On a walk in the recently reopened southern section of East River Park in October 2025 I spotted the tug Stephen B. guiding the barge John Blanche in the East River, with the old Domino sugar factory and Domino Park in the rear. The tug launched as the Clinton Cenac from Houma, LA, built by the Cenac Towing Company. Tugboats change their names often, whenever they are acquired by different marine services. In 2009, she was acquired by Enterprise Marine Services in Houma and became the Clinton, and the Stephen B. when purchased by American Petroleum in 2015. Info: Tugboat Information
I have visited Domino Park on occasion, and Sergey covered it in 2018. According to local legend, when the ancient sugar refinery at Kent Avenue and Grand Street was working, the smell of caramelized sugar could be sniffed in the immediate vicinity. The plant, instantly recognizable from the J train on the Williamsburgh Bridge or from boat traffic in the East River by its huge illuminated sign, shut down in early 2004 after about 150 years in business, putting 200 employees out of work. American Sugar Refining Company officials said the Brooklyn plant was not equipped to compete with its plants in Baltimore, Yonkers, N.Y., and outside New Orleans, according to WCBS News. The plant itself is now the centerpiece of luxury housing, with new towers rising on Kent Avenue to its immediate south.
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3/3/26
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My mother was the executive secretary to Domino Sugar’s raw materials V.P. in lower Manhattan in the 1970s, and had been a secretary there since the 1960s. It was always fun as a kid to go into any restaurant or diner around the country with her–at home in Staten Island or on our vacations up and down the East Coast–and find those Domino Sugar packets on the tables. Thanks, Kevin, for this blast from the past.