Going, Going...Green

June 25 2006
Brooklyn!! staff

After centuries as an industrial center Brooklyn is still proud home to a thriving manufacturing
sector, and those businesses are helping usher in a new era of production that is making
21st century America green with envy. “The state of manufacturing in Brooklyn is very
healthy, but we’re carving out a niche for ourselves with environmentally-sound industry,”
said Adam Friedman, Executive Director of the New York Industrial Retention Network
(NYIRN), which works to strengthen the city’s manufacturing sector.
The range of “green” products produced
in Brooklyn is incredibly broad.
Red Hook-based Uhuru Design (160
Van Brunt St., 718-855-6519) crafts
furniture out of discarded lumber and
metal; Scrapile (70 N. 6 St., 718-218-
6737), in Williamsburg, makes tables,
chairs, and shelves from strips of reclaimed
wood; Ice Stone (63 Flushing
Ave., 718-624-4900) makes a Formicalike
surface from recycled glass and concrete
in the Brooklyn Navy Yard; and
3R Living features products made by
sustainable manufacturing processes
(276L Fifth Avenue, 718-832-0951), in
Park Slope.
Veteran Brooklyn manufacturers are
also adapting to the call for eco-conscious
products, such as East Flatbush’s Mercury Paint (4808 Farragut Rd., 718-469-8787),
which now makes non-toxic paints, and Legion Lighting (221 Glenmore Ave., 718-498-
1770), in East New York, which creates energy-efficient lighting systems and cleaner manufacturing
technologies.Whether it’s old or new, recycled or refurbished, Brooklyn knows where to
invest its energy: in a brighter future!
For more information visit www.nyirn.org or www.madeinnyc.org/buildinggreenpage.cfm.