This photo of the Xerox 914 was taken in 1959, shortly before Bob Eisenberg joined the firm.
By Ed Avis
Bob Eisenberg began his career in reprographics before most IRgA members were born.
“I was the fifth service person for Haloid in New York City when I started in 1962,” says Eisenberg, remembering his days at the company that preceded Xerox. “I’m over 80 years old now, I’m getting tired. But I think I was in the best part of the industry, in the ‘60s.”
Eisenberg may be tired, but he still comes to work regularly at the firm he and his daughters, Marie and Susan, own, East End Blueprint in Water Mill, Long Island. The company recently rejoined IRgA after a hiatus of several years.
Eisenberg remembers a lot about those 1960s reprographics days. He transferred to Xerox’s Long Island branch about two years after starting with the company and repaired photostat machines, among others. Every county clerk used a photostat machine to copy documents and Eisenberg kept them running.
In 1973, Eisenberg left Xerox and did service work at Louis Frey Co, a blueprint firm with nine locations in New York. That led to a stint of freelance service work, until in the mid-70s he and his wife, Louise, together with a partner, opened Suffolk County Reprographics in Patchogue, New York.
“I had the service work, and she ran the shop,” Eisenberg says. “In the early ‘80s the partnership slowed down, so my wife and I opened East End Blueprint in Southhampton. We moved it to Water Mill 32 years ago.”
The shop serves the AEC industry in the area, and finds some business printing nautical charts for commercial vessels.
“About eight years ago the government stopped printing nautical charts,” Eisenberg says. “They went to digital and asked for vendors who would print them and I applied. We print them right from their website, and they’re current within two weeks. Most boaters just download the chart to their own digital tablet or phone, but some commercial boats need print copies because of Coast Guard regulations. We probably do about a hundred a year.”
Eisenberg works much more than most people over 80, but reprographics isn’t his only profession: He’s also a firefighter! For the past three decades he’s served on the town’s volunteer fire service and served as fire commissioner for two terms. “I still respond to calls if they need someone to drag hoses or something, but I don’t go into buildings any more.”
Eisenberg’s daughters are in charge of the business these days, he says. He considers himself an employee, but he likes it.
“We’re just a small family shop,” he says. “We’re happy.”