Mayor: Leave Factories To Be...Factories

Pow! Take that, landlords sizing their huge warehouses and factories today to become tomorrow's apartments: The Mayor is looking to create "protected industrial business zones" in order to protect factory jobs. Other tax incentives will be used to encourage factories to remain in New York City, because salaries in manufacturing are typically higher than in other sectors. Unsurprisingly, the areas where the city gets complaints about illegal conversions are East Williamsburg and Greenpoint. Oh, those pioneering artists, who will live anywhere that has 4,000 square feet! Now, this probably means legal conversions of factories, like the Domino Sugar Plant, are probably still going to happen. Gothamist is curious as to how good these incentives have to be to convince manufacturers to keep operations in NY, when costs are cheaper in other parts of the country.

Some photographs: Tien Mao in Greenpoint and Bluejake in Williamsburg.