Brooklyn's Industry City Forges A New Kind of Arts District

"I figured there'd be a much longer lead-up period for our audience to figure out where Sunset Park is," says Ed Halter, Light Industry's co-founder (and sometime Voice film writer). "To be honest, I didn't even know where it was before we came out here for the first time. But I was totally surprised because crowds started showing up right away."

For many of the artists populating Industry City, the idea that it's unlikely to become the next Williamsburg or DUMBO is exactly what draws them in.

Haley Samuelson

Feel free to bring a screen: Light Industry night in Sunset Park

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More About

• Manufacturing Sector
• Brooklyn (New York City)
• Sunset Park (Brooklyn)
• Visual Arts
• Arts, Entertainment, and Media

"The fact that it's not zoned for residential use is definitely something that attracted me," says Andrea Geyer, a conceptual artist who lives in the East Village and works out of a studio here. "It's nice to have a place removed from all the city's craziness and know it won't completely change and be condo-ized."

Next up, Industry City hopes to further blur the line between artistic and industrial production with 11 renovated workshop spaces that were designed to attract graphic designers and other small media firms. Eventually, they envision retail spaces where both artists and industrial tenants can sell their products—a self-sufficient city-within-a-city once again.