Who Were the Havemeyers?
With all the attention the Domino Sugar factory has been getting in recent months, we thought it would be interesting to take a look back at the Havemeyer family that built the waterfront facility in Williamsburg and has a street named after them in the neighborhood. Here’s what the book Brooklyn By Name (NYU Press,…
With all the attention the Domino Sugar factory has been getting in recent months, we thought it would be interesting to take a look back at the Havemeyer family that built the waterfront facility in Williamsburg and has a street named after them in the neighborhood. Here’s what the book Brooklyn By Name (NYU Press, 2006) has to say about them:
Brothers Frederick C. Havemeyer (1774-1841) and William Havemeyer(1770-1851) were major industrialists who made their money in sugar processing. Arriving from Germany at the turn of the nineteenth century, they soon built a sugar refinery on Vandam Street in Manhattan. William’s son, William F. (1804-1874), took over the family business in the 1830s but ventured into politics and became a three-term New York mayor. Cousin Frederick C. Havemeyer Jr. (1807-1891) stayed in the sugar trade and in 1857 established the longstanding South 3rd Street factory on the Williamsburg waterfront. His son, Henry Havemeyer (1847-1907), named the company Domino’s Sugar in the early 1900s and worked to corner the market. His Sugar Refineries Company, or “Sugar Trust,” functioned like Standard Oil–monopolistically (and like Standard Oil did battle with the government over makret control). An era ended in 2004 when Domino’s Sugar terminated its refining operations and the East River plant (and classic signage) bearing its name. The company is now a part of the British concern Tate & Lyle.
It would be interesting to know where the Havemeyer clan lived during all this. Manhattan or Brooklyn?
Photo by Susan Stars
Some people really believe everything they hear from people who are even more stupid than they are. We KNOW that Iraq was invaded for Halliburton? How do we know that? Were you privy to the government councils that made the decision or do you sit on the Halliburton board? You can believe whatever you want but don’t claim that your opinion is fact unless you have something other than speculation to back it up.
Some might argue that life in Cuba for Cubans of color and the Cuban underclass are better under Castro than they were under Bautista. It was the white Cuban’s who were the most upset with the revolution because their reign of economic and social inequality would come to a end. I am not a Communist but there is another side to the Cuban story other than the story told by the previously wealthy white Cubans who were kicked out and now live in Miami. Anyway, the Havemeyers supported slavery in Cuba, Panama, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. That’s at least four. I am sure there are many more.
Dick Cheney can paint my a*s.
We know Iraq was invaded for Hlliburton, can someone find out how many countries were invaded for the Havemeyers and their buddies over at United Fruit? 700,000 dead in Iraq Dick Cheney is going to have to do some serious painting.
Can we call them genocidal barons, that is more accurate? You said philanthropy but I think you should say hypocrisy.
Considering guys like Havemeyer killed everyone where they landed, and imported others to work – in their case for over a century without pay – they make Fidel look like a saint.
So, if they killed your parents and gave someone else a picture when they got old you would be even?
cruel, savage, and barbaric institutions and governments are still very much with us.
You could argue that today, Cuba is one big plantation and all the citizens are the property of the governing elite. But it’s paradise compared to North Korea or Darfur.
Philanthropy has always been a way that the too-rich atone for their sins and those of their forebears. It’s a good thing and something that the New York oligarchs were very good at. Many of our cultural institutions: the Met, the Morgan, the Frick,the Public Library, the Guggenheim, the Public Theater, on and on were started by the Robber Barons. So yes, generous robber barons are far superior in my eyes to cheap, miserly ones.
I always find it hard to respect people who follow the mores of any time when such mores are cruel, savage and barbaric; but the top notch art squared things.
Well, I don’t know about “good”.
They bought good art. But they were robber-barons. They created a sugar monopoly. They were supporters of Tammany Hall and the Boss Tweed crowd. So good? -no. But you are correct to say that was how money was made then. They followed the mores of their day. And they did give away a lot of top notch art to the Met.