posted on January 29, 2004 07:15:53 PM newSorry, posted too long a title for this thread. It was meant to read:
The "Hidden" Agenda Behind Some Business Closures
No More Tomorrows at 148-Year-Old Brooklyn Sugar Plant
By Larry McShane Associated Press Writer
Published: Jan 29, 2004
NEW YORK (AP) - It predated the Brooklyn Bridge and outlasted the Brooklyn Dodgers. The borough's Domino Sugar plant, an East River fixture for 148 years, is closing its refinery operation after Friday's shifts.
About 200 bitter employees at the sugar plant will be out of work, many of them people who had spent their entire adult lives working inside the 11-story building with its familiar red neon sign.
"This is how we treat the American worker," said Sal Alladeen, president of the union representing the workers. "They're laying off folks who worked in this neighborhood for 30, 40 years."
The factory workers forged an unusually strong bond over the years, becoming almost like family. They endured an ugly strike that lasted from June 1999 through February 2001; a despondent 22-year factory worker committed suicide during the walkout.
Alladeen suggested the closing was more about real estate than sugar. The waterfront property, he said, would be far more valuable if reincarnated as luxury housing in a gentrified neighborhood where lofts can sell for $1 million.
So much has changed. This working-class neighborhood of frame homes and massive warehouses has gone upscale. Artists and then Wall Street brokers who fancy themselves hipsters have swarmed in. Lofts sell at $1 million and up -- a rowhouse can go for $900,000. Next to the Domino's factory sits a construction site for luxury housing. A sign reads: "The New Housing Marketplace . . . Creating Housing for the Next Generation."
Lay, the Domino executive, denies the decision was made with an eye toward real estate development. But, he acknowledged, "I imagine that's a possibility"
A week ago workers circulated an unsigned letter through the factory. It read:
"Make sure you don't leave your memories behind because they are our entire world. After all those years, our memories are the only things we get to keep."
