General Glass International

During a time when pushcarts dotted Manhattan's Lower East Side, Max Balik, a glass businessman from Austria, arrived in New York City and began repairing broken windows in local tenements. Max, who had grown up in the glass business in Austria, approached his work with the skill of an old-world artisan. His labors quickly turned into a full-scale business that would stretch far beyond his days and his imagination.
When Max's son Herman took over the business a generation later, he named it, appropriately, Max Balik's Son. In addition to developing the residential repair business, Herman expanded into storefront work. Shortly thereafter, he took a giant step into the glazing business.

Balik later won the contract for Tudor City, a large Midtown Manhattan development. By the early '30's the Company had made yet another transition, this time from glazing to glass distribution, and soon became the distributor for a major U.S. glass company.