Old School. New School. We Are Brooklyn.


















Broadly speaking, makers fall into two camps: Old School and New School. In the Old School are family businesses characterized by organic growth that invigorate New York City's swirling whirlpool of diversity with Old World tastes and traditions. Today's Maker Movement, in the context of the Digital Age with its free flow of information, is populated by New School do-it-yourselfers while the Industrial Revolution, an age of expansion dominated by inventors and improvisers, informs the Old School. Gomberg Seltzer Works and Brooklyn Seltzer Boys blend the two.

Innovations of the Industrial Revolution like the carbonator, the glass blowing machine, the siphon bottle, and the internal combustion engine give rise to the popularity of seltzer in New York City by the 1920s. When Gomberg Seltzer Works began in the 1950s, the seltzer man reigned supreme. I remember how the seltzer truck with its crates of blue and green bottles trundled down my grandparents' street in Borough Park in the 1970s just as the commercialization of seltzer water in plastic bottles sold at supermarkets literally watered down the industry.
Kenny Gomberg at Gomberg Seltzer Works together with his son Alex at Brooklyn Seltzer Boys are bridging the gap between Old School and New. Rather than stagnate in the preserve of nostalgia, seltzer water delivery in glass siphon bottles is carving a niche in today's Maker Movement here in Brooklyn.


Gomberg Seltzer Works is an authentic Old School family business established in 1953 that satisfies locavores craving carbonated New York City tap water served in a unique and memorable way. Brooklyn Seltzer Boys is a Brooklyn-based start-up (rock on Canarsie!) delivering to environmentally conscious restaurants and drinking establishments serving seltzer from re-usable bottles. The story of Gomberg Seltzer Works and Brooklyn Seltzer Boys isn't a sad story reminiscent of a bygone era. It's not even a story of hope. As Kenny stoically declared reflecting on the present moment, "We are Brooklyn."