Heritage
Ninety-five years.
Not one complaint.
Cowling & Watts has been owned by the same two families since the day it opened. It has been owed money by several others.
The Founders
A cobbler and a cement man walk into a card game.
Ambrose Cowling made shoes on Van Brunt Street for twenty years. He made them well, and he made them slowly, and by 1931 nobody could afford them.
Thaddeus Watts poured foundations for the new piers going up along the waterfront. He had more cement than work, and some of his customers had more problems than cement.
The two met over a game of pinochle in the back of a Red Hook social club. Neither man left the table with any money. Both left with an idea. The first pair of Hudsons was poured that same week, and the client never wore anything else again.
A Brief History
Milestones.
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1931
The first pour
Cowling & Watts opens in a former ice house at the end of Pier 9½. The Hudson is the only style on offer. Sales are brisk.
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1933
Prohibition ends
Several of our best customers find themselves in sudden need of a new line of work. Demand rises sharply.
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1946
The Coney Island showroom
A second location opens on Surf Avenue. It closes the following summer, for reasons that the family still prefers not to discuss.
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1957
The Two-Tone Spectator
Our first seasonal style, created for a very well-attended summer wedding. Several of the guests went home in a pair.
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1972
Rapid-set
Thaddeus Watts Jr. develops our quick-cure formula after a long, cold night on the Gowanus waiting for a pair of Hudsons to go off. The Executive follows a year later.
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1989
Recognition
Named “Most Discreet Business in Brooklyn” by a magazine that ceased publication shortly afterwards. We did not attend the ceremony.
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2003
The first website
Online for nine hours. Taken down on legal advice.
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2026
Today
Still family-owned, still hand-poured, still on Pier 9½. The fourth generation of Cowlings and Watts now runs the shop, and has never been convicted of anything. This year the house went international, opening a second workshop in Hobart, Tasmania, where the water is colder and the questions are fewer.
“My grandfather always said: measure twice, pour once, and never use the same pier two weeks running.”Eleanor Cowling, Master Fitter
The Cowling & Watts Promise
What we've always stood for.
We will always use honest materials: Portland cement, clean sand, and good stone.
We will always fit by hand, and never by catalogue.
We will never keep records, and never remember a face.
And we will always, always deliver.