Category: Locations

History
Colonna & Company was a supplier of Marble, located in Long Island City just north of the ‘Big Allis’ power plant on Vernon Blvd.
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History
The only reference to this building that I could find online is via a map located on the Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal railroad site. it was located at the southwest corner of N4th street and Wythe. The rear of the building had loading docks which opened to a railroad siding, thus it’s somewhat likely that the building was also used for transloading goods from boxcars to trucks. If you happen to know more about this building, by all means please comment below.

Adventure
Ok so I think your FAT MOM lived here, cuz I yelled “Hey Kool Aid!” and she came busting through the wall.

Enough of my attempts at humor.

It’s kinda hard to not go into a place when there’s a huge fucking hole in the wall.

It’s kinda hard to not go into a place when there’s a huge fucking hole in the wall. As a matter of fact just before we walked into this one some set of hipster assholes paraded right on in and then disappeared. They probably realized we were already in there and thus afraid of actual native NYers.

Hey that’s ok, I don’t give a god damn. I’m not a photo snob who only explorers abandoned mental hospitals and well aged decaying buildings. I’ll explore anything… and I’ll photography the hell out of it. In a year or two none of this will be here, and I’ll have some of the only photographic evidence that this place existed at all.

For many years, the Abandoned Domino’s Sugar refinery on the Brooklyn waterfront was a playground for explorers and graffiti artists. As usual, we were in first.

In 1857 they started refining sugar on this property, and that practice continued until the early 2000’s. The Dominos refinery’s closure was not a happy occasion, a fact that seems to be overlooked by just about everyone reporting on the situation there today. In 1988, the company was bought by an overseas firm that in 1998 handed the union a raw deal – a contract that demanded a lot of give backs and a slap to the face of the working man everywhere. The union went on strike, but they got no backing from their national organization. Left out in the cold for more than 20 months, the union finally gave in and the company got to ram their raw deal down the worker’s throats. It wouldn’t even last that long though. With production so far down while the strike was on, the place never seemed to recatch what it once had… They closed up the factory and sold the property in 2004. A sick and sad end to a long storied history.

Today the Abandoned Domino’s Sugar refinery stands vacant and quiet. Security cameras line the facade and guards wander around… inside, the buildings are dark and quiet. The floors are sticky with sugar product. It’s just one of the dozens of abandoned industrial buildings located around NYC.

Such a large industrial site as this, located on prime real estate, will surely not last much longer. Plans to redevelop it are already made. How much longer it will stand, who knows… The only thing I do know is that preservationists wish to preserve the company sign that is on the side of one of the buildings here… and to that, I say maybe those preservationists should talk to some of the people that worked here and were eventually forced out and see what they have to say about that…

If I was one of them, I’d want to drive the wrecking ball through the sign myself.

Update: 2018.
This property has, of course, been redeveloped into residential housing.

The Eberhard Faber Pencil factory is breaking them all in terms of demo time. One month ago the boards went up around it, and here we are one month later, one building of the 3 almost completely demoed, the second building being smashed hard, and the third and largest, still intact, but actively having all electrical and plumbing scrapped.

What will be left if I bother to come back next month? Probably not even a pile of bricks.
For a complete history of this place, check out my first article about it.

Update 2018
Obviously this place is long gone. With their conversion to residential use, NYC has lost another set of abandoned industrial buildings.

In 2007, 2 buildings which were once part of the Eberhard Faber Pencil company in Greenpoint were demolished, and a third was converted to condos. Here is a look into all 3 just as they were being demoed/renoed.
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