Bush Terminal now known as Industry City is a historic intermodal

Intermodal freight transport

Intermodal freight transport involves the transportation of freight in an intermodal container or vehicle, using multiple modes of transportation , without any handling of the freight itself when changing modes. The method reduces cargo handling, and so improves security, reduces damages and...

 shipping, warehousing, and manufacturing complex on the waterfront in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn

Brooklyn

Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...

, New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

. Bush Terminal was the first facility of its kind in New York and the largest multi-tenant industrial property in the United States.

The Bush Terminal Company managed the shipping for all of the Bush Terminal tenants making it the first American example of completely integrated manufacturing and warehousing, served by both rail and water transportation, under a unified management system.

At its peak, Bush Terminal covered 200 acres (abut 81 hectares), bounded by Upper New York Bay

Upper New York Bay

Upper New York Bay, or Upper Bay, is the traditional heart of the Port of New York and New Jersey, and often called New York Harbor. It is enclosed by the New York City boroughs of Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Staten Island and the Hudson County, New Jersey municipalities of Jersey City and Bayonne.It...

's Gowanus Bay to the west and north, by 3rd Avenue to the east, and—at its peak—between 27th Street, Brooklyn to the north and 50th Street to the south.

Today, Industry City comprises roughly 40 acres of Bush Terminal, including 16 original buildings. The 6.5 million-square-foot complex is currently undergoing renovations to modernize the historic infrastructure in an effort to preserve the industrial heritage of the project for future generations of artisans, craftsmen and small businesses.
Bush Terminal Today - Industry City=

Bush Terminal was renamed Industry City in the mid-1980's. Owned by Industry City Associates, the complex is home to a diverse mix of businesses encompassing artisans, garment manufacturing, data centers and warehousing.

A full-scale renovation plan was announced in September of 2011. The 10-year program will include repaving the streets that separate the property's buildings, bulkhead renovation to the buildings that line the waterfront, installation of overhead power distribution and buss ducts, and a complete modernization of the property's 150 elevators.

In 2009, Industry City began attracting artists by building 30000 sq ft (2,787.1 m²) of artist studios, and conducting creative events such as film screenings and art installations such as the Marion Spore project.

Industry City hosts Brooklyn's Fashion Weekend, a bi-annual exposition showcasing the work of local and international fashion designers.

Tenants at Industry City include Virginia Dare, FreeCell, Fiber Media, Tumbador Chocolate, Paul Chan, Cory Arcangel, Nils Folk Anderson, Andrea Geyer, Jarrod Beck, Tamar Ettun, Julia Dault, Chris Kannen, K8 Hardy, Elizabeth Shelton, Torild Stray, Cara Enteles, Peter Maslow, NEW (non traditional employment for women), Yona Verwer, Natalia Zubko, Lenore Mizrachi and street artists Andrew Hermida, and Cycle.

1895-1902: Concept and Beginnings

Bush Terminal is named after its founder Irving T. Bush

Irving T. Bush

Irving T. Bush was an American businessman. His father was the wealthy industrialist, oil refinery owner, and yachtsman Rufus T. Bush. As founder of the Bush Terminal Company, Irving T...

. His family name came from Jan Bosch, who was born in the Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 and immigrated to New Amsterdam

New Amsterdam

New Amsterdam was a 17th-century Dutch colonial settlement that served as the capital of New Netherland. It later became New York City....

 (now New York) in 1662. Bush Terminal is thus in no way related to the Bush political family

Bush family

The Bush family is a prominent American family. Along with many members who have been successful bankers and businessmen, across three generations the family includes two U.S. Senators, one Supreme Court Justice, two Governors, one Vice President and two Presidents...

.

Bush Terminal was unique from other rail-marine terminals in New York due to its distance from Manhattan, the magnitude of its warehousing and manufacturing operations, and its fully integrated nature.

Wholesalers in Manhattan faced expensive time, transportation, and labor costs when importing and then re-sending goods. So in 1895, Irving T. Bush, working under the name of his family's company, The Bush Co., organized six warehouses and one pier on the waterfront of South Brooklyn as a freight handling terminal. There had only been one warehouse on the site in 1890, and before that, the land contained an oil refinery belonging to the Bush & Denslow company of Rufus T. Bush

Rufus T. Bush

Rufus T. Bush was an American businessman, oil refining industrialist, and yachtsman. His notable testimony against Standard Oil's monopolistic practices through railroad rebates left a lasting impression, while the 1887 transatlantic ocean race of his sailing yacht Coronet and his subsequent...

, Irving T. Bush's father. Standard Oil

Standard Oil

Standard Oil was a predominant American integrated oil producing, transporting, refining, and marketing company. Established in 1870 as a corporation in Ohio, it was the largest oil refiner in the world and operated as a major company trust and was one of the world's first and largest multinational...

 bought this refinery in the 1880s and dismantled it, but after Rufus T. Bush's death in 1890, Irving T. Bush later bought the land back using his father's inheritance.

The terminal in its early days was derided as "Bush's Folly." Railroad officials would not ship directly to Brooklyn, which required the extra cost of loading freight cars on car float

Car float

A railroad car float or rail barge is an unpowered barge with rail tracks mounted on its deck. It is used to move railroad cars across water obstacles, or to locations they could not otherwise go, and is pushed by a towboat or towed by a tugboat...

s for the trip across New York Harbor to the ferry slip

Ferry slip

A ferry slip is a specialized docking facility that receives a ferryboat or train ferry. A similar structure called a barge slip receives a barge or car float that is used to carry wheeled vehicles across a body of water....

s at the terminal, unless they first had orders of freight. Irving T. Bush resorted to sending an agent to Michigan with instructions to buy 100 carloads of hay, then to attempt to have the hay sent in its original railcar to Bush's terminal in Brooklyn. Eastern railroad companies declined their western agents' request to send the hay, until eventually, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad

Baltimore and Ohio Railroad

The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was one of the oldest railroads in the United States and the first common carrier railroad. It came into being mostly because the city of Baltimore wanted to compete with the newly constructed Erie Canal and another canal being proposed by Pennsylvania, which...

 agreed to accept the offer and negotiate directly with the new terminal. Other railways followed.

To demonstrate that ocean vessels could (and should) dock at the piers, Irving T. Bush leased ships and entered the banana business (and made a profit while doing so). Likewise, to induce businesses to store goods at his terminal's warehouse

Warehouse

A warehouse is a commercial building for storage of goods. Warehouses are used by manufacturers, importers, exporters, wholesalers, transport businesses, customs, etc. They are usually large plain buildings in industrial areas of cities and towns. They usually have loading docks to load and unload...

s, he warehoused coffee and cotton himself.

Once Bush Terminal succeeded and expanded, sources credited Bush's "keen foresight" for undertaking such a "quixotic

Quixotism

Quixotism is impracticality in pursuit of ideals, especially those ideals manifested by rash, lofty and romantic ideas or extravagantly chivalrous action. It also serves to describe an idealism without regard to practicality...

" business venture.

1902 through World War II: Expansion and Zenith

The Bush Company terminal business became the Bush Terminal Co. in 1902 when Irving T. Bush bought the land from the Standard Oil Co. The warehouses were built circa 1892-1910, the railroad from 1896 to 1915, and the factory lofts between 1905 and 1925

Together, Bush Terminal offered economies of scale for its tenants, so that even the smallest concerns had available to them the type of facilities normally only available to large, well-capitalized firms.

As of 1918, Bush Terminal owned 3,100 feet (944 m) of waterfront in Brooklyn and covered 20 waterfront blocks. Seven piers extended over 1200 feet (365.8 m) into the harbor and were at least 150 feet (45.7 m) wide. Each pier was enclosed. Twenty-five steamship lines used these piers, and as of 1910, Bush Terminal handled 10 per cent of all steamships arriving at New York. Eventually, Bush Terminal handled fifty thousand railroad freight cars and had eight piers that docked vessels from 25 steamship lines.

Once freight was offloaded from vessels or ready for shipment, it could be stored within one of 118 warehouses, ranging in height from one to eight stories. Together, they could hold 25,000,000 cubic feet (708,000 cubic meters) of goods.

The company operated the Bush Terminal Railroad Co., which had about twenty miles (32 km) of track within the terminal. The terminal's railroad greatly reduced shippers' cost to haul freight from their facilities to a railyard. The rail yard could hold about 1,000 freight cars and was six blocks long. The terminal also owned two miles (3 km) of track through Brooklyn to connect with the Pennsylvania Railroad.(See also List of streetcar lines in Brooklyn.)

The twelve buildings for manufacturers that had been built by 1918 housed about 300 companies. The buildings, which had 150 freight elevators were mostly u-shaped to facilitate loading at rail sidings. To give an example of Bush Terminal's scale, as of the 1970s, the facility's buildings had 263,740 window panes in their walls and 138 miles (222.1 km) of fire sprinklers running within them. The terminal had two power plants for steam and light, plus a bank, restaurants, and even a trolley to provide transportation for workers. In addition to a hall for longshoremen, an administration building was constructed circa 1895 to 1902.

World War I

The U.S. Navy first commandeered the piers and warehouses of the Bush Terminal Co. on Dec. 31, 1917. By June 1918, Assistant Secretary of the Navy (and later President of the United States) Franklin D. Roosevelt

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...

 wrote to Irving T. Bush to tell him that the Navy would also be commandeering four of Bush Terminal's twelve manufacturing buildings, meaning that 64 manufacturers employing 4,500 people would have to vacate. The United States Navy

United States Navy

The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...

 tied its rail lines into those of the Bush Terminal in 1918 Irving T. Bush not only complied, but he helped to design its southern neighbor, the Brooklyn Army Terminal

Brooklyn Army Terminal

The Brooklyn Army Terminal is large complex of piers, docks, warehouses, cranes, rail sidings and cargo loading equipment on between 58th and 63rd Street in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. During World War II, the terminal was responsible for shipment of 85% of army equipment and personnel overseas;...

 in 1918. The Federal Government quietly returned Bush Terminal to private ownership after the war.

The Interwar Years

Bush Terminal was an integral part of Sunset Park, Brooklyn. The terminal's fortunes rose with those of the borough of Brooklyn, which had more than 2.5 million residents by 1930. The terminal employed thousands directly and many thousands more worked for firms within Bush Terminal.

Besides its own police force, fire department, rail system, steam and power plants, and deep water piers, workers in the terminal created their own system of courts as a form of self-policing.

Though Bush Terminal Company went into receivership during the Depression, operations continued relatively unaltered through the 1930s.

Structures Outside Brooklyn

Early in the century, the Bush Terminal Company commissioned architects Kirby, Petit, and Green to design its headquarters building in Manhattan at 100 Broad St (at the intersection with Pearl and Bridge streets). The relatively small yet notable five-story office building was located on the site of Manhattan's first church (from 1633) and featured a "Gothic design with a strong flavor of Dutch."

The terminal also funded construction of Bush Tower

Bush Tower

Bush Tower, also called the Bush Terminal International Exhibit Building is an historic thirty-story skyscraper located just east of Times Square at 130-132 West 42nd Street between Broadway and Sixth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It was built in 1916-18 for Irving T. Bush's Bush...

, a 30-story skyscraper near Times Square

Times Square

Times Square is a major commercial intersection in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, at the junction of Broadway and Seventh Avenue and stretching from West 42nd to West 47th Streets...

 in Manhattan

Manhattan

Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...

, where tenants of Bush Terminal were offered display space to showcase their goods, above a club for buyers visiting New York.

The Bush Terminal Company attempted a similar melding of commercial displays and social space at Bush House

Bush House

Bush House is a building between Aldwych and The Strand in London at the southern end of Kingsway. The BBC World Service occupies the Centre Block, North East and South East wings. The North West wing was formerly occupied by BBC Online until they relocated to BBC Media Village in 2005, with some...

 in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, built in three phases during the 1920s, but the concept was not fully carried through at that project.

World War II

During World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, Bush Terminal buildings were again seized by the federal government for war use and as a focus for the shipment of goods overseas. Franklin D. Roosevelt's campaign swing around New York City on Oct. 21, 1944 started at the Brooklyn Army Base and adjacent Bush Terminal.

Since World War II

Sunset Park began to suffer economic decline even before World War II, due to the Great Depression

Great Depression

The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...

, the end of the 3rd Avenue elevated line

IRT Third Avenue Line

The IRT Third Avenue Line, commonly known as the Third Avenue El, was an elevated railway in Manhattan and the Bronx, New York City. Originally operated by an independent railway company, it was acquired by the Interborough Rapid Transit Company and eventually became part of the New York subway...

 and the 1941 construction and widening of the Gowanus Expressway.

After the war, "white flight

White flight

White flight has been a term that originated in the United States, starting in the mid-20th century, and applied to the large-scale migration of whites of various European ancestries from racially mixed urban regions to more racially homogeneous suburban or exurban regions. It was first seen as...

", the maritime industry's move to New Jersey, and the deactivation of the Brooklyn Army Terminal from the 1970s (until its reopening in as a industrial park in 1987) also hurt the neighborhood.

But this decline did not greatly affect Bush Terminal. Though its piers are now defunct and its rail system is much smaller than it was before World War II (nor is it operated by Bush Terminal), the buildings and warehouses at Bush Terminal did not suffer the abandonment so common across the United States after World War II.

Irving T. Bush died in 1948 and a statue to him was dedicated in 1950 at Bush Terminal's Brooklyn administration building by his niece Helen Tunison in front of 3,000 notables and terminal employees.

Shortly thereafter, starting in the early 1950s and continuing into the 1960s, the Topps

Topps

The Topps Company, Inc., manufactures chewing gum, candy and collectibles. Based in New York, New York, Topps is best known as a leading producer of baseball cards, football cards, basketball cards, hockey cards and other sports and non-sports themed trading cards.-Company history:Topps itself was...

 company of chewing gum and baseball card

Baseball card

A baseball card is a type of trading card relating to baseball, usually printed on some type of paper stock or card stock. A card will usually feature one or more baseball players or other baseball-related sports figures...

 fame, produced baseball cards at Bush Terminal. Topps moved production to Pennsylvania in 1965 and its offices to Manhattan in 1994.

By 1961, the Bush Terminal Company sold its lower Manhattan headquarters building (which was soon demolished) and consolidated its offices at the terminal itself.

A real estate group led by Harry Helmsley

Harry Helmsley

Harry B. Helmsley was an Americanentrepreneur who built a company that became one of the biggest property holders in the United States...

 (husband of the infamous Leona Helmsley

Leona Helmsley

Leona Mindy Roberts Helmsley was an American businesswoman and real estate entrepreneur. She was a flamboyant personality and had a reputation for tyrannical behavior that earned her the nickname Queen of Mean...

) bought Bush Terminal in 1963. The complex maintained 95 percent occupancy through the middle of the 1970s and employed 25,000 people. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Bush Terminal housed the highest concentration of garment manufacturers in New York City outside of Manhattan.

Bush Terminal Shipping & Railways

Due to the decline of the railways after World War II, Bush Terminal Railway went defunct in the 1970s, its operations continued by the New York Dock Railroad. As of 2006, the car floats and Bush Terminal Rail Yard are operated by New York New Jersey Rail, LLC 
and used occasionally to deliver New York City Subway

New York City Subway

The New York City Subway is a rapid transit system owned by the City of New York and leased to the New York City Transit Authority, a subsidiary agency of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and also known as MTA New York City Transit...

 cars via the South Brooklyn Railway

South Brooklyn Railway

The South Brooklyn Railway is a railroad in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. It continues to operate today as a subsidiary of MTA New York City Transit...

.

Shipping activity at Bush Terminal also declined after World War II. The introduction of containerized shipping

Containerization

Containerization is a system of freight transport based on a range of steel intermodal containers...

 and the construction of the Port Newark-Elizabeth Marine Terminal

Port Newark-Elizabeth Marine Terminal

Port Newark-Elizabeth Marine Terminal is a major component of the Port of New York and New Jersey. Located on the Newark Bay it serves as the principal container ship facility for goods entering and leaving New York-Newark metropolitan area, and the northeastern quadrant of North America...

 in New Jersey hastened the decline of sea traffic to Bush Terminal.

Prior to 1974, Bush Terminal was still an active port facility, with vessels that docked between its piers. In 1974, the City of New York Department of Ports and Terminals hired a private company to fill the spaces between Piers 1 through 4 to make space for parking shipping containers. Filling however was halted in 1978 after reports of environmental violations. New York City officials later learned that toxic wastes including oils, oil sludges, and wastewaters had been dumped at the site, making the four piers a polluted brownfield

Brownfield land

Brownfield sites are abandoned or underused industrial and commercial facilities available for re-use. Expansion or redevelopment of such a facility may be complicated by real or perceived environmental contaminations. Cf. Waste...

. In 2006, Mayor Michael Bloomberg

Michael Bloomberg

Michael Rubens Bloomberg is the current Mayor of New York City. With a net worth of $19.5 billion in 2011, he is also the 12th-richest person in the United States...

 and Governor George Pataki

George Pataki

George Elmer Pataki is an American politician who was the 53rd Governor of New York. A member of the Republican Party, Pataki served three consecutive four-year terms from January 1, 1995 until December 31, 2006.- Early life :...

 announced a $36 million plan to clean up and redevelop the Bush Terminal piers. The plan included a $17.8 million grant from the state of New York, the largest single grant New York state had ever awarded to clean a brownfield site.

Legacy

Bush Terminal was not only one of the first and largest integrated cargo and manufacturing sites in the world, it served as a model for other industrial parks, offered employment to thousands, and is the home of many businesses today. Besides funding other important buildings such as a Bush Tower and Bush House, it served during both World Wars, influenced the design of the Brooklyn Army Terminal

Brooklyn Army Terminal

The Brooklyn Army Terminal is large complex of piers, docks, warehouses, cranes, rail sidings and cargo loading equipment on between 58th and 63rd Street in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. During World War II, the terminal was responsible for shipment of 85% of army equipment and personnel overseas;...

, and affected the growth of Brooklyn and New York City. The later South Brooklyn Marine Terminal, also owned by EDC, occupies the waterfront to the north, from 39th to 29th Streets.

Today, Industry City has grown with the redevelopment of the Bay Ridge and Sunset Park areas by renovating the complex to serve modern businesses and artist. Plans to extend the Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway

Brooklyn-Queens Greenway

The Brooklyn-Queens Greenway is a bicycling and pedestrian path connecting parks and roads in the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, connecting Coney Island in the south to Fort Totten in the north, on Long Island Sound...

, a 14-mile off-street path connecting neighborhoods along Brooklyn's waterfront, will run through the Industry City complex and include a 23-acre park served by the Sunset Park Greenway-Blueway.

Further reading

• Bush, Irving T.
  Irving T. Bush
  Irving T. Bush was an American businessman. His father was the wealthy industrialist, oil refinery owner, and yachtsman Rufus T. Bush. As founder of the Bush Terminal Company, Irving T...
  
   (1928). Working with the World. Garden City, New York, Doubleday, Doran & Co.

External links

• Aerial view of Bush Terminal, Brooklyn, in 1920 at the New York Public Library Digital Gallery
• Bullish Bush (Dec. 9, 1929) Time
  Time (magazine)
  Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
  
  
• Photo of Bush Terminal Co. headquarters at 100 Broad St. in 1905, from Architecture magazine of the same year, at the New York Public Library Digital Gallery
• Bush Terminal Company (1917). Bush Terminal International Exhibit Building & Buyers' Club. New York, Redfield-Kendrick-Odell Co. (Full-text. Mostly about Bush Tower, but at the end, includes four pages of illustrations and descriptions of Bush Terminal's Brooklyn services and a photo of the company's Manhattan executive offices.)
• Photos of Bush Terminal
• Photos of the current brownfield piers, which have a mature apple orchard growing on them
• Bush Terminal - Industrial & Offline Terminal Railroads of Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, Bronx and Manhattan