The Refinery That Sweetened a Nation

On your left stands the brick shell of a refinery that once processed more sugar than almost any other single building on earth. By eighteen eighty one, the Domino Sugar Refinery here handled roughly three fourths of all the refined sugar consumed in the United States. A fire tore through the plant the following year, but owners rebuilt it bigger than before, and by eighteen ninety four it was the largest sugar refinery in the world, turning out around thirteen thousand barrels of refined sugar every single day.

The refinery's location here on the East River was not an accident. The water was deep enough that ships could pull straight up to the building and unload raw sugar directly into the plant, no smaller boats or extra handling required. Much of that raw cane had been grown using enslaved labor on plantations in earlier decades, and later shipments arrived from as many as forty different countries, along with cargo from Florida, feeding a supply line that ran for well over a century.

That line finally broke in two thousand four. Falling demand and rising costs caught up with the refinery, and the company announced it would shut the plant down. More than two hundred twenty workers lost their jobs that January, ending sugar refining on this stretch of Williamsburg waterfront for good. The property changed hands in two thousand twelve, and several of its buildings came down two years later.

Stand here today and the brick walls still carry the ghost of that industry, the Domino name lettered high enough to read from across the river, a sign that for decades meant something coming off real cargo, not off a shelf.