It’s a rare occasion that we’d urge anybody to stay in and watch TV in a city so filled with fantastic experiences, food or otherwise. But tonight on PBS they’re airing documentarian Jessica Edwards‘ seven-minute short Seltzer Works, about Gomberg Seltzer Works in Canarsie. It airs at 10:50 p.m. as part of POV, the series featuring new independently produced documentaries.
We haven’t yet seen the movie, which was shown as part of the Rooftop Film Series this summer, but we first met Kenny Gomberg — the third-generation seltzer maker also distributes beer, soda and candy — a few years back writing about his business in Edible Brooklyn, and we’ve been die-hard fans of his sparkly, carbonated handiwork ever since.
In fact, every other Saturday we look forward to our delivery from our wonderful seltzerman, Ronny Beberman. He’s one of a handful of these guys who still go to Canarsie in the early morning hours to fill up their ancient wooden cases with even more ancient siphon bottles topped off with an even more ancient cast-iron seltzer machine called The New Monitor. We’re very lucky to get ours from Beberman, who has the last old-school seltzer panel truck in the city. (Read more about Ronny and Kenny right here!)
And in case you can’t catch the film tonight, don’t worry: Edwards’ love letter to a very old-fashioned New York City business will be posted by PBS on the very new-fangled medium known as the internet tomorrow.
