COURIER L 44 IFE, DEC. 14–20, 2018 M B G
BY JULIANNE CUBA
Time is quickly melting away
for this beloved creamery!
The owners of the Brooklyn
Ice Cream Factory in
Brooklyn Bridge Park must
close their store inside the historic
fi reboat station at Fulton
Ferry Landing by the end
of the year, after green-space
stewards handed the keys to
the property to the folks behind
another borough scoop
shop, Ample Hills Creamery.
“They made a choice, I have
until the end of this month to
vacate,” said Mark Thompson,
who owns the Dumbo creamery
with restaurateur Buzzy
O’Keefe of the famous River
Cafe next door.
News of the Factory’s imminent
end came as a cold slap in
the face to dozens of fans of the
creamery at the Dumbo end of
the park — which opened in
2001 back when the city’s Economic
Development Corporation
operated the station —
many of whom left comments
lamenting the change on an
Instagram post announcing
its closure.
“Wait just one minute! I always
stop and get ice cream,
even got my friends hooked
too,” Instagram user Cetera
D. said.
The long-time ice-cream
vendor’s exit will make way
for the arrival of a larger
Brooklyn Bridge Park outpost
of the ever-expanding,
borough-based Ample Hills,
which will ditch the tiny concession
stand it currently operates
at the other end of the
meadow on Pier 5 for new digs
inside the fi reboat station.
Green-space leaders chose
Ample Hills — which is also in
the process of opening a Park
Slope outpost , and a massive
ice-cream factory in Red Hook
— after this summer issuing
a request for proposals from
vendors interested in moving
into the station, according
to park bigwig David Lowin.
That request came months after
city offi cials handed control
of the public space over to
meadow keepers last year.
Thompson submitted a proposal
to keep his shop operating
in the space, but said he
was told to make a better offer
than what he initially proposed,
before ultimately getting
the boot.
“They asked me if I would
be willing to up our offer,
we weren’t really in the ball
game,” he said. “They chose to
go in a whole other direction.”
Brooklyn Bridge Park head
Eric Landau said he and fellow
leaders of the semi-private
Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation,
which oversees the
lawn, are trying to fi nd another
space in the sprawling
meadow for Thompson and
O’Keefe’s beloved sweet spot,
noting that the Pier 5 stand
Ample Hills will soon vacate
is among the options.
“We are in conversations
with them about other opportunities
in the park, that is
certainly one of the other opportunities,”
said Landau.
But Thompson called that
offer a joke, because the booth
is roughly a quarter of the size
of his current station setup,
making it impossible to employ
his dozens of employees
and churn out the freshly
made frozen stuff his creamery
is known for.
“I said I’m not interested. It
barely fi ts two employees and a
scooping freezer,” said the coowner,
who also runs a Greenpoint
location of Brooklyn Ice
Cream Factory. “We made everything
on the premises. The
thing that bothers me most is
that I have 38 employees — all
jobs I can’t maintain without a
place.”
Ample Hills will open its
creamery in the fi rst fl oor of
the fi rehouse station, according
to park reps, who said
the building’s second fl oor
will soon be the new home
of a handicapped-accessible
Brooklyn Historical Society
exhibit that pays homage
to the history of the building,
and the original Brooklyn
Ferry, which fi rst set sail
across the East River to Manhattan
in 1642.
Scooped out!
Ice Cream Factory booted from Bklyn Bridge Park
DIFFERENT FLAVOR: Brooklyn Bridge Park is booting the Brooklyn Ice
Cream Factory from its long-time space inside the fi reboat station at Fulton
Ferry Landing to make way for a new outpost of Ample Hills Creamery.
File photo by Allyse Pulliam