Bayside Fuel Oil Depot Corporation (Part 2)

November 11, 2019

Before the Bayside Company was fully known as the Bayside Fuel Oil Corporation. It was transferred by Standard Oil, its previous owner, in the 1940s. Its primary use before that time was mainly for storage and refinery purposes. Later on, it became a wholesale distributor of heating oil. Founded by Charles Pratt, it was one of about fifty refineries operating in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. During the 19th century, Williamsburg was the center of oil refining along the East River & Newton Creek. Fun facts, "some of the largest industrial firms in the nation were started in this area (inland & along Newtown Creek), including Pfizer Pharmaceutical Corporation (1849); Brooklyn Flint Glass (later Corning Glassware); and the Havemeyers and Elder Sugar Refinery in Williamsburg (later Amstar and then Domino), once the largest establishment in the world."

side of an abandoned building with open windows

huge abandoned industrial building in front of two oil tanks

silver industrial machinery mechanism inside a fence

In the early 2000s, Bayside Oil was proposed to be demolished by a company called Clean Point Energy which proposed demolishing everything except three tanks. It wanted to build a 1000 to 1500-megawatt natural gas power plant facility. At the time Bayside Oil was only made up of 11 oil tanks, a warehouse building containing state-of-the-art recording facilities and artist studios, a parking lot, office buildings, and storage sheds. That plan never went through due to numerous factors spelled out in a preliminary report that would negatively have affected the surrounding community.

old street view of bayside fuel oil depot

Bayside Fuel Oil Corporation was owned and operated by Alfred & Victor Allegretti. Alfred reshaped his father's oil business located on the Gowanus Canal into one of the largest private home heating oil companies. At this time it was a retail distributor of heating oil. It had its roots from the very beginning as an ice-carting business, to a coal company to finally being a one-truck oil company with the displacement of coal. In 1965, father and son initiated a terminal purchase on the canal and later included more in Williamsburg, Bensonhurst, and Greenpoint. At that time it became a wholesale oil terminal operator. The company went from one truck to one hundred trucks with its expansion selling as much as 300 million gallons of heating oil yearly. In the 1990s, the company was associated with an employee, a salesman, and a capo of the Gambino mob family, Joseph Corraro, who pleaded guilty to federal racketeering charges. This unseemly association and conviction led to being barred by the city from bidding to city agencies to sell oil. The terminal along the Gowanus Canal was sold in 2015 and is currently in the Brownfield Clean-Up Program. Currently, the company is still being run by Vincent Allegretti, the grandson of founder Sergio Allegretti.