page_title: Domino Sugar Refinery
section_title: Decline
hierarchical_section_title: Domino Sugar Refinery / Refinery / Later usage / Decline
caption_attribution_description: English: Looking north from upper end of approach ramp of Williamsburg Bridge, at Domino factory on a sunny midday.
context_page_description: The Domino Sugar Refinery is a mixed-use development and former sugar refinery in the neighborhood of Williamsburg in Brooklyn, New York City, along the East River. When active as a refinery, it was operated by the Havemeyer family's American Sugar Refining Company, which produced Domino brand sugar and was one of several sugar factories on the East River in northern Brooklyn.
  The family's first refinery in Williamsburg opened in 1856 and was operated by Frederick C. Havemeyer Jr., the son of American Sugar's founder. After a fire destroyed the original structures, the current complex was built in 1882 by Theodore A. Havemeyer, Thomas Winslow, and J. E. James. The American Sugar Refining Company grew to control most of the sugar industry in the United States by the late 19th century, with the Brooklyn refinery as its largest plant. Many different types of sugar were refined at the facility, and it employed up to 4,500 workers at its peak in 1919. Demand started to decline in the 1920s with advances in sugar refining and the construction of other facilities, but the refinery continued to operate until 2004.
context_section_description: As early as the 1920s, industry-wide changes were resulting in a reduction of utilization of the Brooklyn plant. After American Sugar completed a plant in Baltimore in 1922, refining operations in Brooklyn were reduced. The company also assumed space at 120 Wall Street in Manhattan's Financial District in 1930, using that space for its offices. The refinery's cooperage closed in 1946 after the industry stopped using wood barrels to ship sugar. Employment at the plant fell after the end of World War II in 1945; the company had 1,500 workers in 1959. Research and development activities were relocated in 1958 to American Sugar's Philadelphia facility. Despite this, the company spent $16 million on expanding the facility in the 1960s. American Sugar was renamed Amstar in 1970, and its New York City office was relocated to 1251 Avenue of the Americas in 1971. By the late 1970s, the Amstar refinery was the only remaining sugar refinery on the Williamsburg waterfront.
  The Amstar brand was purchased by British firm Tate & Lyle in 1988. Three years later, Amstar became known as Domino Sugar, after its primary trademark. Employment at the Domino Sugar Refinery continued to decrease, and by 1996 the plant had only 450 workers. After union workers' contracts expired in late 1998, Tate & Lyle announced upgrades to the refinery that would eliminate 100 jobs and weaken union guarantees. As a result, 284 workers went on strike in June 1999. 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. The strike ended in February 2001, making it one of the longest-ever in the city's history. Although over a hundred workers defected and returned to work, the remaining striking workers agreed to Tate & Lyle's plan to eliminate 110 positions. American Sugar Refining bought the brand and plant from Tate & Lyle the same year. 
  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. The next year, American Sugar Refining announced that the Domino Sugar plant would be shuttered due to a lack of demand. The refinery stopped operating in 2004; 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.
caption: As seen from the Williamsburg Bridge to the south
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