Street Level....Atlantic Avenue

ershey, Nestle, M&M, Mars— we ship to all of them,” says Matt Yates, Commercial Operations Director for American Stevedoring, Inc., “Chances are very time you bite into a chocolate bar, the cocoa used to make it came through here.”

American Stevedoring, Inc., is one of the world’s largest importers and exporter of cocoa beans. But there is nothing, save the occasional chocolate-scented breeze, that would give away the massive waterfront complex stretching from Brooklyn Heights to Red Hook as Brooklyn’s chocolate hub. Most neighborhood residents don’t even know what goes on in these low-lying buildings.

“It smells a little bit sour from the fermentation process the cocoa beans go through before leaving their country of origin,” says Yates, “but there is no mistaking that smell of chocolate.”
Six 350-foot cranes loom like mechanical giraffes amidst dozens of pale-blue warehouses as dozens of freight trucks go in and out of the complex. Tucked inside many of the warehouses, the unmistakable scent of chocolate permeates dimly lit mazes created by rows of cocoa bags stacked over 50-feet high. There is no candy-land atmosphere or “Oompa Loompa” workforce here, just forklifts and burlap bags, a scene much more befitting Brooklyn. But like Willie Wonka’s factory in the famous Roald Dahl novel, the Brooklyn cocoa-Mecca is in danger of having to close its doors forever.

Inside the 100-acre facility, dozens of warehouses are connected by massive canyons of cargo containers of all shapes, but only large sizes. A long-retired Staten Island ferry— orange hull cracked and peeling— is tied to a remote pier. Most of the piers offer stunning views of Manhattan and astonishingly close views of Governor’s Island. On any given weekday as many as five ships carrying cocoa beans from regions including South America and East Asia arrive and are unloaded by six industrial cranes.

The cocoa is shipped in 65-pound burlap bags, which are lifted off the ships by industrial cranes, and then loaded into one of five warehouses spanning over 14-acres of storage space. The cocoa is later poured into large metal shipping containers, each able to hold up to 44 tons, before being loaded onto trucks or freighters to be transported to chocolate factories.
The port is also used to import other goods including lumber and cars. Coffee was also imported in large amounts until recently, Yates says, when import companies in southern coastal states began lowering their import fees to attract business.

Known to his workers simply as Sal, Sabato Catucci began American Stevedoring in 1965 as a small trucking company. ASI now generates over $60 million in annual revenues between the Redhook terminal and a smaller terminal in Elizabeth, New Jersey, which ASI leases from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
ASI recently began hostile negotiations with New York City and State, and the Port Authority, who are considering shutting the Redhook facility down in order to build luxury condominiums, according to Yates.

The New York City Department of Urban Planning and the Port Authority both declined to comment. Yates also declined to comment on the progress of the negotiations. “I just do not think it is right,” Yates says, “to take money and goods that were meant to be shipped through New York and make them go to some other port just so Donald Trump, or whoever they have in mind, can come in and build condominiums.”

Yates says, “It’s obviously prime real estate,” as he gestures to a spectacular view of Governor’s Island, which seems only a stone's throw away. “But shutting us down is a bad idea. You may not know why you need us here now, but we’re the only port that could facilitate a mass evacuation, or receive a mass amount of supplies.”

Despite the negotiations, ASI is ready to expand, according to Yates. Two new $7 million cranes were recently put into service at the Redhook facility. The new cranes were originally scheduled to be dedicated on September 11, 2001. Instead, says Yates, the cranes played a vital role in importing supplies and emergency equipment after the terrorist attacks because there was no way of landing airborne shipments in Manhattan. The facility has recently installed a new security fence and a larger security station at its gate due to heightened security concerns. “The notion is to secure the nation’s ports,” says Yates. His priority, of course, is to make sure ASI’s position along the Brooklyn waterfront is secure as well