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100-Yr-Old Chocolate Factory, Once A Victim Of Gentrification, Now Accused Of Gentrifying Brooklyn
By
Rebecca Fishbein
Published Jan 3, 2015
Modified Jan 3, 2015
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By
Rebecca Fishbein
Published Jan 3, 2015
Modified Jan 3, 2015
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Gentrification is a vicious, if potentially economically beneficial cycle that spares no one, not even those who create Earth's most delicious substance. So was the lesson learned by one nearly-century old chocolate factory, which was pushed out of its home on Christopher Street about a decade ago and found new digs in Sunset Park. But the tables have turned, and apparently neighbors are worried the new factory is making their area more attractive to the Whole-Foods-and-Bugaboo set. Will it never end?
The Times reported this week on the plight of said chocolate factory, Li-Lac Chocolates, which opened a 10,000-square-foot factory in Industry City in October. The 92-year-old manufacturer, Manhattan's self-proclaimed 'oldest chocolate house,' produced and sold chocolate at 120 Christopher Street for 81 years.
About a decade ago, they moved the sales operation to a storefront on Jane Street, but it was far too expensive to rent out enough space to house a factory in Manhattan. "We were ready to throw in the towel on New York, because making chocolate in Manhattan is no longer viable,” Chris Taylor, a co-owner of the company, told the Grey Lady. “Our store on Jane Street is surrounded by shops with purses and shoes without price tags, so that tells you something.”
But we are now in Peak Brooklyn Gentrification, and some Sunset Park residents are worried that having a schmancy chocolate factory in their midst will drive up rents and bring in Starbucks. "The industrial waterfront has always been a walk-to-work community,” Elizabeth Yeampierre, executive director of community group Uprose, told the paper. “It needs to be a place where blue-collar people can live and work." She called for a boycott of the factory soon after its opening, a move that shocked the long-term New Yorkers running Li-Lac. "We’re locals,” another owner, Anthony Cirone, said. “We’re not an unknown corporate entity owned by unnamed people in faraway places."
Gentrifiers come in all shapes and sizes, even when they're the music makers and the dreams of the dreams.
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gentrification
li-lac chocolates
sunset park
Rebecca Fishbein
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