Empire Stores

Behind the glazed arches stretch former dockside warehouse floors, where goods were once lifted directly from the pier. The iron shutters swung open, exterior hoisting wheels pulled goods to the needed level, and the warehouse became part of a short route from ship to city factories. After port work left, the buildings stood empty for a long time, but now a public gallery runs through the former bays, leading to the courtyard and the open roof. The surviving chutes and mechanisms were left in place, although bags of goods have long since ceased to lie behind the arches.

The name “Empire Stores” can be translated as “Empire State warehouses”: “Empire State” is a nickname for New York State, and the word “stores” here referred to places where goods were kept. In eighteen sixty-nine, Nesmith & Sons began building the current complex to replace warehouses destroyed by fire. The result was seven connected buildings with thick brick and stone walls.

There was originally no glass in the arched openings. Workers swung open the iron shutters, lifted cargo from the pier on exterior hoists, and pulled it directly onto the needed floor. Sugar, molasses, wool, rubber, and other goods arriving in New York City by sea were kept here. Coffee gradually became the main cargo.

The wholesale grocer John Arbuckle wanted to sell coffee to people who had to buy green beans and roast them at home in a pan. One over-roasted batch meant a lost product. In eighteen sixty-eight, Arbuckle patented a method of preserving the aroma of already roasted beans under a protective coating. The patent recipe called for twenty-four eggs for every one hundred pounds of coffee, along with sugar, gelatin, and fish glue. Arbuckle then began packing coffee in one-pound paper bags under the Ariosa brand.

Such a product required a reliable chain from ship to buyer. Arbuckle moved production to the Brooklyn waterfront, where ships carrying coffee from Brazil could dock beside his factories. Bags were unloaded at Empire Stores, lifted through the arched openings, and kept inside until they were sent to neighboring roasting plants, mills, and packing shops. Arbuckle’s earnings depended on identical coffee in a recognizable package reaching hundreds of distant cities before it lost its flavor.

The plan worked. Ariosa became the first national brand of packaged coffee, Arbuckle became a multimillionaire, and by nineteen oh six his business was roasting about twenty-five million pounds of coffee a month and supplying four hundred distribution warehouses. After John’s death, the company continued expanding the local hub. Around nineteen twenty, the Arbuckle brothers’ company acquired Empire Stores and extended its own freight railroad to the buildings. Unroasted beans for the Yuban brand were stored here; remnants of the tracks are still visible on neighboring streets.

In nineteen forty-five, the company sold the warehouses. Roasting and freight transport were then moved elsewhere, and the buildings stood empty for decades. The city commission included them in a historic district, thereby blocking demolition. New owners and architects cut a public passage through the former warehouse bays, created a courtyard, and built a staircase to the open roof. In two thousand seventeen, shops, restaurants, a museum, and offices opened inside.

The iron shutters, hoisting wheels, and coffee chutes were preserved during the renovation. Behind the glass of today’s arches remain the openings through which workers pulled John Arbuckle’s bags up from the pier.