Brooklyn tour

Last Friday, a few of us set out to explore Downtown Brooklyn with the recent NYU Tech Triangle RFP in mind. Our extraordinarily well-informed tour guide for the day was Robert Perris. Rob is the District Manager for Community Board 2 in Brooklyn, which, incidentally, is the area that all three points of the proposed Tech Triangle lie within. The three points are the NYU site, the Brooklyn Navy Yards and DUMBO (down underneath the Manhattan bridge overpass). The request for this proposal is a joint effort  between the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, the Dumbo BID and the Brooklyn Navy Yards.

We began the morning at none other than Starbucks, meeting directly across from Brooklyn Borough Hall. The original seat of county government, Borough Hall still houses the office of the Borough President and his staff. We learned that this area of Brooklyn has a similar population count to Cambridge, MA, a little over 100,000. Walking through Downtown Brooklyn we passed relics of urban renewal projects still in use today as court houses and government offices, and some pretty stunning examples of early skyscraper architecture. 

In the midst of Downtown Brooklyn is one of the anchors of the so-proposed Tech Triangle - the new NYU Center for Urban Science and Progress. It has yet to be renovated, but NYU's deal with the City will see it renovated and opened for use in the coming years. 

Walking past this site towards the Brooklyn Navy Yards (the second point of the triangle) we saw another large-scale urban redevelopment project (this one beginning in the 80s and finishing its last site only recently), Metrotech. Metrotech was pitched in the early 80s as a way to provide reduced-cost office space for companies in Manhattan to house their back office functions. Forest City Ratner picked up the project and today it is at high occupancy with tenants like NYU-Poly and Chase. 

Next stop on the tour was the Brooklyn Navy Yards. Here we were joined by our seasoned tour guide, Emily. The Navy Yards began its life as ship building facility for, you guessed it, the Navy. It was decommissioned in the 1960s and had a brief life in the 70s and 80s as a private shipping yard. Today it is home to hundreds of small manufacturers and goods producers and emphasizes green practices and green design. One of the very cool things that Emily showed us was the site of the Brooklyn Grange, the world's largest rooftop farm. (It was very hard not to eat their recenty harvested tomatoes.) Not only are they making a huge impact on the locavore movement but they provide one of the best views in the City.

After that, it was on to DUMBO. The old warehouse spaces and intense industrial architecture made for a photo-snapping good time for our resident architect. DUMBO went through a rezoning in the early 2000s that allowed for commercial and residential uses that were previously prohibited. This coupled with its proximity to Manhattan, outstaning views and appealing architecture have made it a popular place for those looking for a nice new condo and companies looking for a desirable spot to launch their creative new business alike. The worldclass park under construction along the waterfront probably doesn't hurt either. It is truly an exceptional spot, if you are ever in the area be sure to visit Brooklyn Bridge Park.

We finished the day on the East River Ferry, just one stop over to Wall Street. Potentially a significant spoke on the edge of this new tech triangle.