CITY LIMITS

De Blasio Said East New York’s Rezoning Would Spur Industrial Jobs Boom. That Hasn’t Happened.

In 2016, the mayor and city officials committed to doubling the manufacturing capacity of the East New York Industrial Business Zone, which they say would help create 3,900 local jobs there. But five years later, neighborhood leaders say the area has stagnated.

‘Long-lasting, sustainable jobs’

Across the street from Legion Lighting, Franklyn Mena has co-founded a model for that sort of community-minded growth.

In January 2020, Mena and three others launched Universe City, an urban farm and aquaponics system cultivating fish and produce inside a Glenmore Avenue warehouse. Their goal is to grow and distribute food throughout the local community, a mission that took on even greater urgency as the COVID crisis fueled food insecurity in East Brooklyn. During the pandemic, Universe City opened a community fridge stocked with vegetables and stepped up food distribution in East New York and Brownsville.

“The idea behind Universe City is we want to be a food port and food hub for the community, with storage, an industrial kitchen, places where people can cook and distribute food,” Mena said during a tour of the industrial space. “These are long-lasting, sustainable jobs with lots of opportunities for small and big businesses.”

Mena envisions the large Legion Lighting warehouse across the street as the future home of the food hub, a place where East New York’s many community gardeners can store their crops, local chefs can prepare and package their creations, and even large conglomerate food distributors can rent space for storage along their delivery routes.