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Greenwich St. Jewelers’ New Candle Smells Like Home
The “Island Jewel” candle honors New York City and Puerto Rico and raises money for the island’s water relief efforts.
Greenwich St. Jewelers’ “Island Jewel” candle retails for $75, with all proceeds going to Rebuild.us’s water relief efforts in Puerto Rico.
New York—Greenwich St. Jewelers has introduced a new candle to honor the two places it calls home, New York City and Puerto Rico.
The candle is scented with ají dulce and hibiscus for Puerto Rico, sea salt and green moss for Manhattan, and amber to join the two together.
Its label features custom artwork illustrated with motifs from New York and Puerto Rico, like pigeons and pineapples, as well as the jeweler’s new logo, introduced as part of its 50th anniversary rebranding.
Hand-poured in small batches in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the candle has 100 percent vegan, kosher-certified soy wax made in America, with a custom blend of natural and essential oil-based fragrances. Its estimated burn time is 110 hours.
It’s housed in an elongated glass vessel, chosen for its familiarity to those who grew up in Caribbean and Latin American homes, Greenwich St. Jewelers said, as candles like this often were present in moments of “pause, reflection, remembrance, and hope.”
Proceeds from the limited-edition candle will go directly to Rebuild.us’s water relief efforts, funding trucked deliveries of clean drinking water to Puerto Rican families affected by the island’s ongoing water crisis.
As reservoirs have run dry, more than 180,000 households remain under mandatory rationing.
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The candle is scented with ají dulce and hibiscus for Puerto Rico, sea salt and green moss for Manhattan, and amber to join the two together.
Its label features custom artwork illustrated with motifs from New York and Puerto Rico, like pigeons and pineapples, as well as the jeweler’s new logo, introduced as part of its 50th anniversary rebranding.
Hand-poured in small batches in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the candle has 100 percent vegan, kosher-certified soy wax made in America, with a custom blend of natural and essential oil-based fragrances. Its estimated burn time is 110 hours.
It’s housed in an elongated glass vessel, chosen for its familiarity to those who grew up in Caribbean and Latin American homes, Greenwich St. Jewelers said, as candles like this often were present in moments of “pause, reflection, remembrance, and hope.”
Proceeds from the limited-edition candle will go directly to Rebuild.us’s water relief efforts, funding trucked deliveries of clean drinking water to Puerto Rican families affected by the island’s ongoing water crisis.
As reservoirs have run dry, more than 180,000 households remain under mandatory rationing.
The candle marks the jeweler’s foray into branded merchandise.
“As the boutique marks 50 years, it wanted a way to bring more of its community into the brand at an accessible price point, and to put its philanthropic values, long a part of how the family runs its business, into something anyone could hold,” Greenwich St. Jewelers said.
The family-owned Tribeca fine jewelry retailer was founded in 1976 by Carlos and Milagros (Milly) Gandia, first-generation Nuyoricans, or New York Puerto Ricans.
The pair opened a jewelry shop on Greenwich Street in New York’s Financial District.
The store relocated to Trinity Place after 9/11 and moved again in 2022 to its current location at 93 Reade St. in Tribeca.
The jeweler is now owned and operated by Carlos and Milly’s daughters, Jennifer Gandia and Christina Gandia Gambale. The sisters were inducted into National Jeweler’s Retailer Hall of Fame in 2022.
“Puerto Rico is where our story began, long before Reade Street, long before any of this,” Jennifer said.
“Our parents carried their homeland with them every day they ran this business, and Christina and I have tried to carry it too. So, when we think about what is happening on the island, families without water, reservoirs running dry, the same kind of crisis our community has weathered before, it feels like something we need to be involved in.”
Rebuild.us works with local partners that know Puerto Rico well, she said. The organization showed up on the island after Hurricane Maria made landfall in September 2017 and remained there to help the island recover.
Hurricane Maria’s damage was severe and lasting, said NOAA, with damage in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands totaling $90 billion.
“Island Jewel is our love letter to two homes, Puerto Rico and New York, but it’s also a way of putting something real behind the sentiment. Fifty years in, we wanted our anniversary to give back to the place that made us who we are,” Christina said.
Island Jewel retails for $75 and is available now at Greenwich St. Jewelers, as well as online.
The jeweler is also currently hosting “Adornos: Jewelry, Memory & What We Pass Down,” a photography exhibit that honors the jewelry’s importance to New York City’s Latine communities.
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