Per the last post, industry is alive and well in Brooklyn, it’s just different than what a lot of people think of as industry. But hotels and nightlife – two uses that are as-of-right in industrial zones – are probably the biggest threats to the viability of all that.
Now at 77 Box Street
Prime Time in NYC
The Mayor held a press conference yesterday to tout the fact that a record number of prime-time shows – 23 – are currently filmed in New York.
“We see this as the manufacturing for the 21st century,” said Doug Steiner, who owns the studio in Brooklyn where [Pan Am, one of the shows] is shot.
Steiner is right – most of those shows are filming in Brooklyn and Queens, and a lot of the support industry (set design, construction, etc.) are also happening here.
NYCs TV Production Surges to Record Level
One of New York’s (and Brooklyn’s) thriving industries is film and TV production. Even the LA Times has taken notice of the upsurge in productions happening here instead of there. (Who knew Mildred Pierce was filmed in NY?)
Exploring the Abandoned Pfizer Plant
Scouting NY scouts the former Pfizer plant, which straddles East Williamsburg and Bed-Stuy. The pharmaceutical giant was founded in Williamsburg in 1849, and operated there until about a year or two ago when (despite taking $46 million City tax incentives to bring jobs to NYC) the company closed up and left. But not before demolishing the oldest building on the site, their ancestral home.
Designing Food Trucks
Shanghai Stainless Steel over on Gerry Street turns out to be a major supplier of the city’s food trucks. Ernie Wong, the second generation proprietor (and a great guy) is leading the way.
Pfizer Plant Sold
02/15/2011 |
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Two years after abandoning an attempt to redevelop its sprawling former manufacturing complex in Brooklyn, drug giant Pfizer announced Monday that it had reached a surprise agreement to sell a piece of that property to Acumen Capital Partners of Long Island City.
Surprise move indeed. Then talk for a long time was that this site (the massive industrial building on the south side of Flushing Avenue) would be used for a non-profit industrial development and jobs training project – along the GMDC or Navy Yard model. The good news, though, is that Acumen is a developer of light industrial properties, and their acquisition of the building has the potential to bring a lot of jobs to the neighborhood.
For a company with a 159-year history in the neighborhood, Pfizer has managed to leave town very quietly. In the process, they have demolished significant historic buildings, taken tens of millions in tax credits from the City, and killed a 1,000+ local jobs.
But what about the rest of their property north of Flushing? Will that become affordable housing? Or does Pfizer have another surprise up its sleeve before it packs up its tent and quietly leaves town?