[120][121], The Domino Sugar Refinery site spans 11 acres (4.5 ha) on the East River north of the Williamsburg Bridge. Domino Park, New York’s newest waterfront recreational public space at the 11-acre Domino Sugar Factory site opened on Sunday, June 10. Courtesy of PAU. Demolition of the non-landmark structures in the refinery began shortly afterward, and the first new tower in the development project opened in 2017. Built in 1856, the Domino Sugar Factory is a New York City architectural icon that dominates the East River waterfront of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Engineers Are Taking State of Meters All Around the Refinery to See If Even More Is Not Owed", "Havemeyers & Elder Filter, Pan & Finishing House", High School of Enterprise, Business, & Technology, Williamsburg High School for Architecture and Design, Congregation Yetev Lev D'Satmar (Hooper Street), Congregation Yetev Lev D'Satmar (Rodney Street), Light of the World Church Pentecostal Church, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Domino_Sugar_Refinery&oldid=990842554, Industrial buildings and structures in New York City, New York City Designated Landmarks in Brooklyn, Redevelopment projects in the United States, Infobox mapframe without OSM relation ID on Wikidata, Pages which use embedded infobox templates with the title parameter, Articles containing potentially dated statements from 2020, All articles containing potentially dated statements, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, Theodore A. Havemeyer, Thomas Winslow and J. E. James (refinery), This page was last edited on 26 November 2020, at 20:33. [20][21][22] The fire destroyed several warehouses as well as the 200-by-150-foot (61 by 46 m) building that contained the refinery and finishing house. Join us for a virtual tour of Domino Sugar Refinery. The highest-paid workers at the plant earned between $100 and $150 a month (equivalent to between $2,955 and $4,433 in 2019[e]). [73] The refinery stopped operating in 2004;[74] more than 220 workers were laid off at the end of January 2004, and two dozen workers were retained for packing operations that shuttered by the end of the year. [31] The family created the Sugar Refineries Company or Sugar Trust in late 1887. [72], Though the complex was able to process 950 million U.S. gallons (3.6×109 l; 790,000,000 imp gal) of sugar a year, it was only processing half that amount by 2002. Raceland Sugar Mill has processed its sugar at the Chalmette Domino plant for about 32 years. [7] At the end of 1856, John C. Havemeyer and Charles E. Bertrand co-founded Havemeyer & Bertrand at the intersection of modern-day Kent Avenue[a] and South 3rd Street. Then, the mixture was strained, pumped to the thirteenth floor, and placed into 10-foot-tall (3.0 m), 8-foot-wide (2.4 m) circular vats called "blow-ups". Three years later, 17 of the largest sugar refiners in the U.S. merged to form the Sugar Refineries Co. Trust, later reorganized as the American Sugar Refining Co., and branded as Domino Sugar in 1902. [93] However, the revised plan faced objection from New York City mayor Bill de Blasio, who wanted even more affordable housing on the site, to which Walentas indicated that he was willing to revert to the older plan. When the redevelopment is complete, it will include 200,000 square feet (19,000 m2) of community and commercial space; 600,000 square feet (56,000 m2) of office space; 2,800 apartments, of which 700 will be affordable; and 6 acres (2.4 ha) of parkland on the waterfront, which is part of Domino Park. [39][h] The top section of the chimney was expanded in the 1920s using curved brick. Sugar Factory is known the world over for its celebrity-endorsed Couture Pops, which have turned sweets into the latest designer accessory. In exchange, Two Trees was allowed to build its towers of up to 55 stories. The 150-year history of the plant as a refinery ended in 2004 after a long and persistent decline in demand. [68][69] When the strike started, Domino reduced operations at the refinery, performing much of the refining at its Baltimore plant before shipping it to Brooklyn for finishing. Most of the windows have brick arches. About Domino Sugar Factory Redevelopment Plan. [39][134] The chimney was among the region's tallest when the Pan, Filter, and Finishing House was built. The company then threatened to move to New Jersey in 1924 over the failure to close the dead-end streets. Your tax-deductible gift enables Creative Time to bring the most compelling contemporary art of our time to millions of people. [16] In February 1881, Havemeyer & Elder received a permit from the City of Brooklyn's Bureau of Buildings to add three stories to an existing six-story building on Kent Avenue between South 4th and South 5th streets. In total, the entire 10-year Domino Sugar Factory project will yield 2,300 apartments, 500,000 square feet of commercial space, … James. By … By the end of the Civil War, the factory had become the largest sugar refinery in the world, employing over 4,000 workers and processing 3 million pounds of sugar a day–more than half of the sugar consumed in the entire country. [4] The refinery employed several Havemeyer family members, including Theodore, Henry, Hector, and Charles, the latter two of whom later formed their own refinery. the First of the Great Pair of Chimneys of One of the New Steam Companies", "Behold The Refinery: the future of Williamsburg's salvaged Domino Sugar plant", "$525,000 Water Bill Against Sugar Trust; Brooklyn Makes Demand for Six Years Unmetred Supply. [95], The agency signed off on the proposal after the de Blasio administration struck a deal with Two Trees Management to include more affordable housing units. [103] Two Trees also cleaned out the Pan, Filter, and Finishing House, which still contained its old sugar-refining machinery. Domino Sugar, a renowned brand and household name across the East Coast of the United States, has been in operation for more than a century. [49][50] A crowd of more than 15,000 people gathered to watch the plant burn. Once upon a time the largest sugar refinery in United States, supplying the sugar … This site was the “jewel in the crown” of the Domino Sugar empire that at one point produced up to 98% of the sugar consumed in the United … At its peak of productivity, it refined 4 million pounds of sugar daily. [97][98] After the closure of the exhibition, the non-landmarked portions of the refinery were to be demolished, as had been planned before the show. The original refinery occupied a lot of 30 by 40 feet (9.1 by 12.2 m), but by the 1840s it had expanded to ten stories and occupied the whole city block. Currently in the middle of a battle with local historians. Dating back to 1856, the Domino Sugar Refinery was once the largest and most productive sugar refinery in the world. Remembering the Workers of the Domino Sugar Factory For 20 years, Robert Shelton punched the clock at Brooklyn's cavernous sugar refinery. [84] However, it faced opposition from local residents, who objected to the scale of the proposed development. The Domino Sugar Factory in Brooklyn is one of New York city’s architectural icons. Contact Us: 59 East 4th Street, 6th Floor, New York, NY 10003 | info@creativetime.org. [36] Raw sugar was shipped from forty countries and from Florida. Sited in the sprawling industrial relics of Brooklyn’s legendary Domino Sugar Factory, Walker’s physically and conceptually expansive installation—a massive, sugar-coated sphinx-like woman—responded to the building and its history. burlap sacks, began to be delivered in bulk. The refinery is one of the Port of Baltimore’s largest bulk importers and has been an economic engine for the entire region since it began operations in 1922. [104] A yellow "Domino Sugar" sign, dating from the 1920s,[57] was hung on one of the buildings facing the waterfront; it is planned to be reinstalled on the Pan, Filter, and Finishing House. Drive .4 miles and turn right onto Kent Avenue. These original mooring bollards secured docked ships bringing raw sugar cane and other supplies to the Domino Sugar Refinery throughout its long history. The Domino Sugar Factory, one of New York City’s architectural icons, dominates the waterfront of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The Domino Sugar Factory is located at 316 Kent Avenue at South 1st Street. [75], The 11-acre (4.5 ha) site was purchased by CPC Resources, the for-profit arm of the Community Preservation Corporation, and Brooklyn developer Isaac Katan in July 2004[76] for $55.8 million. [82][83] The CPC plan received support from the New York City Council in 2010. [80][96] The same year, from May through July, artist Kara Walker exhibited her piece A Subtlety at the refinery's Syrup Shed. [81], CPC’s original plan for the site, designed by Rafael Viñoly, included up to nine buildings, four of which would be over 300 feet (91 m) tall. List of New York City Designated Landmarks in Brooklyn, New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, "Austin, Nichols and Company Warehouse (Overturned)", "Williamsburg to Retain Historic Sugar Refinery", "The Sugar Market. Sugar Factory is known the world over for its celebrity-endorsed Couture Pops, which have turned sweets into the latest designer accessory. [30][62] By the late 1970s, the Amstar refinery was the only remaining sugar refinery on the Williamsburg waterfront. Support Creative Time's groundbreaking programs. [37] Raw sugar was first unloaded from piers along the East River, and mixed with water within the filter house. This past weekend, I visited Kara Walker's art instillation at the old Domino Sugar factory in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, NY, along with my wife Maya, my friend Emma, and hundreds (if not thousands) of other people who all waited in line to get in. The plan called for 2,200 apartments, 660 of which would be set aside or designated as affordable housing, as well as a school; the "Domino Sugar" sign on the refinery would be preserved. BASIC INFO: The Domino Sugar Factory is located at South 1 st Street at Kent Avenue, Williamsburg, NY 11211. Most employees were men, but by 1920, about one of ten workers were women. [32][33] The Sugar Trust was reorganized into the American Sugar Refining Company in 1891 after the previous year's passage of the Sherman Antitrust Act; prior to reorganization, the trust had controlled 98% of the United States' sugar production. [104] Five large pumps drew in 20 million US gallons (76,000,000 l; 17,000,000 imp gal) of saltwater from the East River, which was used for the condensers and then pumped back out. The Yonkers Refinery, in production along the banks of the Hudson River since 1921, produces over three million pounds of sugar a day -- now that's sweet! [101][102] Excavation for the first building in the complex, 325 Kent Avenue, started in May 2015. [116][117][127] The panels for One South First generally measure 9.75 by 5.75 feet (2.97 by 1.75 m), while the panels for Ten Grand and the shared base measure 12.42 by 10.00 feet (3.79 by 3.05 m). Built in 1856 by the Havemeyer family, it was the first of dozens of sugar refineries that contributed to the area’s emergence in the nineteenth century as the industrial center of the Port of New York. [35] Afterward, the mixture was filtered through "bone black" and canvas layers into circular tanks that measured 20 feet (6.1 m) tall and 9 feet (2.7 m) across. The authors with Robert Shelton at the exhibit. Ten Grand contains 15,000 square feet (1,400 m2) of retail space and 150,000 square feet (14,000 m2) of office space. Domino Sugar Factory began around 1799 when an English immigrant and his brother, with experience in a cane sugar refinery, arrived in New York. 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