Industry City (also Bush Terminal) is a historic intermodal shipping, warehousing, and manufacturing complex on the Upper New York Bay waterfront in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City. The northern portion, commonly called "Industry City" on its own, hosts commercial light manufacturing tenants across 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.
Founded by Bush Terminal Company head Irving T. Bush in the early 20th century, Bush Terminal was the first facility of its kind in New York City and the largest multi-tenant industrial property in the United States. The warehouses were built circa 1892–1910, the railroad from 1896 to 1915, and the factory lofts between 1905 and 1925. During World War I, Bush Terminal was used as a United States Navy base, though it returned to private ownership after the war. At its peak, Bush Terminal covered , bounded by Gowanus Bay to the west and north, Third Avenue to the east, 27th Street to the north, and 50th Street to the south.
The surrounding area entered a period of decline after World War II, and by the 1970s, the ports in Bush Terminal had been filled. The entire complex was rebranded as Industry City during the post-war years, though the Bush Terminal name remained in popular use. In the 1970s and 1980s, sections of Bush Terminal were demolished or converted into other uses, including a shopping mall, a federal prison, a privately operated manufacturing and commercial complex, and a garment manufacturing district operated by the NYCEDC.
Today, the Bush Terminal site collectively comprises roughly , including sixteen former factory buildings and eleven warehouses between built in the early 20th century. Starting in the 2010s, the complex has been undergoing renovations and expansions. A major expansion of Industry City, which would add of space to the complex, was announced in 2017. The section of Bush Terminal operated by the NYCEDC is also undergoing a renovation into the "Made in NY" campus, a film, TV, and fashion manufacturing complex that is set to open in 2020.
Description
The privately owned Industry City complex covers sixteen structures and of land on the Brooklyn waterfront, adjacent to New York Harbor. It is subdivided into eight former factory buildings between Second Avenue, 33rd Street, Third Avenue, and 37th Street, numbered 8 to 1 from north to south. An additional two buildings, numbered 19 and 20, occupy the block bounded by First Avenue, Second Avenue, 39th Street, and 41st Street. The structures contain a combined of floor space. All of the buildings were part of the Bush Terminal Company's "Industrial Colony", which was built in the late 1900s and early 1910s.
Directly south of Industry City, between First Avenue, 40th Street, Second Avenue, and 51st Street, is a collection of eleven former warehouses operated by the NYCEDC as part of the Bush Terminal manufacturing complex. These structures were developed by the South Brooklyn Industrial Development Corporation starting in 1989. The campus comprises of land and of renovated floor space.
The entire complex was originally called Bush Terminal and formerly stretched further north to 28th Street. The section north of 32nd Street, comprising the former Naval Fleet Supply Base, is no longer part of Bush Terminal. One of the buildings between 29th and 31st Street, called Federal Building No. 2, are a privately owned shopping complex called Liberty View Industrial Plaza. It was bought by Salman Properties in 2011, and before that, it had been vacant since 2000. The site of the other structure, Federal Building No. 1, is occupied by Metropolitan Detention Center, Brooklyn (MDC Brooklyn), which was built in the 1990s. Federal Building No. 1 was demolished in 1993 to make way for MDC Brooklyn.
The South Brooklyn Marine Terminal, also owned by the NYCEDC, occupies the waterfront to the north and west, from 39th to 29th Streets.
Factory lofts
By 1918, the Bush Terminal Company owned of waterfront in Brooklyn, and the terminal covered 20 waterfront blocks. The complex ultimately encompassed sixteen factory buildings between 28th and 37th Streets, and between 39th and 41st Streets. The buildings were outfitted with the most modern amenities available in the 1900s and 1910s, such as fireproof metal facades and a fire sprinkler system. The floors of each loft building could carry loads of up to .