New York's Lost Domino Sugar Refinery
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 9 มิ.ย. 2024
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Chapters:
00:00 - How New York was a Part of the Global Sugar Trade
01:52 - The History of New York’s Havemeyer Family’s Sugar Company
03:48 - How the Industrial Revolution impacted Sugar Trade
05:48 - How Sugar refining works
06:33 - How the 1880’s Domino Sugar Factory worked
08:44 - 1881 Expansion of the Domino Sugar Refinery
11:08 - 1920’s Expansion of Domino Sugar outside of Brooklyn
13:06 - The challenging history of the global sugar trade
18:44 - The Down Fall of New York’s Domino Sugar Refinery
19:55 - What Remains of Brooklyn’s Domino Sugar Refinery
24:39 - The Legacy of New York’s Domino Sugar Refinery
IT’S HISTORY - Weekly Tales of American Urban Decay as presented by your host Ryan Socash.
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» CREDIT
Scriptwriter - Brandon Evans,
Editor - Karolina Szwata
Host - Ryan Socash
» NOTICE
Some images may be used for illustrative purposes only - always reflecting the accurate time frame and content. Events of factual error / mispronounced word/spelling mistakes - retractions will be published in this section.
I worked there in the 1991 -92 as an electrician installing two generators for power that were relocated from a plant in Boston. We reassembled both over a 9 month period and worked in all locations of the 13 floor structure. The temperature was between 118 * to 122* at any given time in the location of the generators. We worked through the winter of 91 and would leave the work area that was 118 * and get in your cold car with an outdoor temperature of 18* . It was a pretty impressive structure with two furnaces that were built in the 1800s , Gantry cranes that unloaded the raw sugar into the storage building with bulldozers and 80 foot high piles of sugar. I'll never forget that experience and the time I spent there.
Did they ever give out complimentary bags of sugar? Or were they stingy with the product?
As the Customs Officer responsible for sugar I visited the Domino plant in the early 1980s. It was a high point in my career.
That's gay
@@curtisyastic4130And you're obviously about 10. Beat it.
The process of refining sugar is so complicated and not at all obvious, it's amazing to me that anyone ever figured it out at all.
I've worked for Domino in Chalmette ,La for almost 10 yrs, it is quiet a process, it's so corrosive, you have to see it to believe it, hence been using raw un processed sugar when it's needed 🙏
The worst wonderful discovery ever lol. We have a whole world of people suffering from sugar now. We need to downsize refined sugar companies , refined sugar is killing far too many people!
Thank you. I buy raw organic sugar now. People don't realize white sugar has bone char in it. Yuck.
@@Fadil1954that's crazy! Never really dove into it
The original New Orleans Domino Sugar plant still stands and is still active. I've picked up there many times.
I work there. I've been there for 18 years and they're planning on expanding..
@@adamh.971 right on, I've noticed construction the last couple times I've been there. I just wonder where they'll be putting all of it? Haha
Continued success to everyone 🙏🙌
I grew up in Louisiana, which has a lot of sugar cane farming and sugar refineries; after extraction, the pulverized leftover canes (called bagasse) are recycled into building materials like ceiling tiles...this is how the Celotex corporation started in Louisiana
I grew up in Central Louisiana. Awesome place to grow up.
Bagasse used to have the largest use in paper making and actually makes quite nice paper capable of handling all types of inks and paints
Wow, the byproduct being converted to usable materials. I’m fascinated knowing this. Thank you. I’m a tiny bit smarter now 🤭
@@scottrogers2831a tiny bit more educated.
@@genespell4340 yes, your words are more accurate. TY.
Ryan I lived in a area in Australia that produced sugarcane and had plenty of mills. I did the tour of the local mill and they are still using machines that were over 100 years old. What you are showing is a lager scale version of what I saw. The mill is the lifeline of the community for aprox 6 months a year. We also have a history of indentured labor from our surrounding Island Countries as well. Thank you for another interesting video.
Great video. My grandfather worked in the cane fields in Puerto Rico. It was hard work. I think you missed Puerto Rico's contribution to the American Sugar Refining Co/ Domino and the effect the company had on Puerto Rico "thanks" to Charles Herbert Allen known as the man who stole Puerto Rico.
A lot of Puerto Ricans in America have no idea about PR and domino and Charles Herbert Allen.
my great grandfather was an indentured servant on e Puerto Rico sugar plantation, i guess it would have been 1910-1930 ... then my grand father was born and sent to germany at the age of 17
Sugar companies were slavers and are why Cuba is what it is today and they still want their property back
A huge amount of Greenpointers worked at this refinery. Its Beautiful now and has a resturant on the top. The entire water front in 2023 is Beautiful. Greenpoint and Willamsburg kept our communities thriving. It was a great time living and working in these communities. It was and still is a muti cultural nieghborhood. Still live here and will die here. There is know place like home. I always loved the bright yellow box with the large letters Domino Sugar.
That’s pretty cool. I respect this level of community pride. I gotta make my way up there one day
I walk by here every day. It’s amazing how nice the restoration of this building has been coming along!
It sure looks a lot better than it did when I would drive by here all the time in the 70's & 80's ....Prostitutes were everywhere.
I grew up in Brooklyn. My earliest memories of Domino and Shaeffer plants along the river. Great video.
I can tell my man has NEVER had a raw sugar came to gnaw on. Yes its not great for products but if you wana sweet treat, it MORE than does the trick!
Here in Europe we tend to munch on sugar beets instead of cane if we are to try out the raw material for refined sucrose.
Out of curiosity, I would love to have a chew on some cane at some point though. Seems interesting.
Vistiting DR that was a MUST as soon as you got off the plane.
@@SithLordAnakin Are they sold as snacks there? Or you just go and snatch a length when no ones watching?
I had raw cane as a child and I still remember the taste😊😊😊
Sugar cane is a alkaloid it’s actually healthy
I live in Dundalk MD and I have seen the Domino's site in the Canton neighborhood of Baltimore MD. I hope that it doesn't close down, almost all of Baltimores big industry has closed down. Great video
You can see the Domino Sugars sign across the harbor from Canton, but it's not located in Canton.
I was going to ask this question about the Baltimore Domino facility. I used to live in Glen Burnie over thirty years ago and the photo on my Home Screen of my phone is me holding my sons with that Domino sign visible behind me. My sons still run up to Balmer from DC but say the Inner Harbor is really run down now. How sad. It was our favorite place in the city.
The Domino Sugars refinery in Baltimore is located on Key Highway in Locust Point (about half way between the Inner Harbor and Fort McHenry).
Actually the inner harbor has been revitalized and is still going strong you should check it out
It's open and running. No current indicators that it's going to close any time soon.
You should do a video about the old Pabst Blue Ribbon brewery in Newark NJ (it's iconic 60' tall Beer Bottle that topped the building).
Sugar cane CAN be consumed straight from the cane w/o any processing. I grew up chewing on that and going crazy playing outside. We called it Caña De Azucar in South America.
This. In Hawaii we did the same.
Yes sugar canes
Again empires built on slavery and low payed workers.
Wenn we understand that the power is in the hands off the workers !!
Everywhere it’s grown people have chewed on it
I was surprised he started with stating that sugar needs to be processed before eaten, which is just not true at all.
"Utter state of disparage" 😂 Love it!
Awesome video as always! Can you guys do a video on the various armories around Brooklyn? Rumor has it that they're all connected underground via a tunnel that begins at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Allegedly, the purpose of the tunnel system was to transport munitions from ships to the armories underground in case Brooklyn was under attack. Keep up the great work!!
I’ve read that there is basically an underground city underneath NYC.
And there are pipes that have stopped being used as well.
I lived two blocks away from the Forty-seventh Regiment / Fourth and North Second Streets Armory (built in 1864) - Fourth Street (present day Bedford Avenue) Williamsburg. It resembled a large Victorian manor with mansard roof. It was torn down in the late 50s. I remember my dad took me to see the basement (was two stories deep!) of the building and saw large holes in the brick foundations. There seemed to be four of them and yes, they were tunnels that were sealed off when they immediately started to build a new tenement building there. The Brooklyn Navy Yard was about twenty blocks away.
@heru.... in 1997 I worked for the NYC Summer Youth program. The site I was assigned to was Pamoja House (the armory on Marcus Garvey blvd @ Putnam st. in Bedford Stuyvesant). On my last day, the security personnel took us to the basement (which was 2 stories down) and I couldn't believe what I saw. There was a bowling alley, a rifle range and an olympic-sized swimming pool which had been fenced off because the new residents of the armory found there way through the tunnel and fell in the pool in the dark. The armories are huge at street level. Underground, they are much, much larger.
Thanks for the video! I live in a historical home that was built with sugar money. It was owned by a family that was one of the "rival" sugar companies that was bought by the Havenmeyers. I came here to see if you were going to mention them, and you sorta did! The Moller & Sierck Company factory was formed in 1847 and was located at the corner of Kent & Division Ave in Brooklyn New York. In 1887 Moller & Sierck merged with the largest sugar company in the country controlled by the Havenmeyers. By the end of that same year their factory was closed down and 17 of the nation’s 23 sugar companies had combined to form the American Sugar Refining Company. Controversially, Secretary and Treasurer, Mr. Sierck continued to show profits even after his family’s factory was closed down by the board of trustees. This was viewed as a violation of corporate charters in an attempt to monopolize the supply of sugar. The Sierck family also played an important role in the proceedings during the Sherman Anti Trust Act of 1890, testifying that they had been paid off to vote certain ways in the previous years.
As a kid I remember my mom buying and having Domino Sugar 1970-1980s. What a story. Thanks
I worked @ CSR sugar refinery in Sydney,we got raw sugar from Queensland Mills,that processed localy grown sugar cane,used to employ hundreds of workers,now highly mechanised.Unfortunately we closed in early 90's to become waterside apartments also.Was a good place to work,many employees stayed till they retired.
i also worked at CSR pyrmont sydney 1960 for 6 years fiter and turner all steam operation in those days i loved it
We had the town of Spreckels.
One summer I got to work as a night Watchman there.
Part of my rounds was to make my way to the top of the silos on a man mover.
I had to look down into The Silo with my flashlight and yell "Hello!" three times.
All because someone had once falling in many years ago
and Mr. Sprekels pretty much created San Diego back in the day. Huge outdoor pipe Organ in Balboa Park San Diego... same as the Brooklyn sugar barons but West coast.
I loaded there back in the 90s. Was very difficult to back my trailer into the dock. And yes you still can see bolth signs of DOMINO sugar in Brooklyn and Baltimore. The MD plant is visible from I95 northbound to the west on the south end of the tunnel
The Baltimore plant is still working. The occasionally do tours.
I used to look for the Baltimore location every time we passed it.
@@thotfulspotyep! And they make sure to keep the Domino sugar sign nice and bright lol. It was just replaced a year or two ago.
You have to understand when that was built. They had 38 foot trailers.
@@edwardhettiger4623 They only 10 or 15 ft longer now (48or53)
When I was a kid in the 70's there were still barges travelling up and down all the rivers. There were also tons of rail freight going everywhere.
I still remember seeing the Domino sign going to school during the Bussing history of NYC! Me and my little brother lived in Park Slope Brooklyn. But we had to go to a school in Queens during the 4th and 3rd grades. Every morning Monday through Friday we would ride the front car to look out the window as it was going over the bridge. The same memories of that time in my life of the "Watchtower" sign crossing the Brooklyn Bridge, which now says "Welcome".
I worked in the boiler house-power house, now torn down. A lot of factors contributed to the refinery's demise but US cane sugar price supports and corn subsidies hurt business considerably.
At 1:34 I think you meant "disrepair" (as in a dilapidated state) and not "disparage" (as in belittle or insult)...just thought you should know.
He and other younger people have mispronounced and misused words numerous times on TH-cam. He is very intelligent, but something is missing in our education system that causes this phenomenon. I respect his work and the work of others who present these videos, however, whenever I hear mispronunciations or misused words, I just shake my head.
@@jerrycomo2736You think that's something ?
Get them to try and do math without a calculator.
Or off the top of their head .
Traveling through India there were many roadside vendors who sold raw sugar juice. Just extract the liquid from raw sugar cane and selling it.
92081 Farmers Market at our Justice Center every Saturday has a cane extractor and getting all the color and minerals plus turmeric and suchmaking it super food, fantastic!
Look for Dominican fruit sellers along some of the roads in Brooklyn and Queens a lot of them have vans and a table selling produce.....many of them also sell sugar cane juice , they have a little machine that extracts the juice ............ Atlantic Ave. Brooklyn has a few of these guys !!!!!!........ Erik
Domino still has a factory just north of New York City, in the city of Yonkers. As of June 2023, they were hiring.
Are you sure about that? I think that whole entire complex was closed awhile back and turned into office/retail space
I use Domino Sugar, You should do a video on the Arbuckle Family of Brrooklym, They were rivsls to the Havemeirs in the sugar business but are more well known as coffee refiners and their brand is still available to this day. They were just as important.
This show reminds me of when I was growing up in Brooklyn back in the early 80's
And crossing the Williamsburg bridge every weekend and looking out of the j train window and seeing that iconic building
Great show and info. Viewed that complex for decades from the trains and FDR drive. I believe it was the 70s when they had an explosion that killed a dozen workers.
There was a strict no smoking policy
Love how u corrected yourself mid video on pronouncing Havemeyer lol… nice job 😂… keep up the great up… love the videos
Nicely done, that was very thorough and interesting. I learned stuff today. Thank you.
My father work for Jack Frost sugar refinery in Philadelphia..he received a gold watch for his work there with an inscription with his name and company.
Another quality video! Love the frequency and new subjects!
I heard a story about the sugar refinery: there was one room in the facility that was around 130 F degrees. Most people could only work there for a few minutes but there was one guy who could work there all day. In the summer time he was spotted shivering in central park even though he was wearing several layers of wool clothing and it was over 90 F degrees out.
My Uncle Mike worked at the domino sugar factory in Brooklyn from the 70's right up until the end. R.I.P. Uncle Mike. I had never actually seen where he worked until I saw this video. He never talked about working there.
I'm from SoCal and moved to Hawaii as a kid. C&H (California And Hawaiian Sugar Company) sugar was our ubiquitous brand. I still remember the days they burnt the cane fields before harvest. We also visited the Kahuku Sugar Mill on numerous occasions. I remember the tour having a gift shop with a cigarette machine looking device that dispensed raw sugar packets. This was the very early 80's. Chewing on raw cane was just something we did. The town the company was in shares my namesake.
Another interesting subject would be the restored tap rooms in the old Milwaukee brewery’s. There are several that are beautiful with the original woodwork restored.
*breweries Why do so many people use " 's " in place of "ies".
damn spell check
This is timely for a project I’m working on. Thank you for posting this history.
The Baltimore refinery has a seriously cool sign you can see from I95
5:30 mark, why is there a guy in his under wear standing in the factory?
Several, including some commenters here, mention the extreme heat.
My grandfather did construction there and I have one of the employee lockers from it.
I enlisted in the US Air Force at the Havemeyer St. Recruitment Office in 1963. Now I know how Havemeyer St. received its name. I remember the Domino Sugar plant . You could see it when you drove down the FDR Drive on the Manhattan side. It's all so long ago. Yet, it seems like last night. NYC has really changed , sometimes for the worse.
I remember going by that place as a kid. it looked run down and abandoned even in the 90s.
I grew up a block away from the Domino factory, and I remember All the talks of what's gonna happen to the landmark, thanks for summing it up for me , Another great vid
*this was absolutely amazing documentary very well done*
Glad you enjoyed it!
We had a sugar refinery in Saint John NB. When it was tore down, the rats around the area were apocalyptic in number.
I toured the one in Baltimore in 1996. Was there to get a load of packets to take to Detroit. Loading dock went on lunch break. The guy that was going to load me took me on a tour. From the dock unloading the boats to the top of the building all the way through to the shipping dock. Was awesome.
Great video again Ryan!
Again Ryan, THANKS for the HISTORY LESSON, I am in my mid 70's LOVE your shows and the information you have as a subject matter, again thanks until the Next History Lesson, Peace Brother
i live in Baltimore and we still have our dominos sugar factory. its an icon
Now it’s a beautiful park.
I grew up across the river in the housing complex directly in front of the factory and i remember seeing those ships docking and offloading sugar to the plant with those cranes that are just a landmark now. i would see the smoke coming out the stacks as they refined the sugar. what memories! Thankyou!
New York City's obscene taxation is what drove that plant out, in large part.
Well made video, thank you!
Thanks for this video. My Grandfather was a machinist who worked in the Domino sugar factory in the 1920- 60’s. His boss also allowed him to have a pigeon coop on the roof. This was my families origin story into the US.
Very cool!
Thank you for and excellent and informative video.
I love when you do videos of nyc! Such a treat❤ i was wondering, are you from nyc?
He's actually from Chicago.
My MIL retired from Holly sugar in 1982.
She started there in the early 1960s.
At that time she had 5 children when her husband went out for that proverbial pack of cigarettes, and never came back! So she needed to find work ASAP! But she had never worked outside of the home before. So! She lied! 😯 And she got an entry level secretarial position with Holly Sugar in Irvine. She was the executive secretary for the CEO of Holly Sugar when the plant closed and she retired.
Amazing story on quite the amazing scale. Very well done!
Many thanks!
Apartments, shocker! Two Trees, they own many properties in Brooklyn. Can't wait to see the rent prices.
"Luxury housing and Affordable housing" in one building (?)
@@marcuslieberman3577 right
@@marcuslieberman3577yes they give discounts based on income and sometimes lottery
I clicked on this video because the building in the thumbnail reminded me of the Domino sugar factory in Baltimore i visited back in 2019. God i really miss Baltimore
Amazing story and I'm glad to see new construction.👍😊
Very well put together and informative..
Thank you!
My photo friend Cal lived in a loft around the 3rd and had interesting stories. One was of the incendiary/explosive risk sthat the refinery could have had and another of finding some .45 shells close to his front door. Visited the area in 2015 photographing around, which made me realise how quickly that was being redeveloped. Took a nice picture in 2015 where the Pan+filter house still stood rather on its own before 325 kent was risen up. It will be interesting to walk there again when I am back.
My mother used to clean the Havemeyer house in Bayberry Point , West Islip . Bill and Jane Havemeyer , son Will.
Man working there must have been sweet 😂
You mean Sweat
I love that the Domino factory is still open and productive in Baltimore.
Ive toured the refinery in Baltimore. Fascinating
Thanks!
Looks like a cool place to convert into brewery.
I grew up on the 17th floor in the Upper East Side. I can remember watching this building from my window in the 70s, 80s. ❤
My dads print shop used to be on the pier over from the export facility in Red Hook. It was a weird building with a long conveyor jutting out into the bay. I guess the sugar would be dumped directly into a hold like a bulk carrier. They tore it down some time between 2007 and 2016 to build a park there, but I’ll always remember being fascinated by it as a kid. I’ve never seen any mention of Brooklyns sugar industry anywhere else, so thanks for making this video.
This is so good. I grew up on a sugar cane farm in North Queensland Australia. ❤️🙏
Back home in Puerto Rico, some rum makers also doubled as sugar refineries. Best example would be the the "Seralles Rum Distillery" & "Snow White Sugar" plant in Ponce PR. The cane arrives, is crushed up along conveyor belts, liquid portion heads one way and the pulp to another. One for making rum, the other for making sugar. And yes, it is available for tourist to see and sample. Cheers.
This sure was one sweet video!!
lol
Very interesting & fascinating presentation. Having never been to the New York area, this will change that. Will make for a vacation trip to see.
Please do!
I remember taking trailer loads of sugar out of that plant. The shipping area was so tight for semi's to to negotiate backing, I remember one poor driver hanging the front axles of his tractor over the curb, which was also hanging over the east river. I was happy I was on the exit side of that semi....
I was in that bldg. many years ago. It was one of the most rat infested places in Brooklyn. Rats with serious dental issues !
My grandparents lived on south 4th street, and my grandfather worked in that factory. Most days I take the Williamsburg Bridge into work, passing that building.
Such a sweet story
This needs updating with current pics as the sugar factory facade still stands braced to an inner structure which is amazing feet of architecture!!
Our office building used to be a 3-floor rubber factory -1930's. Those walls are overbuilt and very impressive. I can't image this building.
The next time I can't sleep, I will listen to this segment.
Its amazing how many steps it takes to get our food. We don't even think about the ingredients having to be made! My mom worked in a winery for alter wine. That was for churchs and contained no sugar! My father worked in a machine shop and made gears for bigger machines that made cars!
Growing up in both Brooklyn and Downtown Manhattan I miss seeing that sugar factory crossing the Williamsburg Bridge. It’s still there but u could barely recognize it
When I came to New York City in 1963 the Domino sugar refinery was still in full operation. To make sugar white it was treated with phosphate. Also I remember very well the big bread plant where SilverCup bread was made (the bread was very soft and delicious).
carlitos
We came from Cuba to NYC in '63. First we moved to Brooklyn. BedStuy now. I remember seeing the big sign by the river.
Great video & history lesson!🤩🇺🇸👍
The factory was still operating in October 2001. My friend lived across the street and I recall peeking through a crack and seeing a conveyor belt running with sugar going into a hopper.
I remember this in operation while driving daily on the Gowanus in Brooklyn everyday pre 2004.......
I went to an underground rave here once back circa 2000
I once ate raw sugarcane. When I lived in Fort Lauderdale, FL I had dreadlocks and regularly went to a Jamaican run salon to have my hair twisted. One of the girls working there was chewing on white cylindrical things. I had no idea what they were. I asked and she offered me one. While sitting in the salon chair I bit into the sugarcane. It tasted delicious, but it felt like I was chewing on wood. I couldn't swallow any of it, but had to spit it back out. I'm very particular about avoiding foods with certain textures (like coconut). I could barely tolerate it, plus it was messy. This was not a pleasant experience, but at least I can say I tried sugarcane!
Domino Park is an awesome lil spot with a volleyball court, taco spot, and awesome fountain during summer.
After the smaller buildings were demolished, there were great piles of rubble along the waterfront, waiting to be taken away by barge, and little or no security in the area. I remember climbing up a small mountain of bricks one night, in order to watch the Macy's 4th of July fireworks, nicely visible above the 59th St. bridge. Nobody else seemed to know about the spot, and I guess the cops were busy elsewhere with crowd control. The only downside was that we had to stand, or else sit on broken bricks. The spot was later developed into Domino Park, a waterfront public park. Views of the fireworks are not so good now, with the park being just a few feet above the waterline, and no huge piles of bricks to climb onto.
living in michigan we have quite a few sugar factories so I usually just think of here when I think of sugar, especially since I grew up next to farm fields that grew sugar beets in the crop rotation
I grew up in Williamsburg during the 1950-60s, very close to the Domino Sugar Factory.....lived right on Havemeyer Street.
I was born and raised in Williamsburg, NY. I always wondered what it looked like inside, so this is a great find for me! Sad that it's turning into yet another apartment complex.
Wonderful history of part of this nation's growth and power! Two 👍👍.
alot of dope videos were filmed there
For many years I rode the J elevated line (BMT) which went over the Williamsburg Bridge between Brooklyn and Manhattan. The aroma emanating from the refining plant on the north side was wonderful. Depending on the wind I would smell beer being brewed at the Schaefer plant on the south side.