Kickstarter Will Kickstart Greenpoint’s Tech Community

Kickstarter is buying the most decrepit pieces of the former Eberhard Faber Pencil Factory complex to serve as its new home and HQ. The building (actually fragments of three historic structures) is on Kent Street, just east of West Street. (This is old news in a way (Kickstarter went through a public review at LPC and CB1 last Spring), but seems to suddenly be on everyone’s radar.)

“It proves that if these companies can find the space, this is where they want to be,” said William Harvey, a sculptor, designer, and longtime champion of development in North Brooklyn. “Kickstarter shows that we have everything these companies want.”

More importantly, it shows that “industry” in New York is continuing to take on new meaning. This project is bringing 45 jobs to an industrially-zoned section of Brooklyn, and doing so without building a bar, hotel or bowling alley.