Forbes Park
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Forbes Park, also known simply as Forbes, is a private subdivision and gated community in Makati City, Metro Manila, Philippines. It is divided into Forbes Park North and Forbes Park South and is bounded roughly by Epifanio de los Santos Avenue to the northwest, Manila Golf Club to the east, the Maricaban Creek to the south and southeast, and Acacia Avenue/Dasmariñas Village to the west. One of the first villages to be developed by Ayala y Compañía, Forbes Park is well-known for housing some of the country's wealthiest families.
There is also a Forbes Park in Chelsea Massachusetts. This 17 acres along the Chelsea River and Mill Creek is the site of a new mixed-use development, combining around 400 artists lofts with retail and creative commercial space.
Forbes Lithograph Manufacturing Co. was established in Boston in 1862 by an English immigrant named William H. Forbes, who came to America at the age of twelve. In 1884 he relocated his company to a recently built factory building in Chelsea, on the Chelsea River and Mill Creek along the Portland Division of the Boston & Maine railroad, which came to be known as Forbes Station.
Among the company’s early products were decorative labels for bolts of fabric, and Forbes became a leader in multicolored packaging and advertising materials. Over the years, the Forbes Company produced a wide variety of printed goods: dry goods tickets, trade cards, sheet music covers, posters, can labels, wrappers, currency, billboards, textbooks, advertising materials, and packaging materials.
During World War I, its artists designed beautiful and patriotic recruiting posters, as well as sheet music for popular songs.
In World War II, the U.S. government contracted the company to print French currency for the Allied invasion and reconstruction of France. The company printed two different series, as General de Gaulle declared the first series counterfeit.
The company also printed maps for the military, and it subcontracted some of its machine and electrical shops to the Submarine Signal CO., which produced sonar equipment for the U.S. military.
After the war, Forbes expanded into the new field of printing on flexible packaging materials-cellophane, aluminum foil, films, and so on. The company also became a producer of multi-color school textbooks.
While a leader in the field of commercial printing and advertising for over 100 years, the number of employees decreased from around 1,000 in 1930 to approximately 600 in 1957. Due to lingering effects of the Depression as well as advances in technology and automation, the Forbes Company faded during the 60s, and at some point in this decline, Diamond National Corporation bought the company.
