Iron Economics: A Craft Dies Slowly, in Brookfield

The first, and largest, pyramid at Giza in ancient Egypt was built by the pharaoh Khufu whose reign began around 2,551 B.C. History can’t tell us how many people were hurt during its construction, but reasonable guesswork says "a whole lot." That kind of pain and suffering that pharaohs – or rather their slaves — endured was the price for craftsmanship that outlived the craftsman.

It’s a timeless trade-off, and one that Brookfield’s Tom LaBarbera knows all too well. He recently shuttered his family’s business, Tom’s Ornamental Iron Works, after over 70 years.

"The business wore us all out. Wore out my dad, wore out me, wore out my son," LaBarbera told Patch.

LaBarbera’s dad started the business in Westchester County, shortly after he came home from serving in World War II. He later bought a piece of property in New Fairfield in the early 50s, where he lived and worked. As the business grew, he began renting a place in Brookfield, until he moved into permanent digs at 626 Federal Road.

The three generations of LaBarbera iron workers shaped and welded spiral stairways, ornamental railings, cemetery fences, fire escapes, and other fixtures that evoke an arguably classier, and certainly more durable, American era.

"Anything metal, we did it," LaBarbera said.

They were specialists, perhaps, but they never turned anyone away.

"We repaired everything. I had people come into my shop, ask me to fix their toaster." And he did.

LaBarbera, who will be 71 "pretty soon," closed up shop late in 2018 after 53 years in the business. His son, Brian, 43, had just decided to hang up his welding torch after 25 years, for health reasons.

"The work is very hard," LaBarbera explained. "I had my shoulder fixed three times, my back is shot, my knees, my neck… same with Brian. He just had surgery on his neck, he’s had surgery on his shoulder… it just wears you out."

But for a long time, it was very lucrative. LaBarbera’s bread and butter were wealthy area families who owned estates. The tony clientele appreciated and demanded the high-end craftsmanship, and they could pay for it.

"If someone needed railways for a staircase, they would call us," he said.

Those times, if not gone completely, are certainly in steep decline. LaBarbera says it became difficult for a craftsman to compete in a market that caters to instant online gratification, an era when the promise of even faster, drone-delivered goods sparks not a "How?" but a "How soon?"

"Everything we did was custom," LaBarbera said. “Now, everything is being imported from China and Mexico. It’s all prefabricated. Buy (iron fences) from China, they’ll cost you 2,000 dollars. But when I made them I could sell them for 10-12,000 dollars.”

One can argue that some of these economic wounds are ironically self-inflicted. Like Khufu before him, LaBarbera built his stuff to last. His customers, unlike Apple’s or Amazon’s, aren’t looking
to upgrade to a newer model in two years.

"Every building that the town owns in Brookfield, my work is on there, and I know that work will still be there in 150 years, if the building is still standing," LaBarbera said.

The LaBarberas restored a quarter mile of cemetery fence in Newtown about a year before shutting down. They billed close to $25,000 for the work, but jobs like that had been getting fewer and far between. Today, cemeteries are much more likely to put up chain link fences at a fraction of the cost. The Gothic romance of ornamental graveyard gates comes at a steep price.

Although you might think that electronic commerce would be a boon to a local craftsman who would be empowered to sell his work into new markets around the world, LaBarbera credits online shopping as the final blow to his business.

"You can’t compete with the stuff coming in from China and Mexico. It looks the same, but the quality isn’t there." There is sadness in his voice, but also resignation.

Tom LaBarbera, worker of iron in a society of Styrofoam, is reconciled to the notion that, like Khufu, his life’s work will live on long after the industry that birthed it.