Dumbo, Brooklyn
Dumbo (or DUMBO, short for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass) is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. It encompasses two sections: one located between the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges, which connect Brooklyn to Manhattan across the East River, and another that continues east from the Manhattan Bridge to the Vinegar Hill area. The neighborhood is bounded by Brooklyn Bridge Park to the north, the Brooklyn Bridge to the west, Brooklyn Heights to the south and Vinegar Hill to the east. Dumbo is part of Brooklyn Community Board 2.
Dumbo has historically been known by several names, including Gairville, Rapailie, Olympia, and Walentasville. The area was originally a ferry landing, characterized by 19th- and early 20th-century industrial and warehouse buildings, Belgian block streets, and its location on the East River by the imposing anchorage of the Manhattan Bridge. ...Read more
Dumbo (or DUMBO, short for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass) is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. It encompasses two sections: one located between the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges, which connect Brooklyn to Manhattan across the East River, and another that continues east from the Manhattan Bridge to the Vinegar Hill area. The neighborhood is bounded by Brooklyn Bridge Park to the north, the Brooklyn Bridge to the west, Brooklyn Heights to the south and Vinegar Hill to the east. Dumbo is part of Brooklyn Community Board 2.
Dumbo has historically been known by several names, including Gairville, Rapailie, Olympia, and Walentasville. The area was originally a ferry landing, characterized by 19th- and early 20th-century industrial and warehouse buildings, Belgian block streets, and its location on the East River by the imposing anchorage of the Manhattan Bridge. A large number of the buildings in Dumbo were bought by developer David Walentas and his company Two Trees Management in the late 20th century, and remade into an upscale residential and commercial community—first becoming a haven for art galleries, and currently a center for technology startups.
The large community of tech startups earned Dumbo the nickname of "the center of the Brooklyn Tech Triangle". In that time, Dumbo had become Brooklyn's most expensive neighborhood, as well as New York City's fourth-richest community overall; this is owing in part to its large concentration of technology startups, its close proximity to Manhattan, and its large number of former industrial buildings that have been converted into spacious luxury residential lofts. The neighborhood is the corporate headquarters for e-commerce retailer Etsy and home furnishing stores company West Elm.
The name is an acronym of "Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass". The area has been known variously as Rapailie, Olympia, and Walentasville;[1] the developer who began its current gentrification is Two Trees Management, led at the time by David Walentas.[2] The "Olympia" name came from Comfort and Joshua Sands, who bought the land in 1787[3] and were planning to develop the land as a summer place for New Yorkers.[4] Through the 18th and 19th centuries, the area now known as Dumbo was considered part of Vinegar Hill.[5]
In the 1890s, the western portion of the neighborhood was known as Fulton Landing, after the ferry stop that connected it to Manhattan before the Brooklyn Bridge opened. At that time, it was primarily a manufacturing district, with warehouses and factories that made machinery, paper boxes, spices and Brillo soap pads. The cardboard box was invented in the Robert Gair building on Washington Street by Robert Gair, a Scottish emigrant; because of Gair's fame, the area was known as Gairsville for a long time.[1] The Gair building is now home to Etsy.[6]
The Jay Street Connecting Railroad ran through Dumbo's waterfront from circa 1904–1906 through 1957. It ran from rail yards beneath the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges to buildings near the waterfront in Dumbo and Vinegar Hill. At the height of operations, it had spurs into several buildings, a car float bridge on Bridge Street, and a yard with capacity of 120 cars.[7][8] The tracks were abandoned in 1959,[9] though the railroad's tracks are still visible on streets in Dumbo.[8] In 1968, there was a proposal to relocate the Fort Greene Meat Market to Dumbo,[10] though the market was ultimately moved to Sunset Park instead.[11]
John Street Park in DumboWith the deindustrialization of New York City, Dumbo began to become primarily residential; artists and other young homesteaders seeking relatively large and inexpensive loft apartment spaces for studios and homes began moving there in the late 1970s.[12] The acronym "Dumbo" arose in 1978, when new residents coined it in the belief such an unattractive name would help deter developers.[12]
Near the end of the 20th century, as property became more and more expensive in Manhattan, Dumbo became increasingly gentrified. Even so, the acronym "Dumbo" was largely unknown as late as 1997, and the area itself was very inclusive, serving mainly as an enclave for artists located along the East River and under the Manhattan Bridge. At this stage there were still many air conditioner repair shops, auto shops, and "seedy back alleys and wharves"; and, because the neighborhood was still gentrifying from its industrial past, it lacked even a bookstore, coffee shop, or laundromat.[13] The efforts of Joy Glidden, the Founding Director of the Dumbo Arts Center (DAC) and co-founder of the Dumbo Art Under the Bridge Festival, achieved successful development in Dumbo, which is now a model for similar waterfront developments around the world.[14] Glidden stated of Dumbo's gentrification, "It may be one of the last of what could be considered a true arts community in New York."[13]
The DUMBO Historic District, a historic industrial complex and national historic district in Dumbo, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2000.[15] It consists of 95 contributing buildings; the manufacturing concerns located in this district included Benjamin Moore & Co. (paint), Arbuckle Brothers (coffee and sugar), J.W. Masury & Son (paint), Robert Gair (paper boxes), E.W. Bliss (machinery), and Brillo (soap pads). The district includes the earliest large-scale reinforced concrete factory buildings in America.[16] On December 18, 2007, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission voted unanimously to designate Dumbo as the city's 90th historic district. The Dumbo historic district consists of properties bound by John Street to the north, York Street to the south, Main Street to the west, and Bridge Street to the east.[17]
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