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Bush Terminal
Coordinates:
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40.65503°N 74.01633°W
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Bush Terminal now known as Industry City
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[1] is a large and historic complex of piers,
Current events
docks, warehouses, factories, and rail sidings
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on 200 acres (810,000 m2 ) on the waterfront
of Brooklyn, New York City. It was designed
as a massive intermodal shipping,
warehousing, and manufacturing center and
rail-marine terminal and was the first facility
of its kind in New York.
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Bush Terminal before 1920
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Part of the neighborhood of Sunset Park,
Brooklyn, Bush Terminal covered 200 acres
(abut 81 hectares) at its peak. It is bounded by Upper New York Bay'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
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50th Street to the south. [2]
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The terminal was the largest of its kind in the world, served as an intermodal hub for railways and
cargo ships, and as a model for other integrated cargo facilities. The Bush Terminal Co. handled all
the shipping for tenants of the buildings within the facility. It was the first American example of
completely integrated manufacturing and warehousing, served by both rail and water transportation,
under a unified management, as well as the largest multi-tenant industrial property in the United
States. [3]
Contents [hide]
1 1895-1902: Concept and Beginnings
2 1902 through World War II: Expansion and Zenith
2.1 World War I
2.2 The Interwar Years
2.3 Structures Outside Brooklyn
2.4 World War II
3 Since World War II:
4 Bush Terminal Railways
5 Legacy
6 See also
7 References
8 External links
9 Further reading
1895-1902: Concept and Beginnings
[edit]
Bush Terminal is named after its founder Irving T. Bush, whose family name comes from Jan Bosch,
[4]
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Bush Terminal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
born in the Netherlands who immigrated to New Amsterdam (now New York) in 1662.
. Bush
Terminal is thus in no way related to the Bush political family. [5]
What set Bush Terminal apart from other rail-marine terminals in New York was 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.[4] There had only been one warehouse on the site in 1890 [2] , and before
that, the land contained an oil refinery belonging to the Bush & Denslow company of Rufus T. Bush,
Irving T. Bush's father. Standard Oil 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. [6]
The terminal in its early days was derided as "Bush's Folly."[7] Railroad officials would not ship
directly to Brooklyn, which required the extra cost of loading freight cars on car floats for the trip
across New York Harbor to the ferry slips 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 agreed to accept the offer and negotiate directly with the new terminal. Other railways
followed. [4][6]
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 warehouses, he warehoused coffee and cotton himself.[6]
Once Bush Terminal succeeded and expanded, sources credited Bush's "keen foresight" for
undertaking such a "quixotic" business venture.[4]
1902 through World War II: Expansion and Zenith
[edit]
The Bush Company terminal business became the Bush Terminal Co. in 1902 when Irving T. Bush
bought the land from the Standard Oil Co. [3][8] The warehouses were built circa 1892-1910, the
railroad from 1896 to 1915, and the factory lofts between 1905 and 1925[3]
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.[3] .
As of 1918, Bush Terminal owned 3,100 feet (944 meters) of waterfront in Brooklyn and covered 20
waterfront blocks. Seven piers extended over 1,200 feet (370 m) into the harbor and were at least
150 feet (46 m) wide. Each pier was enclosed.[8] Twenty-five steamship lines used these piers,[2]
and as of 1910, Bush Terminal handled 10 per cent of all steamships arriving at New York. [4]
Eventually, Bush Terminal handled fifty thousand railroad freight cars and had eight piers that docked
vessels from 25 steamship lines. [2]
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. [8]
The company operated the Bush Terminal Railroad Co., which had about twenty miles (32 km) of
track within the terminal.[8] The terminal's railroad greatly reduced shippers' cost to haul freight from
their facilities to a railyard. [3] The rail yard could hold about 1,000 freight cars and was six blocks
long. [3] The terminal also owned two miles (3 km) of track through Brooklyn to connect with the
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Bush Terminal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Pennsylvania Railroad. [4] (See also List of streetcar lines in Brooklyn.)
The twelve buildings for manufacturers that had been built by 1918 housed about 300 companies. [8]
The buildings, which had 150 freight elevators[9] 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 km) of fire sprinklers running within
them. [10] 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. [3]
World War I
[edit]
The U.S. Navy first commandeered the piers and warehouses of the Bush Terminal Co. on Dec. 31,
1917. [8] By June 1918, Assistant Secretary of the Navy (and later President of the United States)
Franklin D. Roosevelt 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.[11] The United States Navy tied its rail lines into those of the
Bush Terminal in 1918[12] Irving T. Bush not only complied, but he helped to design its southern
neighbor, the Brooklyn Army Terminal in 1918. [7][10] The Federal Government quietly returned Bush
Terminal to private ownership after the war.
The Interwar Years
[edit]
Bush Terminal was an integral part of Sunset Park, Brooklyn. [13] The terminal's fortunes rose with
those of the borough of Brooklyn, which had more than 2.5 million residents by 1930. [14] 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,[2] workers in the terminal created their own system of courts as a form of self-policing.[15]
Though Bush Terminal Company went into receivership during the Depression, operations continued
relatively unaltered through the 1930s. [3]
Structures Outside Brooklyn
[edit]
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) [16] and featured a "Gothic design with a strong flavor of
Dutch." [17]
The terminal also funded construction of Bush Tower, a 30-story skyscraper near Times Square in
Manhattan, where tenants of Bush Terminal were offered display space to showcase their goods,
above a club for buyers visiting New York. [10]
The Bush Terminal Company attempted a similar melding of commercial displays and social space at
Bush House in London, built in three phases during the 1920s, but the concept was not fully carried
through at that project.[18]
World War II
[edit]
During World War II, 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. [19]
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Since World War II:
[edit]
Sunset Park began to suffer economic decline even before World War II, due to the Great
Depression, the end of the 3rd Avenue elevated line and the 1941 construction and widening of the
Gowanus Expressway.
After the war, "white flight," 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. [13]
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. [20]
Shortly thereafter, starting in the early 1950s and continuing into the 1960s, the Topps company of
chewing gum and baseball card fame, produced baseball cards at Bush Terminal. Topps moved
production to Pennsylvania in 1965 and its offices to Manhattan in 1994. [21][22]
By 1961, the Bush Terminal Company sold its lower Manhattan headquarters building (which was
soon demolished) and consolidated its offices at the terminal itself. [16]
A real estate group led by Harry Helmsley (husband of the infamous Leona Helmsley) bought Bush
Terminal in 1963. [9] The complex maintained 95 percent occupancy through the middle of the 1970s,
when 25,000 people were employed by the terminal company or firms located there. [10] Renamed
Industry City , by the mid-1980s, Bush Terminal housed the highest concentration of garment
manufacturers in New York City outside of Manhattan. [21] Even in the 1990s, the terminal offered
6,500,000 square feet (604,000 m2 ) of floor space (about 600,000 square meters) in 16 buildings that
were as tall as twelve stories, and buildings at the site were still mostly occupied.[2]
Industry City is currently owned by Industry City Associates. Industry City consists of a diverse mix of
businesses that encompasses more traditional industry such as garment manufacturing, data centers
and warehousing to a growing base of creative businesses. In 2009, Industry City made a concerted
effort to attract artists by building 30,000 sq ft of artist studios, and conducting creative events such
as art raves and film screenings as well as providing space for a temporary contemporary art
museum, titled Marion Spore
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.
Bush Terminal Railways
[edit]
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. [10] As of 2006, the car floats and
Bush Terminal Rail Yard are operated by New York New Jersey Rail, LLC [23][24] and used
occasionally to deliver New York City Subway cars via the South Brooklyn Railway.
Shipping activity at Bush Terminal also declined after World War II. The introduction of containerized
shipping and the construction of the Port Newark-Elizabeth Marine Terminal in New Jersey hastened
the decline of sea traffic to Bush Terminal.
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Bush Terminal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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[3] . 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.[25] In 2006, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Governor
George Pataki 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.[26]
Legacy
[edit]
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, 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.[27]
See also
[edit]
Irving T. Bush
Bush Tower
Bush House
References
1. ^ Welcome to Industry
City
2. ^ a b c d e f Gallagher,
John J. (1995). "Bush
Terminal". In Kenneth T.
Jackson. The
Encyclopedia of New
York City. New Haven,
CT & New York: Yale
University Press & The
New York Historical
Society. pp. 171.
ISBN 0-300-05536-6.
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Raber,
Micheal and Thomas
Flagg (1988). Historic
American Engineering
Record: Bush Terminal
Company (Bush
Terminal) , HAER no.
NY-201. Philadelphia,
PA: Historic American
Engineering Record,
Mid-Atlantic Region,
National Park Service,
U.S. Department of the
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_Terminal[7/5/2011 1:35:10 PM]
[edit]
ISBN 0-300-05536-6.
14. ^ Kenneth T. Jackson,
ed (1995). "Brooklyn".
The Encyclopedia of
New York City. New
Haven, CT & New York:
Yale University Press &
The New York Historical
Society. pp. 152.
ISBN 0-300-05536-6.
15. ^ "Workers have their
courts in New York."
(Jan. 13, 1929). The
New York Times, p. 22
16. ^ a b "Bush Terminal
Sells a Landmark" (June
24, 1961). The New
York Times, p. 22:2
17. ^ Stern, Robert A. M,
Gregory Gilmartin, and
John Montague
Massengale (1983).
New York 1900:
Metropolitan
Architecture and
Urbanism, 1890-1915
Portion of Bush Terminal industrial lofts
- distant view from Sunset Park in
Brooklyn's Sunset Park neighborhood
Bush Terminal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Interior
4. ^ a b c d e f "Bush, Irving
Ter" . The National
Cyclopaedia of
American Biography:
Being the History of the
United States as
Illustrated in the Lives of
the Founders, Builders,
and Defenders of the
Republic, and of the
Men and Women who
are Doing the Work and
Moulding the Thought of
the Present Time. 14
(Supp. 1). New York:
J. T. White Company.
1910. pp. 102–103.
Retrieved 2008-11-23.
5. ^ "Frequently Asked
Questions About BBC
World Service" .
London: BBC World
Service. Retrieved 29
November 2008.
6. ^ a b c Copley, F. B.
(Oct. 1913). "Interesting
People: Irving T. Bush."
The American
Magazine, 76 (4), p. 5759
7. ^ a b "Irving T. Bush
dies; Terminal founder."
(Oct. 22, 1948). The
New York Times, p. 25
8. ^ a b c d e f "Bush
Terminal Plant Largest
of Its Kind; Warehouses
in Brooklyn Number 118,
with capacity of
25,000,000 Cubic Feet
and 8 Piers" (Jan. 1,
1918). The New York
Times, p. 1
9. ^ a b "Syndicate buys
Bush Terminal." (May
14, 1963). The New
York Times, p. 62
10. ^ a b c d e Horseley,
Carter B. (Sep. 12,
1976). "Bush Terminal
shouldn't be a success but it is". The New York
Times, Section 8, p. 1
11. ^ "Navy Commandeers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_Terminal[7/5/2011 1:35:10 PM]
New York: Rizzoli, 1983,
p. 181
18. ^ Saint, Andrew (1984).
"Americans in London:
Raymond Hood and the
National Radiator
Building." AA Files 7,
37-38.
19. ^ "Vast throngs see
Roosevelt on tour" (Oct.
22, 1944). The New
York Times, p. 35
20. ^ "A memorial to
founder of Bush
Terminal." (Jun. 21,
1950). The New York
Times, p. 55
21. ^ a b Kennedy, Shawn
D. (April 30, 1986).
"Industrial
Condominiums at the
Old Bush Terminal." The
New York Times, p. A24
22. ^ "Topps Turns to
Whitehall Street;
Cementing a Deal For
Space Downtown "
(March 6, 1994) The
New York Times
23. ^ New York New Jersey
Rail LLC
24. ^ "Floating Railroad
Continues a Proud
Tradition" . The
Seafarers International
Union, Atlantic, Gulf,
Lakes and Inland
Waters District/NMU,
AFL-CIO. Nov. 2006.
Retrieved 5 Dec. 2008.
25. ^ New York State
Department of
Environmental
Conservation, Division
of Environmental
Remediation (March
2004). Environmental
Restoration Record of
Decision, Bush Terminal
Landfill Piers 1-4,
Brooklyn, Kings County,
New York, Site Number
B00031-2, p. 2-3. (A 66page PDF linked to from
New York State
Bush Terminal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Department of
Environmental
Conservation, Bush
Terminal Landfill Piers
1-4 ) (accessed
January 3, 2009)
26. ^ "Mayor Bloomberg
And Governor Pataki
Announce $36 Million
For Environmental
Cleanup And
Redevelopment Of Bush
Piers" . Office of the
Mayor, City of New
York. April 20, 2006.
Retrieved 3 Jan. 2009.
27. ^ Port Authority South
Brooklyn Marine
Terminal
4 Buildings" (June 22,
1918). The New York
Times, p. 14
12. ^ "Historic Federal
Buildings: Power Plant
(Brooklyn Navy
Yard)" . U.S. General
Services Administration.
Retrieved 3 Jan. 2009.
13. ^ a b Snyder-Grenier,
Ellen Marie (1995).
"Sunset Park". In
Kenneth T. Jackson.
The Encyclopedia of
New York City. New
Haven, CT & New York:
Yale University Press &
The New York Historical
Society. pp. 1143–1144.
External links
[edit]
Aerial view of Bush Terminal, Brooklyn, in 1920
Bullish Bush
at the New York Public Library Digital Gallery
(Dec. 9, 1929) Time
Photo of Bush Terminal Co. headquarters at 100 Broad St. in 1905
of the same year, at the New York Public Library Digital Gallery
, from Architecture magazine
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
Further reading
[edit]
Bush, Irving T. (1928). Working with the World. Garden City, New York, Doubleday, Doran & Co.
Categories: Buildings and structures in Brooklyn | Transportation in Brooklyn
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