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Inside the Last Old-School Seltzer Shop in New York

Brooklyn Seltzer Boys has a century-old carbonator and a museum with a spritzing station. Beat that, LaCroix.

By Corey Kilgannon

Photographs and Video by Juan Arredondo

A century ago, before it was called sparkling water or club soda, and before it was sold as LaCroix and Spindrift, it was called seltzer. No plastic bottles or aluminum cans magically appeared on grocery shelves. Instead, factories across New York City pumped fizzy water into heavy siphon bottles that were distributed by deliverymen.

Nearly all those seltzer men are gone now; one seltzer works remains.

In an industrial space in the Cypress Hills section of Brooklyn, the Brooklyn Seltzer Boys factory is known among industry insiders, certain foodies and seltzer fans, but that’s about it. Its owner, Alex Gomberg, wants to change that.

Originally called Gomberg Seltzer Works, the business was started in 1953 in Canarsie, Brooklyn, by Moe Gomberg, Mr. Gomberg’s great-grandfather. After nearly closing for good during the pandemic, Brooklyn Seltzer moved and (somewhat) modernized its factory, introducing a visitable space called the Brooklyn Seltzer Museum.

“We want to introduce the next generation to seltzer,” Mr. Gomberg said.

The museum, which is appointment-only, features vintage bottles from seltzer companies all over the country and exhibitions on how the bubbly elixir is made, as well as its historical and cultural role.

Mr. Gomberg created the museum along with Barry Joseph, a seltzer historian — perhaps the seltzer historian — who also teaches digital learning and engagement for museums at New York University. Mr. Joseph arranged for a dozen graduate students from N.Y.U. and Columbia University, most of whom were from China and had never heard of seltzer, to help create the exhibitions as part of their studies.

“They caught on quick,” Mr. Joseph said. “They got it.”

Earlier this month at the Cypress Hills space, Mr. Joseph walked along a wall showing a 2,500-year-old seltzer history timeline that dated to ancient Greece. He inspected illustrations of how seltzer is made and bottled, as well as digital 3-D models of the machines.

New York seltzer, which has become a culinary staple in the city like knishes and Dr. Brown’s Cel-Ray soda, has its own history, Mr. Joseph said.

Many Eastern European Jews who enjoyed seltzer overseas began making, delivering and selling it in the early 1900s, largely on the Lower East Side. They also sold it from soda fountains — either straight up, as a citrus concoction known as a lime rickey, or with milk and chocolate syrup known as an egg cream.

While many Americans switched to soda after World War II, many Jews in the city stuck with seltzer, Mr. Joseph said.

At Brooklyn Seltzer Boys, the museum and the factory can merge into one educational experience. Next to the exhibitions, delivery workers back up their trucks into an area to drop off cases of empty bottles and pick up freshly filled ones. Workers buzz around cleaning, refilling and repairing old nozzle tops.

There is also a spritzing station where visitors can spray seltzer from a bottle, Three Stooges style .

“We wanted to present the rich history of seltzer in New York City within a longstanding mom-and-pop business that still serves as a functioning seltzer works,” Mr. Joseph said.

The seltzer-making area is a Willy Wonka series of units connected by pipes. The star of the show — and the company’s workhorse — is a squat, century-old carbonator that blasts bubbles into triple-filtered tap water at a 43-degree chill. Its 65 pounds per square inch of pressure — too strong for plastic bottles, hence the use of handblown glass bottles made in Europe — breathes bite into an egg cream.

“Good seltzer should hurt — it should be carbonated enough that it kind of stings the back of your throat,” said Mr. Gomberg, who earned a master’s degree in higher education before opting to revive his family’s abandoned delivery service a decade ago. Now his crew has roughly 600 customers (a 10-bottle case costs $50, including delivery).

In 2020, the coronavirus pandemic halted seltzer production and almost persuaded the Gomberg family to shutter the business for good. Instead, they sold the building and bought their current factory in Cypress Hills.

“He found a way to reinvent the business,” said Alex’s father, Kenny Gomberg, who took over from his father, Pacey Gomberg, and brother-in-law Irv Resnick.

Now the elder Gomberg, who built most of the factory himself, is basically his son’s handyman; he is virtually the only one who can repair these obsolete machines.

On a recent afternoon, Walter Backerman, 70, was filling his bottles when a ratty old van backed in. His father, Abraham (Big Al) Backerman, was buried with a seltzer bottle. The younger Mr. Backerman, one of the last of the old-school seltzer men, hobbles from years of lugging cases up and down stairs. His carrying shoulder is shot. Each case weighs more than 60 pounds full and 45 empty, he said.

But he still wakes before 4 a.m. to serve his customers, partly to keep the seltzer man tradition going.

“These bottles are basically indestructible. I’m just their custodian,” he said. “And since the Gombergs decided to reinvest and keep the last seltzer works going, someone else will be able to deliver these bottles after I’m gone.”

Corey Kilgannon is a Metro reporter covering news and human interest stories. He was also part of the team that won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for breaking news. More about Corey Kilgannon

The New York City Museums Project

Brooklyn Seltzer Museum

Spritz happens.

I was booked to tour the Brooklyn Seltzer Museum at 2PM on Friday, November 17— or so I thought. In actuality my booking had been for 1PM and I showed up just as the tour group that I was supposed to be a part of(mostly a gaggle of Columbia undergrads on assignment for a class about local businesses or something) was finishing their tour. I was very generously allowed a shortened version of the normal tour— jumping onto the tail end of the Columbia students’ tour and then an abbreviated look at the space itself.

The Brooklyn Seltzer Museum is the run by and is the operating space of the Brooklyn Seltzer Boys, the last remaining seltzer factory in New York City. Brooklyn Seltzer Boys was first opened as Gomberg Seltzer Works in 1953 and has been running continuously ever since, now on its fourth generation of Gomberg working to “keep the business fizzing”. After nearly having to close its doors during the lockdowns of 2020, the seltzer company rebranded and opened the museum, with a new focus on bringing more people in to the historic world of local seltzer.

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Me showing up at the very end of the last tour meant that I got to jump in right at the best part— the free samples! Alex Gomberg, the VP of the Brooklyn Seltzer Boys, was showing everyone how to pour the perfect egg cream. It was surprisingly delicious— you wouldn’t expect a carbonated chocolate milk to perfectly hit the spot but it totally did.

While Alex Gomburg was wrapping things up with the Columbia students he invited me to wander around the museum portion of the business space and do some exploring. I followed a timeline of the history of seltzer and learned that the word comes from the German town of Niederselters, who were the first to bottle their spring water “impregnated with fixed air” and sell it around the world in the 1700s. I similarly followed an exhibition showing the step-by-step process of making and bottling seltzer and learned that the chemical makeup of seltzer is H2CO3, or carbonic acid.

When Alex Gomberg finished with the last tour, he met me in the space and showed me around the actual seltzer-making and bottling facilities, very proudly demonstrating their recent renovations and how they work with the same facets of their production line that have been in use for over a hundred years.

The Brooklyn Seltzer Museum is an inspiring example of how, even in an ever-growing and modernizing world, those who stubbornly cling to an old way of doing things continue to bring joy and important value to the world around them. Things will never be the same as the peak seltzer craze of the early 20th century, but thanks to people like the Gomberg family they’ll never be too different either.

ADMISSION: $25.00

GIFT SHOP: Yes

BATHROOM: Yes

WHEELCHAIR ACCESSIBLE: Yes

November 26: Color Factory

December 2: The Cloisters

December 8: Columbia University Rare Book and Manuscript Library

December 15: China Institute

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70-year-old seltzer company opens museum at Brooklyn plant

It's something that members of the Gomberg family have been doing since the early 1950s: filling seltzer bottles for delivery to homes and businesses around the five boroughs and beyond.

The Brooklyn Seltzer Boys is the only seltzer bottle filling plant left in the city. There were once dozens of them.

What You Need To Know

Brooklyn seltzer boys is the last remaining seltzer bottle filling plant in the five boroughs the company also delivers seltzer to homes and businesses in the new york area four generations of the gomberg family have been involved with the business, which started in 1953 the company just opened a brooklyn seltzer museum in its plant in cypress hills, brooklyn.

It was started as the Gomberg Seltzer Works by company vice president Alex Gomberg's great-grandfather Moe.

Alex joined the family business in 2012, and rebranded it as Brooklyn Seltzer Boys. They added a Seltzer delivery service, an item that when it comes down to it, is pretty simple.

"We take New York City tap water, we triple filter it through a sand, charcoal and paper filter, then it gets chilled, then it gets filled with CO 2 ," said Gomberg.

They fill hundreds of the iconic hand-blown reusable glass bottles every day. Many of the sturdy bottles date back decades.

The company moved from their original location in Canarsie into a new space in Cypress Hills a few years ago.  It is now also home to the Brooklyn Seltzer Museum.

"This is the history of seltzer, how it became, so you can read all about that, and we have all the old machinery that we used to use," said Gomberg, who noted they will welcome school groups and others interested in the history of seltzer, inside the working plant.

Gomberg said it's all about letting everyone know they are still in business, and doing it in a lot of different ways, including selling merchandise like a kit to make the classic New York beverage, the egg cream, which includes seltzer in the recipe.

"Being the only ones left it's important that we do it, keep doing things to keep it going," said Gomberg.

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Dubble bubble: a visit to the brooklyn seltzer museum.

Sure, you may be an aficionado of the arts, visiting famous museums around town and maybe around the world to get your fill of culture. But have you been to the Brooklyn Seltzer Museum? Probably not – it just opened a year ago. Well, here’s your chance.

We’ll start by working our legs and lungs a bit with a ride from Grand Army Plaza out to Shirley Chisholm State Park, then on to a lunch stop and the Seltzer Museum, which is housed in the Brooklyn Seltzer Boys seltzer factory in Cypress Hills. It is reputed to be the last seltzer plant in the New York area. After our visit to the museum, we’ll return to GAP, for a total ride of about 20 miles. There will be space inside the factory area to park our bikes while we’re visiting the museum.

The guided museum tour features a history of seltzer, a “seltzer journey” that teaches how Brooklyn Seltzer Boys transforms regular NYC water into seltzer using 100-year-old machinery, has puzzles and videos explaining the process, and you will be able to hold a real seltzer siphon and spray it into your mouth at the Spritzing Station. You can’t do that with your fancy-schmancy Perrier or your fancy-schmancy San Pellegrino, unless you want people to make fun of you.

On the guided tour, we will observe every step in the seltzer production process. There may be a special temporary exhibit of a 24-foot wide comic mural addressing the cultural history of seltzer when we are there (no promises on that). You can pose with mascots Spritz, Siphon and Little Spritz. If you do, we won’t tell anybody. More information about the museum is here: https://brooklynseltzermuseum.org/ .

Does the tour include an egg cream? You bet!

Please Note : The museum charges $25 for this tour, so in addition to registering for the ride, you’ll need to buy a ticket here: https://brooklynseltzermuseum.org/ . Select Friday, May 24. Tickets are non-refundable, but can be credited for a tour on another day. Tours are on Fridays at 1:00 pm, and the seltzer museum appears to be doing tours every other Friday during the summer. You may want to buy your ticket closer to the ride date when we have a better idea of the weather forecast for the 24th.

As always, please come prepared with a spare tube, hydration (it could be seltzer), and your helmet. Lunch will be in a nearby restaurant so a lock will be useful when we are inside the restaurant. Always check your email or the 5BBC website the night before and early morning of the ride by 8:00 a.m. in case the ride needs to be rescheduled.

Please note that this will be a Moderate ride in the front and we will accommodate Happy Face pace in the back. Please try to keep at least 10 mph minimum.

Ride With GPS: https://ridewithgps.com/routes/46550210 Cue Sheet: https://s3.amazonaws.com/ClubExpressClubFiles/511565/documents/GAP_-_Shirley_Chisholm_-_Brooklyn_Seltzer_Museum_-_GAP_Cue_Sheet_1936713434.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIA6MYUE6DNNNCCDT4J&Expires=1715107409&response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DGAP_-_Shirley_Chisholm_-_Brooklyn_Seltzer_Museum_-_GAP_Cue_Sheet.pdf&Signature=2hhcKQK9wPHqjTpYbH0K1qU8mJs%3D

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Fizz ed: The Brooklyn Seltzer Museum tells the fascinating history of ‘Jewish champagne’

( New York Jewish Week ) — On a recent Sunday in Brooklyn, some 100 people, mostly families, gathered for a Hanukkah party that offered something a bit different than the typical latkes and games of dreidel. Instead, there was a factory tour, instructions on how to manufacture a classic seltzer bottle and freshly-made egg creams.

That’s because this particular holiday party took place at Brooklyn Seltzer Boys, the last remaining seltzer factory in New York City. The bustling seltzer works, which makes the so-called “Jewish champagne” the old-fashioned way, is located in the Cypress Hills neighborhood on the border with Queens and is also home to the Brooklyn Seltzer Museum .

“This is New York history, Brooklyn history, Jewish history,” fourth-generation “seltzer boy” Alex Gomberg, 36, told the New York Jewish Week. 

The museum tells the 2,500-year-old history of seltzer, from the first mentions of carbonated water in Ancient Greece through the mass production and sale of seltzer in the modern day. The museum also focuses on seltzer’s significance in New York City and its Jewish community, detailing how seltzer took the city by storm. The narrative hones in specifically on the history of the Gomberg family, who established their seltzer business in 1953 as Gomberg Seltzer Works. 

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“We wanted to promote that we’re here and that we’re still going — we want to bring people’s attention here,” Gomberg said about incorporating a museum into his family’s seltzer factory. “We want to bring people to come see the old machinery. It’s a working factory, but people can walk in and they can read about the history and see how our current machinery works and how the bottles are fixed and filled.”

Seltzer first came to this country from German and Russian immigrants who had enjoyed the bottled beverage back home. New York City, the largest hub of Jewish immigration, had a large supply of aqueduct-fed water for entrepreneurial seltzer men to pull from. As The New York Times reported in the spring, “ many Eastern European Jews who enjoyed seltzer overseas began making, delivering and selling it in the early 1900s , largely on the Lower East Side.”

Seltzer’s popularity took off in part because many of the neighborhood’s tenements were not connected to the city’s clean tap water stream. Jewish immigrants, among others, were faced with the option of drinking polluted water or purchasing seltzer.

By the end of World War II, most Americans moved away from seltzer in favor of sodas from distinctly American brands. But, like rye bread, pastrami and bagels, seltzer’s popularity among Ashkenazi households has endured .

Seltzer expert Barry Joseph, left, and fourth-generation “seltzer man” Alex Gomberg at the entrance to the Brooklyn Seltzer Museum. (Courtesy of the Brooklyn Seltzer Museum)

At the seltzer museum — which is typically open by reservation to the public on Fridays, and one Saturday each month — visitors learn how seltzer is made the old-fashioned way. Brooklyn Seltzer Boys takes New York City tap water that has been triple filtered through layers of sand, charcoal and paper, and then, using a century-old carbonator, the 43-degree water is fizzed up with carbon dioxide. The bubbly delight is then pumped into glass bottles — most of which were hand-blown in Austria and Czechoslovakia in the 1800s — and then crated for delivery. The result is a beverage with bite that makes Brooklyn Seltzer punchier than its mass market competitors like La Croix and Polar.

In addition to videos, displays, and 3-D models that provide an inside look at the 100-year-old machines used by the seltzer works, the museum has a “siphon station” where visitors are encouraged to “feel the spritz” — the museum’s phrase — by holding an old-school siphon and spritzing the seltzer directly into their mouths. 

It’s precisely this type of experience that attracted self-proclaimed “Seltzer King” Jon Posen , who runs Instagram and TikTok accounts in which he reviews different seltzer brands, to the Hanukkah event at the seltzer works. “Alex Gomberg has been in the [New York] Times every few years saying good seltzer should hurt, which is my personal philosophy as well,” Posen told the New York Jewish Week. As someone who grew up with seltzer delivery, he added, he was most excited about using a seltzer siphon once again. 

As it happens, delivery was once the foundation of the Gomberg family’s seltzer business. Alex Gomberg’s great-grandfather, Moe Gomberg, was originally in the seltzer delivery business but transitioned to filling bottles for seltzer men.

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Around a decade ago, Alex Gomberg had the idea to restart the seltzer-delivery service, and in 2020, when faced with declining sales, he kicked off a new marketing campaign. “During the pandemic, people wanted home delivery of anything and everything and we didn’t have to reinvent the wheel — this is what we’ve been doing for many, many years,” he said. 

It was an inspired move: Brooklyn Seltzer Boys now boasts some 600 customers (both restaurants and residences) as well as a waiting list of 300. “People are coming back to this old seltzer because it’s cool, it’s retro, it’s the original way that seltzer was bottled and the taste is great,” Gomberg said. 

In 2020, the business relocated from their original location in Canarsie, Brooklyn, to a larger space in Cypress Hills. It was then that the idea to establish a museum was born, a project that  Gomberg collaborated on with seltzer expert Barry Joseph, the author of “Seltzertopia.”

A baby enjoys here visit to the Brooklyn Seltzer Museum. (Courtesy of the Brooklyn Seltzer Museum)

The museum, said Joseph, employs “very different ways of exploring how we can use the tools of a museum to tell the story of seltzer, and tell that story in a physical place that’s literally mapped on top of an active working seltzer works.” 

At the Hanukkah party, visitors were able to drink unlimited seltzer, do a factory-wide scavenger hunt and play seltzer cornhole. Among the revelers were married couple Dasha and David, who declined to give their last names and who had brought their two young sons with them. “The whole experience here brings nostalgia,” Dasha said.  

While Dasha’s comment may be true for many, Gomberg’s thoughts are on the present as well as the future. In fact, if the father of two sons and a daughter gets his way, the Brooklyn Seltzer Boys may eventually need a name change: He hopes the family business will extend to a fifth generation, possibly bringing his daughter on board, too. 

 “Seltzer is a part of us, it’s what we do,” Gomberg said. “I say I got seltzer in my blood and my veins. It’s who we are as Gombergs. We’re gonna keep going as long as we can.”

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Sep 7, 2023

Brooklyn Wildlife Summer Festival and The Skatalites: 16 things to do this weekend

Lady gaga's 'artpop' celebrates 10 years at 3 dollar bill, or take a tour of brooklyn's last seltzer factory.

By Joshua Encinias

Is it hot out there or is that just you?

Brooklyn Wildlife Summer Festival celebrates all things indie art and the outdoors at venues across Bushwick from Friday through Sunday. But that’s not all the weekend has in store: The Rugby World Cup kicks off on Friday and Industry City’s Gun Hill Publick House is hosting a free watch party of France vs. New Zealand on opening day. (Not your kind of battle? There’s also a David Bowie vs. Queen roller disco at Lakeside Prospect Park that night.)

Saturday brings with it a flower workshop at Nook, a back-to-school Celebration at Atlantic Terminal Mall, and Jamaican ska legends The Skatalites performing at Brooklyn Bowl.

Sunday has the BRIC House Block Party and Family Day and the NYC Half Century Bike Tour hosts a 50-mile ride (with shorter options as well) across the city, all beginning and ending in Industry City.

Have a great weekend with these 16 events we’ve picked for you:

Friday, September 8

Brooklyn Wildlife Summer Festival Friday through Sunday The Brooklyn Wildlife Summer Festival features some of the best indie art and music talent from New York, with a special focus on Bushwick artists. On Friday, experience one of the best (or at least most recent) indie hip-hop shows of the summer, featuring Homeboy Sandman, Mandella Eskia, Chris Conde and Parnhash. Saturday’s shows happen at GAMBA Forest, and the festival wraps on Sunday with shows at three different venues within walking distance — outdoor/indoor, art garage, party bus and storefront. Various locations. Festival passes are $50.

Gun Hill: Rugby World Cup 3 to 5 p.m. Head over to Gun Hill Publick House in Industry City to watch the opening match for the 2023 Rugby World Cup. France kicks things off as they host New Zealand. All games will be shown live, so showtimes will be weird, like this 3 p.m. game on Friday. 68 34th Street, Building 6. Free.

Tour, Tasting, and Egg Cream Reception at Brooklyn’s Last Seltzer Factory 3:30 to 4:45 p.m. There’s only one seltzer company left in Brooklyn — in all of New York for that matter — with the equipment to produce gold-standard seltzer, and you can taste their product on Friday afternoon. Join New York Adventure Club for an exclusive tour inside Brooklyn Seltzer Boys, a fourth-generation family-owned business in Cypress Hills that’s been hand-filling seltzer bottles and delivering them to customers’ doorsteps for over 50 years. Led by Brooklyn Seltzer Boy Alex Gomberg, the tour includes a taste test of their artisanal seltzer from the factory line, and after the tour, the Boys will whip up some of their award-winning egg creams to boot. 474 Hemlock Street. Tickets are $40.

Alaska’s ‘Artpop’ 7 p.m. Back by popular demand, 3 Dollar Bill is bringing “Artpop” back in honor of the 10-year anniversary of Lady Gaga’s most derided album. For this “Artpop” revival, your host Alaska Thunderfuck is taking the show to 3DB’s backyard for a show bigger than her sold-out “Artpop” celebration in 2019. Join Alaska for the louder, larger, remixed and reimagined Gaga revival of your dreams. 260 Meserole Street. Tickets are $55 and up.

Bowie vs. Freddie Dreamland Roller Disco 7 to 10 p.m. We can’t think of a better way to wind down summer than an old-school roll-bounce. The LeFrak Center at Lakeside Prospect Park’s summer skate series continues with bops from David Bowie and Queen. Tonight the center transforms into an immersive roller skating experience that will transport you into a fabulous retro roller disco dreamland. You can also expect tunes from the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s, with a red carpet to take pics for the ‘gram. All ages. 171 East Drive. Tickets are $29.

Saturday, September 9

The 15th Annual Brooklyn T.E.A.L. Walk and 5K 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. T.E.A.L.’s (Tell Every Amazing Lady About Ovarian Cancer) 15th annual walk and 5K happens Saturday morning at the Lena Horne Bandshell in Prospect Park. T.E.A.L. has spread awareness, raised funds to promote a cure for ovarian cancer, and supported survivors and their families year-round since 2009. You can register to walk, run, fundraise, form a team or join a team to raise funds for their worthy cause. 141 Prospect Park West.

Friends of Clinton Hill Library Artisan Craft Fair 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The Friends of Clinton Hill Library will co-sponsor an outdoor Local Artisans Craft Fair on Saturday with local artisan goods and treats for sale in support of the library. 380 Washington Ave. at Lafayette Avenue.

Flower Workshop 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Nook invites Brooklyn’s dilettante gardeners to a flower workshop on Saturday morning. You will learn the basics of floral design while connecting with fellow flower enthusiasts. The event is designed for you to get creative, relax and have fun while learning tips and tricks about seasonal blooms and different techniques on how to arrange them. All tools and seasonal flowers will be provided and will be able to take home your flowers. Tickets include a complimentary drink. 45 Irving Avenue, Unit 1. Tickets are $55.

Back-to-school Celebration 12 to 2 p.m.Central Library Get ready to kick off the school year in style with a celebration featuring Grammy-nominated social justice artist Fyütch and the Brooklyn Book Bodega. Stop by the Atlantic Terminal Mall for a live show with Fyütch and get free books for the whole family. 139 Flatbush Avenue. Free.

Read with a Therapy Dog 2 to 3 p.m. Visit the Youth Wing at Central Library on Friday to read to their certified therapy dog, Flash Gordon. The library says kids can make enormous strides in building self-esteem and confidence while acquiring a love of books by reading to a therapy dog. Flash Gordon’s human teammate will host a calm and relaxing atmosphere to help improve your child’s reading, communication and social skills. Sign-ups for one of the library’s 10-minute slots are available first come, first serve. This event is intended for children ages 5 to 12. 10 Grand Army Plaza. Free.

James Austin Johnson: The Age of JAJ with Andrew Dismukes 7:30 p.m. SNL’s James Austin Johnson and Andrew Dismukes may not be on TV anytime soon because of Hollywood’s strikes, but you can catch them in Brooklyn on Saturday night for a show at the Bell House. Johnson is known for his impressions of Presidents Biden and Trump, and Dismukes has made a name for himself with outrageous sketches and shorts. 149 7th Street (Between 2nd and 3rd Avenues).

The Skatalites at Brooklyn Bowl 8 p.m. Pick it up! Come see the legendary Jamaican ska band The Skatalites at Brooklyn Bowl on Saturday night. The band members met while backing legends like Bob Marley, Toots and The Maytals, Jimmy Cliff, Alton Ellis, and Ken Boothe and officially became a group in 1964. Celebrate 59 (!) years of their trailblazing Jamaican ska on Saturday night. 61 Wythe Avenue. Tickets are $20.

Sunday, September 10

NYC Half Century Bike Tour 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Celebrate Transportation Alternatives’ 50th anniversary with a 50-mile bike ride through the city, kicking off at Industry City. Get together with friends to bike the boroughs and celebrate 50 years of advocacy with a Finish Festival with food and drinks at Industry City in Sunset Park. You can choose from three routes: 10-mile family route, 35 miles, or a 50-mile half century. 220 36th Street. Tickets are $18.

BRIC House Block Party and Family Day 12 to 6 p.m. BRIC House Block Party and Family Day is a one-day celebration in commemoration of hip-hop’s 50th birthday. Boogie to DJs and live music, create collaborative artworks and check out the Fort Greene/Flatbush information and material from neighborhood cultural and social resources. There are also games, sports activities, a mural installation and creative workshops. Be sure to see the sneak preview of BRIC Hip-Hop: the new, permanent home for hip-hop education, expression and its evolution. 647 Fulton Street at Rockwell Place. Free.

Walt Whitman Initiative’s 20th Annual ‘Song of Myself’ Marathon 3 to 7 p.m. Join in the 20th annual “Song of Myself” marathon reading of Walt Whitman’s critically acclaimed poem on Sunday afternoon. This event welcomes you to perform/recite/interpret one of the 52 sections of the poem surrounded by spectacular views of Brooklyn Bridge Park. Don’t miss this beloved Brooklyn tradition at The Granite Prospect. 334 Furman Street. Free.

Gay Church 8 p.m. Comedian and musician Tessa Skara (HBO’s “High Maintenance,” “Little America”) and their house band GAY TEARS lead worship at the altar of queerness on Sunday night at C’mon Everybody. You’ll see the city’s hottest comedians & drag performers too. 325 Franklin Avenue. Tickets are $12 in advance and $17 at the door.

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Joshua Encinias

Joshua Encinias writes about entertainment and culture. His work appears in MovieMaker Magazine, Out Magazine, and Indiewire. He's based in NYC and you can find him on X @joshencinias.

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NYC’s Last-Standing Seltzer Factory Is Bubbling Up Again

Brooklyn Seltzer Boys left its 70 year-old factory during the pandemic — now in a new location it continues its legacy of delivering old-fashioned seltzer to homes, restaurants, and bars

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About a year ago, delivery company Brooklyn Seltzer Boys left Canarsie, Brooklyn — said to be the last seltzer factory in the city, where production of bubbles clanking in colorful glass bottles had been running for 70 years. The company is led by Alex Gomberg, a new wave seltzer purveyor, who had been operating out of his family’s decades-old Gomberg Seltzer Works factory since 2013.

Now in Cypress Hills — a move the team attributed to issues related to the pandemic — Brooklyn Seltzer Boys is still chugging along. But like so many other businesses it has been affected by rising costs. Gomberg tells Eater that the team sent out messages to costumers recently alerting them that as of Monday, September 5, Brooklyn Seltzer Boys would be raising prices on its cases, each filled with 10, 26-ounce bottles, by 50 cents each (that makes the cost somewhere around $50 per order, though it fluctuates depending if a delivery location has difficult parking or arduous stairs). Gomberg estimates that when he started a decade ago a case might run customers around $35.

Mid-century New York City was once bubbling over with seltzer delivery, then the soda of choice, though a citywide seltzer boom dates back at least a century . The signature glass bottles with levers would be delivered by a handful of companies to New Yorkers’ doorsteps; the water could be enjoyed on its own or as the basis for egg creams . In recent years, New York’s glass bottle seltzer services have fizzled out as 15-minute delivery services, plastic bottles, bodega availability, hard canned seltzer , and sparkling water makers threaten the old-fashioned seltzer market. To that end Gomberg delivers to homes, but he also angled his family business to supply to bars and restaurants.

Gomberg tells Eater that he currently delivers to around 500 customers. Prior to the pandemic, he says the Brooklyn Seltzer Boys had about a fifty-fifty mix of home- and restaurant deliveries. During the pandemic, the team pivoted to basically exclusively deliver to customers’ homes, as the handcrafted service was considered by some of his clients to be more of a luxury.

But with restaurants returning, a steady stream of business is bubbling up from restaurants and bars. Gomberg shares that Long Island City’s Dutch Kills bar has been a client for around ten years, and he also delivers bubbles to spots like Juliana’s Pizza in Dumbo and steakhouse St. Anselm in Williamsburg. “Now that people are dining inside again, we’re starting to see business pick-up,” he says.

Back in 2017, the New York Times reported , then the oldest purveyor of seltzer, Eli Miller, had retired, handing over his route to Gomberg, the youngest seltzer man in the city (Miller passed away in 2020 ).

According to the Brooklyn Seltzer Boys website , the factory was originally founded by Moe Gomberg, back in 1953 and has remained in the family for four generations. The bottles themselves have history — allegedly those still circulated today were “hand-blown in Czechoslovakia and Austria in the 1800’s,” the website states.

Gomberg tells Eater, “we want to start inviting people to see [our new Cypress Hills facility].” Select private tours have begun, but by March of next year the team plans to ramp up advertising to bring in people to their historic company’s new space.

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Tour, Tasting, and Egg Cream Reception @ NYC’s Last Seltzer Factory

Hosted By: New York Adventure Club

While reaching a consensus on New York’s best pizza slice or cocktail lounge might prove impossible, deciding on the best fizzy water is a fact that can’t even be argued — that’s because there’s only one seltzer company left in NYC that has the equipment to produce gold-standard carbonated water (warning: once you taste the good stuff for yourself, store-bought seltzer will forever be a disappointment).

Join  New York Adventure Club  for an exclusive tour and tasting inside Brooklyn Seltzer Boys, a fourth generation family-owned business in Cypress Hills, Brooklyn, that has been hand-filling seltzer bottles and delivering them to customers’ doorsteps for over fifty years.

Led by Alex Gomberg, Vice President of Brooklyn Seltzer Boys, our unique experience at the last seltzer factory in New York will include:

• An overview of the seltzer industry, from its rise and fall, to its recent resurgence
• The history of Brooklyn Seltzer Boys, formerly known as Gomberg Seltzer Works Inc., which has been filling seltzer bottles since 1953
• A private tour through the seltzer factory, which still uses century-old machines capable of filtering and carbonating city tap water with 60 pounds-per-square-inch of carbon dioxide
• A closer look at the seltzer bottle refilling process, from equipment demonstrations to the maintenance of hand-blown siphon bottles from Czechoslovakia and Austria dating back to the 1800s
• A taste test between store-bought fizzy water and artisanal seltzer from the factory line

The event listed here is hosted by a third party. My Jewish Learning/70 Faces Media is not responsible for its content or for errors in the listing.

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Weekend Encore: Family Seltzer Party at the Brooklyn Seltzer Museum

December 3rd, 2023

4:00pm - 5:00pm.

Located within the oldest seltzer works in New York City, the Brooklyn Seltzer Museum celebrates the production and science of seltzer, its cultural importance, and the value of local, family-run businesses. On Sunday, December 3, the Museum will hold its first Family Seltzer Party. Attend a free hour of family-friendly games, crafts, stories, and other activities at this event. See the production process, learn how the glass bottle siphons keep seltzer bubbly, and try an egg cream made the only proper way.

Special party activities include:

Activities for Children (ages 4-12):

• 4:00 (45 minutes) Seltzer Poster Making
• 4:15 (15 minutes) Seltzer Sing-A-Long
• 4:30 (15 minutes) Book Reading: The Seltzer Man
• 4:45 (15 minutes) Egg Cream Mixing

Activities for Teens (ages 13-17) :

• 4:00 (15 minutes) Seltzer Filling
• 4:15 (15 minutes) Build a Bottle
• 4:30 (15 minutes) Egg Cream Mixing
• 4:45 (15 minutes) Scavenger Hunt

Activities for All (available throughout):

• Scavenger Hunt
• Seltzer Video Clips
• Lil Spritz Chanukah-themed Selfie
• Seltzer Cornhole
• Seltzer Spritzing Station
• Seltzer Production Wooden Puzzles
• Brooklyn Seltzer Museum Exhibits
• Egg cream Station

About Weekend Encore

Did OHNY Weekend leave you ready to explore even more? Then join us for our OHNY Weekend Encore, which spotlights a selection of our Weekend experiences with additional programming throughout December! From self-guided walking tours to open artists’ studios, the power of place will be on full display this holiday season. Check out our calendar for the full list of offerings included in our Weekend Encore.

Please select a ticket by age group for EACH attendee. Children under 4 are welcome and do not require a reservation.

If you’re interested in attending this event at another time on Sunday, you may purchase tickets for another session at the Brooklyn Seltzer Museum’s website .

Directions: The Brooklyn Seltzer Museum is located a few blocks from the subway (C to Euclid Ave; A to Grant Ave; J to Crescent St). There is also metered parking a half block away on Liberty Avenue and a long-term municipal parking lot at the Grant Avenue Municipal Parking Field (581 Grant Ave).

NOTE: The ADA-compliant bathroom is currently unavailable due to construction.

474 Hemlock Street Brooklyn, NY 11208

Seltzer Videos

At the Brooklyn Seltzer Museum, we have a video screen that plays on a loop three different videos created for the exhibit.

All About Siphons

In this video Alex Gomberg explains the mysteries of the seltzer siphon.

Seltzer and Sustainability

How does drinking seltzer help the planet? Watch this video on seltzer and sustainability to find out.

Seltzer and Community

The Brooklyn Seltzer Boys delivers seltzer to families around New York City. Hear from a few of them about what it means to them.

Sign the Guest Book

Enjoying your visit? Let us know in the virtual guest book here .

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The RBC Brooklyn Half draws thousands of runners

BROOKLYN (WABC) -- More than 28,000 runners gathered for the RBC Brooklyn Half on Saturday.

The event, which has existed for over four decades, celebrates New York City's most populated borough and takes runners on a 13.1-mile tour past iconic sites, including the Brooklyn Museum, Grand Army Plaza, and Prospect Park, ending on the famous Coney Island boardwalk.

Ryan Cutter of Brooklyn Track Club won the men's race in a winning time of 1:04:09, while Olympian Kim Conley won the women's race in 1:12:43, and S.C. Ferral of Brooklyn Track Club won the non-binary division in a time of 1:14:09.

Among the 28,000+ finishers were notable and inspiring runners, such as:

• Jennifer Connelly: Award-winning actress
• Nev Schulman: TV personality
• Zac Clark: TV personality who ran on behalf of Release Recovery
• Esmé and Schuyler Fox: Daughters of actor Michael J. Fox who ran on behalf of The Michael J. Fox Foundation
• Christopher Lawrence: Mental health professional and guidance counselor who ran in honor of his late training partner
• Sabine Bellevue: Brooklyn native who has found solace and healing through running and NYRR Group Training
• Mandy Kwan: Marine Park NYRR Open Run member who has made running a family affair; ran with her mother and her three sons participated in the Boardwalk Kids Run

Known as the unofficial kickoff to summer, the RBC Brooklyn Half features thousands of runners from Brooklyn, many of whom are part of the borough's nearly 100 running clubs and highlight New York Road Runners' year-round presence in the borough.

The event started in 1981 with several hundred finishers on a course run entirely in Prospect Park and has since grown to be the country's largest half marathon in 2024. Approximately 20% of the finishers hailed from the borough.

Many of the Brooklyn-based finishers are part of the nearly 100 run clubs in the borough.

New York Road Runners , the New York City-based nonprofit, produces 60 adult and youth races annually, including the Brooklyn Half.

The RBC Brooklyn Half also inspired the next generation of runners with more than 1,000 youth ages 2-18 participating in the free Boardwalk Kids Run dashes and one-mile races on Ocean Parkway.

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How One Designer Turned an Awkward Bedroom Into the Coziest Kitchen

The before-and-after photos are downright inspirational.

Her challenge, then, became turning the ramshackle house back into a cohesive single-family home—and figuring out where to put a modern kitchen. A project that big might scare off some people, but not an experienced renovator like Salway. As the founder of ElevenTwoEleven Design , she has six other major home overhauls under her belt—and a husband and son willing to embrace a year of indoor camping (i.e., no running water) and takeout.

The solution Salway landed on was to turn the bedroom with the closet-kitchen into the home’s actual kitchen. (She then repurposed the other existing kitchen into a bedroom.) Given that this particular bedroom had great light, was on the parlor floor, and came complete with existing electrical and plumbing hookups, it was the natural place to become the family’s cooking hub. “We just had to hook everything back up,” Salway explains. She kept the original pressed tin ceilings and marble fireplace, turned the walk-in closet into a walk-in pantry, and placed a range, a sink (salvaged from upstairs), and lower cabinets and open shelving opposite the windows.

The resulting kitchen isn’t huge—the cabinet run is just over 10 feet, not including the 24-inch refrigerator—but it is highly functional. “If you take 10 feet 8 inches and subtract a 30-inch stove, an enormous antique sink, and a full-size dishwasher, basically you’re left with a cabinet for cutting boards and sheet pans, and another cabinet that seems to perfectly accommodate a couple of Dutch ovens, a stock pot, and a large colander,” Salway says. “Everything else we cook with every day is mounted on the pot rack or sitting within arm’s reach on the shelves in the corner."

Salway went with a galley-style setup that fits on one wall, explaining, “I’d love to say there was a science to our kitchen design, but in some regards, it designed itself.” Of course, she still paid attention to every detail; to ensure the cabinets had an authentic look, for example, she sent the antique hutch that’s in the pantry to her cabinet makers at Express Millwork in the Bronx and had them copy the design.

The resurrected kitchen feels more expansive than it is thanks to the windows and full-height backsplash. “I really love the effect of the counter-to-ceiling backsplash,” Salway says. Like the walk-in pantry, it “feels true to the Victorian era of the house to me, as [homes of that era] juxtapose beauty, craftsmanship, and function handily.” Cabinetry hardware: Ebay . Countertop: Carrera marble with ogee edge, Peter Brooks Stone Works . Backsplash: The Complete Tile . Range: Bertazzoni . Refrigerator: Liebherr . Counter stools: vintage. (Salway suggests this RS Barcelona stool for a similar look.) Sconces: Big Ship Salvage . Island, pot rail, and faucet: antique.

The closet turned walk-in pantry gives the family a place to keep “everything else” that doesn’t fit in the kitchen, Salway says. An antique pine hutch stores nonperishables and serving dishes on its shelves, while the lower cabinets hold small appliances including a waffle maker, rice cooker, food processor, and immersion blender as well as dried foods, dog food, and paper towels.

This hutch is a beloved hero piece for the family. When they first moved in, it served as their temporary kitchen headquarters, set up in what’s now the dining room with an electric kettle, a microwave, a toaster, and a hot plate. “Needless to say, there was a lot of delivery ordered,” Salway recalls of that time frame. “It has made our family deeply appreciative of the modern conveniences of running water.”

Wall paint: All White, Farrow & Ball . Painting: Aaron Hauck .

At the other end opposite the pantry, the kitchen opens into the dining room, which, weirdly enough, also had a sink in its closet. Salway took the opportunity to install a seltzer faucet by Grohe for quick refills—and it’s one of her favorite things in the entire house. At about $1,000, “it was probably our biggest splurge,” she says. “I can’t say enough about how great it is. I’m the most hydrated person I know.”

Chandelier: Soho Home . Paint: Green Blue, Farrow & Ball. Rug: Chairish . Mirror: Craig’s List. Farm table, hutch, chairs, paintings: antique.

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Gomberg Seltzer Works

Every seltzer bottle is hand-filled in the last remaining seltzer factory in New York City. Gomberg Seltzer Works, Inc. is over 60 years old. It was established in 1953 by Moe Gomberg and his son Pacey Gomberg. Third-generation owner Kenny Gomberg and his partner Irv Resnick have every intention of keeping the business fizzing.  

Most of the bottles that pass through Gomberg Seltzer Works were hand-blown in Czechoslovakia and Austria in the 1800's. The antique bottles are filled in a 100-year-old, London-made Barnett & Foster siphon filler. New York City tap water is triple-filtered through layers of sand, charcoal, and paper. It is then chilled to 43°F. The carbonator is a small vessel which mixes water and CO2 with a series of rotating paddles.  The resulting product, seltzer, is forced under pressure into a six-head siphon filling machine.

Gomberg Seltzer Works was featured on New York Originals, an Emmy Award winning PBS Television Show by Jamie McDonald.  Click on the video below:

To learn more about the last seltzer factory in New York City, please refer to the documentary below by Jessica Edwards.

The following piece, produced by Melissa Rose Cooper, was for Brooklyn Independent Television's Sector B: The Business of Brooklyn.  For more information about Brooklyn Independent Television you may go to http://www.bricartsmedia.org/bit . 

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Paul McCartney. George Harrison. Miami Beach , February 1964. Chromogenic print. © 1964 Paul McCartney under exclusive license to MPL Archive LLC

Curator-Led Member Tour: Paul McCartney

Thursday, June 27, 2024

6–7:30 pm

Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Gallery, 5th Floor

Members: Join us for a special after-hours tour of Paul McCartney Photographs 1963–64: Eyes of the Storm . As The Beatles captured the hearts of millions, founding member Paul McCartney captured it all on his Pentax camera. McCartney’s photos, recently rediscovered in his archives, reveal his singular vantage point at the center of this whirlwind of attention and adoration. See through the “eyes of the storm,” as McCartney describes his unique perspective on this extraordinary period, and relive a musical legend’s meteoric rise.

This tour is reserved for Groundbreaker and Director’s Circle Members in thanks for their generous support of the Brooklyn Museum. To RSVP or for questions, email [email protected] . Not a Member? Join today to participate in this program and other great Member events year-round.

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