$1.4 Billion Development at Sugar Refinery in Brooklyn Wins Key Council Support
By CHARLES V. BAGLI The New York Times

Sweet on Domino Apartment Deal
City planners OK Domino factory apartments

Domino Fact Sheet

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The eternal war between those who would build in New York and those who would stop them has opened a new front. The Brooklyn waterfront. Six acres occupied by the old Domino Sugar factory.

Its imposing hulk is a familiar sight on the bank of the East River and so might be considered a landmark, as in, "Oh, yeah, there's that big useless place with the big worn-out sign that just sits there." Grand Central Terminal or the Chrysler Building this is not.

Still, the Municipal Art Society figures the 13 structures in the complex should be landmarked, keeping them just as they are. Wonderful, as in, "Oh, yeah, there's that big useless officially designated landmark with the big worn-out sign that just sits there."

The society has taken an interest in defending the factory as a "prominent industrial heritage" site because the nonprofit Community Preservation Corp. is working with a private businessman to construct housing on the tract, including affordable housing, some of which would have spectacular views of lower Manhattan.

A landmark designation would require the corporation to preserve the exteriors of all buildings and put the housing inside them - not what was envisioned when the group set out to add to the 118,000 units of affordable housing it has built over the past three decades.

It is not at all clear what anyone could do with the factory under the strictures sought by the Arts Society, nor are there any grounds yet to believe the society's contention that Brooklyn "can have exciting new waterfront development providing sorely needed housing, and at the same time these historically and architecturally significant buildings can be preserved."

Rich as its history is, the Domino plant is not the sort of architectural treasure that cries out for preservation forevermore. But this, plainly, is a city in desperate need of affordable housing. Sacrificing one apartment to satisfy an esthetic whim would be scandalous.