Industry City
The northern portion, commonly called "Industry City" on its own, hosts commercial light manufacturing tenants across 6,000,000 square feet (560,000 m2) of space between 32nd and 41st Streets, and is operated by a private consortium.
The southern portion, known as "Bush Terminal", is located between 40th and 51st Streets and is operated by the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) as a garment manufacturing complex.
Today, the Bush Terminal site comprises roughly 71 acres (29 ha), including 16 former factory buildings and 11 warehouses built in the early 20th century.
The section of Bush Terminal operated by the NYCEDC is also being renovated into the "Made in NY" campus, a film, TV, and fashion manufacturing complex that was set to open in 2020, but was delayed.
The privately owned Industry City complex includes 16 structures and 35 acres (14 ha) of land on the Brooklyn waterfront, adjacent to New York Harbor.
[36]: 32 The warehouses were used to store both raw and manufactured goods from Manhattan, in addition to materials offloaded from incoming ships and merchandise headed for distribution.
[36]: 34–35 When the complex was known as Bush Terminal, it offered economies of scale for its tenants, so that even the smallest interests could use facilities normally only available to large, well-capitalized firms.
[37] During the 1910s, advertisements for Bush Terminal were posted in newspapers such as the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, claiming that companies could have private railroad tracks, a "free waterfront," and "a million-dollar factory at your present rental or less", and that the complex covered over 200 acres (81 ha) of land.
[43] A chamber of commerce for Bush Terminal, created in June 1916, successfully advocated for improvements to the area, such as infrastructure and quality of life cleanup.
[48] Irving Bush built six warehouses on the site between 1895 and 1897, but soon observed their inefficiency: "The ships were on one shore, the railroads on another, and the factories were scattered about the city on any old street without any relation to either kind of transportation.
[30][47] To demonstrate that ocean vessels could dock at the piers, Irving T. Bush leased ships and entered the banana business, and in doing so, made a profit.
[75] A 1929 article in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle mentioned that during World War I, Bush Terminal handled about 70% of the ammunition, clothing, and food that went to American soldiers abroad.
The relatively small yet notable five-story office building was located on the site of Manhattan's first church, built in 1633,[84] and one book described the structure as having a "Gothic design with a strong flavor of Dutch.
[88][89] In 1931, in advance of a projected increase in business, the Bush Terminal Company planned to purchase $500,000 million worth of equipment, including eight electric train locomotives.
[107] At some point, the Drug Enforcement Administration; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; the Internal Revenue Service, and the United States Coast Guard also occupied space in Bush Terminal.
Bush Terminal and the Sunset Park waterfront were disconnected from the rest of the neighborhood by the 1941 construction and subsequent widening of the Gowanus Expressway (Interstate 278) above Third Avenue.
Dockworkers were using an oxyacetylene torch to perform routine maintenance work when, at about 3:15 p.m. that day, sparks ignited 26,365 pounds (11,959 kg) of ground foam rubber scrap.
Employees abandoned initial efforts to control the blaze;[123] twenty-six minutes later, the fire reached 37,000 pounds (17,000 kg) of Cordeau Detonant Fuse, setting off an explosion.
[126][125] The follow-up report suggested several changes in policy to prevent similar future accidents, such as fire-risk training for all dock workers, and special markings for explosives.
[134] The same year, the Bush Terminal Company sold its lower Manhattan headquarters building, which was soon demolished, and consolidated its offices at Industry City.
[139] That October, the company also applied to the Interstate Commerce Commission to discontinue the Bush Terminal Railroad due to a continuing decline in profits.
[150] In 2006, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Governor George Pataki announced a $36 million plan to clean up and redevelop the Bush Terminal piers.
[151] As part of a reduction in military operations, in 1976 the federal government proposed moving its Navy resale systems office from Bush Terminal to Illinois.
[164] The plan was withdrawn in 1993 due to large opposition from the surrounding community, which brought up issues about the pollution and loss of jobs that would be caused by the sludge plant.
[168] Following the 2009 rezoning of Sunset Park, the NYCEDC started soliciting requests for proposals to redevelop the three buildings with a collective area of 130,000 square feet (12,000 m2).
The Made in NY campus would include a 100,000-square-foot (9,300 m2) studio complex for film and TV, as well as a 200,000-square-foot (19,000 m2) area within two existing buildings, which would be refurbished into a hub for fashion manufacturing.
[185] A consortium composed of Belvedere Capital Real Estate Partners, Jamestown Properties, and Angelo, Gordon & Co. purchased Industry City in 2013.
[208] During the early 2020s, Industry City gained additional tenants including New York University's Martin Scorsese Virtual Production Center,[209] a 100-seat theater,[210] and several design firms.
[213][214] Bush Terminal was not only one of the first and largest integrated cargo and manufacturing sites in the world, but also served as a model for other industrial parks and offered employment to tens of thousands of workers.
[226][227] In January 2020, the New York City Economic Development Corporation announced that NYC Ferry would construct a new stop at 42nd Street near Industry City/Bush Terminal, which would open in 2021.
