MASHA RUMER

Anyone who has ever taken the J, M, or Z train across the Williamsburg Bridge has probably noticed the huge yellow sign reading Domino Sugar. The Domino sugar refinery, located along the riverfront in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, is not just another plant with steaming smokestacks. It has long been a symbol of cultural and economic life in New York. Soon, however, it will be closing its operations.

Williamsburg is the mecca of artistic renaissance in New York. It is a place where style is as funky and clothing as vintage as San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury; where the smorgasbord of vegetarian and vegan cafes, coffee shops, and used book stores with cats in the window makes one forget about chain establishments on the other side of the East River; where, if you are not an artist, musician, actor, or a writer, there’s a good chance your roommate is.

Williamsburg is also a neighborhood of converted lofts, with towering ceilings, high rent, and pretty views of Manhattan. But these old brick buildings come with more than this. They also house history from a different New York City from a time when they were factories that produced soap, candy, shoe, and candle factories, among other things.

In the latter half of the nineteenth century, immigration boomed, and the city built bridges and railways to connect Manhattan with what were to become its outer boroughs. The water in the river was deep enough for cargo ships to dock, and Brooklyn land and labor were cheap. In this benevolent atmosphere, the Williamsburg waterfront opened for business. It would lead many American industries for decades.

The Domino Sugar refinery, located on South Second Street and Kent Avenue, was established in the 1880s by the Havemeyer Brothers, and soon became Brooklyn’s most profitable industry. At one point Domino boasted that its Brooklyn plant was the largest sugar refinery in the world. This strip of land, stretching over a quarter of a mile along the East River north of the Williamsburg Bridge, has the capacity to produce 950 million pounds of sugar each year.

Since the 1960s, local plants and factories have begun to shut down as industrial producers have sought cheaper labor, often in underdeveloped nations. A new residential element began to mix with the factories and warehouses. Trucks and graffiti coexisted together, and busy factories by day would become hot spots by night for prostitutes, drug dealers, and their respective clients.

Later, hipster youths discovered Williamsburg. On the one hand, the factories were continuing to shut down their operations, workers were loosing their jobs, and residents had to relocate due to skyrocketing rent. On the other hand, the neighborhood became safer, cleaner and converted most of its factories into much-needed housing for a booming population.

Domino Sugar, however, withstood the test of time. It is an emblem of the former glory of industrial Brooklynone of the greatest centers of production in the nation. The plant is a fully operational sugar refinery, and one of the last remainingfactories in Williamsburg. However, it recently announced that it will be shutting down by February 2004, thereby altering the face of historical Brooklyn.

Jack Lay, President and CEO of the American Sugar Refining Company, which uses the brand name Domino, said the plant is closing because of a decline in the sugar-refining business. Our Brooklyn location, unfortunately, must be rationalized, but Brooklyn is really only a partial refinery. We send semi-refined material from our Baltimore refinery to Brooklyn to be further processed into refined sugar. It makes economic sense to do the whole operation at Baltimore rather than add a two-step activity, said Mr. Lay during an interview in his headquarters in Yonkers, NY.

According to current plans, the Domino plant will still continue some packaging operations. However, the majority of the workers will be laid off. Mr. Lay estimated that at least 130 workers will lose their jobs.

Local residents are concerned about the repercussions from the fall of the Domino plant. They recognize that their unique neighborhood is about to change and do not know how their day-to-day lives will be affected. Junis, a construction worker who works next to the plant, on the corner of Kent and Grand, commented, I’m sure it might cause folks to loose jobs. But the factory is not closing [fully], though, and that’s what’s polluting the area.

What will happen with the building once the operations have ceased? The Bloomberg administration allegedly has plans to convert the waterfront into housing and commercial projects, risking the transformation of the neighborhood into yet another cookie-cutter strip of developed land.

When asked about the future of the building, Mr. Lay replied that there are no definite plans as of yet. That’s for our attorneys and others in real estate field to determine what will be done with the facility. Nothing has been decided at this time.

Junis suspects that the building will be turned into luxury lofts. I’m sure that putting them up isn’t a terrible idea, he said. He believes that the high-end lofts might make the neighborhood nicer. Another Domino employee, who preferred to remain anonymous, had also heard the rumor that the building might be converted into luxury lofts.

With the closing of the Domino plant comes a new era for the neighborhoodor perhaps the final stage in a transition that has already begun. One can only wait and see whether it will preserve its rough yet authentic edge or become gentrified by the inevitable economic forces from choice, and available, waterfront real estate.