gothamruins
Pandora's Box
This photo was taken inside the nineteenth-century Adant House of Williamsburg's Domino Sugar Refinery. Architectural details include arched windows, brick walls, wood beams, enormous fire-proofing doors, and discrete tracks running some of the floors. The Adant House was finished the same year as the Brooklyn Bridge (1883) and overall is in excellent condition and in a perfect position for reuse, but the current plan for the $1.5 billion makeover calls for demolishing 11 of the 14 buildings comprising the refinery, and includes the Adant House. This infuriates me greatly because of how easily the space in addition to several others could be saved and integrated into the plan for "new Domino." This building is as true a piece of NYC history as the Brooklyn Bridge and will be lost as a result of senseless development.
I didn't have a respirator so after what looked like a rust/debris/asbestos concoction on the floor, I tried to tread as lightly as possible. Obviously I wasn't doing a good job preventing the powder from becoming airborne because after ten steps the smell of cinnamon hit me. An ex-coworker who spent 14 years here as an engineer said that the Adant House was where the sugar cubes were made. Apparently they made ground cinnamon here too.
The second photo shows a close up of the lone chest at the end of the tracks. What purpose it served, I have no idea.
Pandora's Box
This photo was taken inside the nineteenth-century Adant House of Williamsburg's Domino Sugar Refinery. Architectural details include arched windows, brick walls, wood beams, enormous fire-proofing doors, and discrete tracks running some of the floors. The Adant House was finished the same year as the Brooklyn Bridge (1883) and overall is in excellent condition and in a perfect position for reuse, but the current plan for the $1.5 billion makeover calls for demolishing 11 of the 14 buildings comprising the refinery, and includes the Adant House. This infuriates me greatly because of how easily the space in addition to several others could be saved and integrated into the plan for "new Domino." This building is as true a piece of NYC history as the Brooklyn Bridge and will be lost as a result of senseless development.
I didn't have a respirator so after what looked like a rust/debris/asbestos concoction on the floor, I tried to tread as lightly as possible. Obviously I wasn't doing a good job preventing the powder from becoming airborne because after ten steps the smell of cinnamon hit me. An ex-coworker who spent 14 years here as an engineer said that the Adant House was where the sugar cubes were made. Apparently they made ground cinnamon here too.
The second photo shows a close up of the lone chest at the end of the tracks. What purpose it served, I have no idea.