In a city like New York, where money is too often mistaken for worth, some know better—and live like it—quietly disproving the myths about success that only reveal their emptiness over time. Here, community and creativity are the true currency, making you richer than you ever imagined. Share.

Cory Jacobs and Jason Schmidt’s short documentary, The Candy Factory, drops you into one of those moments and lets you stay there long enough to feel its gravity. The film traces the story of Ann Ballentine, a Brooklyn landlord who understood that the most valuable thing in a building isn’t its square footage—it’s the people who inhabit it. For four decades, she rented studios in a former candy factory in Clinton Hill to painters, sculptors, musicians, designers, and filmmakers, asking for fair rent and providing something the market has no way to price: stability, trust, and a sense of belonging.

The tenants and their dedication turned a block into a beacon, making the work that becomes the soul of a neighborhood before the brokers and developers ever think to rename it. In interviews and quiet moments, Jacobs and Schmidt capture their shared history and present reality, weaving together laughter, craft, and resilience. These are not the ornamental “creatives” used to brand a condo brochure or website; they are the lifeblood, the first to arrive and often the first to be pushed out, a profit is to be made.

Ballentine’s defiance was not loud but unwavering. She decided, simply, that she had enough—that her life would be measured not by accumulation but by what she helped to sustain. In New York, that choice is radical. In a market that teaches landlords to extract until nothing is left, she preserved a rare commons where collaboration could outlast the rent cycle. It’s not about romanticism, its about ethics.

The Candy Factory is both a portrait and a document, a reminder that cultural wealth is built slowly, in shared spaces, over decades—and that it can be erased in a single sale.