The Domino Sugar Building - Refinery to Renewal: Join My 365-Day Peaceful Photo Challenge
DAY 242. Living with irrevocable differences and curating peace through contemplative photography.
May 1, 2025
I bid farewell to my three bridges to greet Wallabout Channel, its shoreline promenades, and open spaces framed by modern architecture.
The design of 420 Kent, its sister towers, and the Domino Sugar building captivated me. Seeing them from Manhattan on the opposite side of the East River, one misses their intricacies.
But here, closer to them, on the River – Wow!
The Domino Sugar Building at 300 Kent Avenue puzzled me. A glass dome with multiple floors peering out from atop the Havermeyer & Elder (later Domino’s Sugar) 1884 Romanesque Revival structure was so compelling, yet, from the ferry, there seemed to be voids in the original structure's windows.
Take a closer look and see if you see what I mean.
A little research revealed that the original building was a sugar refinery that operated for 120 years until its closure in 2004.
The redesign was a careful act of curation. The goal was to embrace and preserve the façade, including the smokestack, and put an entirely modern 15-story office tower with a 30-foot glass dome top inside.
The footprint of the new glass curtain building is smaller than that of the original warehouse. It is anchored to the preexisting masonry with connecting metal beams, as though the two are wedded and constant companions, dialoguing between past and present.
The gap allows for a “vertical garden” between the brick masonry and curtain walls, and sunlight filtration through the windows to nurture multiple 30-foot-high American Sweet Gum trees and Native Pin Oaks and other vegetation.
As the urban landscape changes and retains elements of the past, so do our internal landscapes. While some characteristics remain irrevocable and unalterable, embracing them and knowing that they are given to us by the same hand that gives us choice, creativity, calm, and caring connections can be liberating and peaceful.
What gaps and connections do you see in your photography? What personal and social truths do they teach you?
Peace & Blessings, I am loving where this challenge is going.
Learning how to stay in the present, I decided to take a moment to read and listen to your experiences on this landmark building, and household name Domino Sugar. Let me know when you traveling lower Manhattan. As a City worker my career started at 100 Church street. For the first time after World Trade Center's Terrorist Attack over 23 years ago, I walked along the gravesite, and went into Trinity Church. I lite candles for my love ones who are emotionally going thru chronic illness, or lost their way in life. Psalm 36:9 ...in your light we see light. I would love to know how to share those photos. Until then, be safe.