An Industrial Community Explosion in Brooklyn

Metropolis looks at the growing manufacturing industry in Brooklyn, and how those industries are also acting as community builders.

"And then there's the Brooklyn Navy Yard, a 300-acre site on the East River, established by the U.S. Navy in 1801. Since 1966, when the Navy pulled out, it's been a city-owned industrial zone. Sitting on what is now prime real estate, just across the river from Manhattan, the Navy Yard contains a fascinating mix of about 240 businesses, only a couple of which have anything to do with ships. There's Crye American, a young company that managed to snag a defense contract to make Kevlar body armor; Steiner Studios, the largest soundstage on the East Coast; and Cumberland Packing, the company that invented Sweet & Low. There are also artisans-metal- and woodworkers, set builders, display makers-who straddle the boundary between art and industry. The Navy Yard, according to Andrew Kimball, its president, is energetically rebranding itself as a 'sustainable industrial park,' home to America's first 'multistory, green industrial facility,' the newly completed, 89,000-square-foot, LEED-certified Perry Building."