On this site from 1856 to 2004 was located the huge refinery Domino - sugar empire, the largest in the United States and one of the largest in the world. Along the water were warehouses and docks, and just above, on the Kent Avenue line, a very imposing 1884 filter building, eleven floors of darkened brick, and a huge chimney in the center.
After the final closure of the plant, its workshops were used for exhibitions and concerts, and then everything was demolished except for the main building with a pipe. A major project is currently underway on Kent Avenue.
development project: SHoP Architects has already built a 16-storey residential building, next in line is a group of towers that will be three times the size of the old factory chimney. The Filter House itself will be reconstructed with a transparent vault superstructure and an equally transparent interior space inside the box of old brick walls.
Domino itself stretches along the construction site - an artificial terrace over the river bank, developed by the landscape bureau Field Operations (co-authors of the famous High Line Park in Manhattan). A distinctive feature of Domino Park is a clear functional zoning of the territory that stretches along the river for a quarter of a mile with a width of about 50 m. fashionable bocce and beach volleyball, water sports, catering, children's and observation decks.
When moving from the metro, you will first see a marvelous garden with sunflowers, a stained glass conservatory and a small bicycle pump track. This is not Domino yet, but North Brooklyn Farms, which has grown together with him, "where people connect with nature and with each other." The country idyll is especially advantageous against the backdrop of the metal structures of the huge Williamsburg Bridge.
Entering the territory of the park itself, we note that both its location and the circumstances of its appearance involuntarily evoke comparisons with the Moscow "Zaryadye". The river bank, the historical background, viewpoints as the main trump card, a complete change in the function and image of the place. The Refinery Industrial Zone is not eight centuries of concentrated Moscow history, but nevertheless, the past is fundamentally made one of the main elements of the script. The official website reads: "The park is a dedication to the history of the place, the heterogeneity and resilience of generations of Domino workers, their families, their neighborhoods." And even the small Grand Ferry Park, adjacent to Domino Park from the north (opened in 1998), plays on the theme of the disappeared ferry pier, and in the center has a preserved pipe of the former factory. I will not refrain from reminding you that the rejection of historical projections in Zaryadye was also a deliberate move, called by one of the authors of the project "resetting the difficult history of the place."
Domino's idea is also to make the most of the existing layout - the relief of the coast has remained the same, the observation deck is located not on new objects intruding into the landscape, but on the metal structure of the wall of the former warehouse. Nearby are other artifacts reminiscent of the industrial period of the biography of the place - iron mooring bollards, conveyors, rails, luxuriously riveted syrup tanks from the 1950s. Even the playground by artist Mark Rigelman is "a fun journey through 150 years of sugar production."
Finally, a couple of great water rides. Firstly, the illuminated "dancing" fountain is not a new thing, but invariably arouses the delight of the children crowding here. And secondly, the Fog Bridge, thrown over a gap in the park platform. Through it you can see the water of the river and the wooden piles of the old pier sticking out of it. Every few minutes from below, clouds of artificial fog begin to rise, so thick that it becomes impossible to see the neighbors standing a stone's throw away. One gets the impression that the water of the East River is boiling - luxurious during the day and wonderful at night.
This culminating part of the park is called Water Plaza and flows into a small but glorious beer garden. From the outside, it is decorated with wooden terraces descending to the water for admiring the dazzling panorama of Manhattan. To the left, at the distant point of the river perspective, the silhouette of the Statue of Liberty can be seen, and to the right, in the so-called passive part of Domino Park, two old harbor cranes rise, preserved in their place and painted in a delicate turquoise color. Firstly, it's just beautiful, and secondly, Marlon Brando used to say: “Our children will remember”. Remember how grandfathers rowed sugar with ladles and how fathers used to sit in bir-gardens: life is everywhere, history is everywhere.
