Inside the Poughkeepsie Fiat factory

With all this talk of Fiat buying Chrysler and coming to the United States, it bears mentioning that Fiat was already once here and even had an assembly plant in Poughkeepsie, New York, a stone's throw from the Hudson River: Fiat incorporated in the United States in 1908 and built its plant two years later.

The venture lasted less than a decade, but according to the Hudson Valley Ruins website, the factory remained in Poughkeepsie, first inhabited by Western Publishing, then by the Mid-Hudson Business Park and nearby Marist College in the 1980s before it was abandoned. Hudson Valley Ruins claims that after the factory's demolishing, the site now hosts a Staples store, but Associate Editor Mark McCourt, who hails from the mid-Hudson area, notes

The Fiat building was near the plaza where the Home Depot went up, but it wasn't the exact same place. I used to drive by this building every day on my way to Dutchess CC (I had no idea of its history until I came here), and it was directly across from the southern portion of the Marist college campus. A strip mall and student housing condos are now in that area.

And based on his recollections, we can narrow it down to a better view of where the factory once stood. Mark said he believes the factory was torn down in the late 1990s.

The reason for this little history lesson, however, lies with a recent email from reader Kim Morris, who sent the above photo and postcard and wondered if the photo was taken inside that Fiat factory.

You can see the stylized "A" in the window and the cars appear to be about 1913 Fiats. The windows also look right from the exterior photos I have seen of the plan, also attached.

That's very much the possibility, Kim.

UPDATE (11.June 2009): Tim Lavery confirmed with the Dutchess County Historical Society that the plant was located on the northeast corner of Rt. 9 and Fulton.

On the suggestion of a friend, I checked out Google Earth, which offers historic maps, and in their 1995 map of the region, it looks like the building's still standing:

UPDATE (24.September 2009): More on the factory here.

UPDATE (1.December 2009): Came across an interesting tidbit in the Standard Catalog. Apparently, when Fiat packed their bags, they sold the factory to the Duesenberg Motors Corporation, which bought it solely for the machinery, which they promptly moved to their Elizabeth, New Jersey, factory. So far I've yet to confirm that in any of our Duesenberg literature.