a one-day, pre-renovation celebration of the over 135 years of working-class history at the Custom House.  The building was reopened one year later as a museum dedicated to the blue-collared.

 It was during these major renovations that the spirits were stirred up.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 27th, 2010 at 5:50 pm and is filed under Main. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.