Instead of Industrial Giants, Brooklyn Has Niche Factories
… Rather, this building, at 1205 Manhattan Avenue, has been sliced and diced into several dozen small factories, each with a niche clientele. One forges exhibits out of wood and metal for the city’s museums. Another makes props and models for advertisers of products like Absolut Vodka to use in their magazine photo spreads. A third restores stained-glass masterpieces for museums like the Cloisters.
This is the face of manufacturing in 2012 Brooklyn…
But in a shift that has been both celebrated and parodied, Brooklyn is increasingly retaining some of its remaining industrial spaces for small-scale, small-batch manufacturing…
“We think this is the future of urban manufacturing,” said Brian T. Coleman, chief executive of Greenpoint Manufacturing and Design Center, a nonprofit group that has bought four weathered industrial buildings and converted them into lofts for small factories housing 110 businesses with 500 employees.
“There is a highly skilled work force making products for local consumption,” he said …
Marty Markowitz, the Brooklyn borough president, said Brooklyn “is going back to the future.”
“What is emerging is the artisanal approach rather than the mass production for millions of items of something,” he said.
