MetroTech Center

MetroTech Center was the product of years of borough-wide planning and protest. Its intentions were to rejuvenate the core of Brooklyn and eliminate the squalor in the vicinity. As stated by George Bugliarello, the president of Polytechnic University during the construction of MetroTech Center in 1989, "I could not believe that a great university could exist amid such terrible deterioration". Given the "urban blight surrounding its campus" (Lueck), Dr. Bugliarello had originally turned down his offer to be the president of Polytechnic University.

"When I came into office in 1978, the city was on the edge of bankruptcy; landlords abandoned their buildings because tenants weren't paying rent; crime had escalated, and you had the vandalism and graffiti, I mean it was a very tough time." - Ed Koch, Former Mayor of NYC 1978-1989

Construction on MetroTech Center began in 1989 however the idea to revitalize the downtown Brooklyn area had been active since the 1970s. After Dr. Bugliarello accepted his position in 1973, the proposal to rejuvenate downtown Brooklyn was quick to follow. the MetroTech Project was intended to erase the crime and poverty that had plagued Brooklyn, as well as provide a better and safer environment for the Brooklyn campus of Polytechnic.

"In the 70s and 80s, students tell me they would come out of class in one building and run across the area because there were gunshots going off as crack deals would go down the wrong way; so if we're still in that environment, we're basically gone." -Jerry Hultin, President of Polytechnic Institute of NYU-

Along with providing a new learning environment for the Polytechnic Institute, MetroTech Center would provide ample space for large businesses and corporations looking for a location close to Wall Street. In the case that the MetroTech Project were to be a success, the Ed Koch administration stated that it " will have achieved its critical economic goals of spawning a major new center for computerized services, keeping thousands of jobs from fleeing the city and revitalizing the core of its most popular borough, with 2.2 million residents" (Lueck).

In essence, the MetroTech Project sought to turn a borough that was gradually succumbing to crime, drugs, and poverty, into a city of technological development and educational exploitation. The Project successfully provided a haven for companies such as J.P Morgan Chase, Brooklyn Union Gas Company, Securities Industry Automation Corporation, Goldman Sachs & Company, The Royal Bank of Canada, among others (Leuck). Along with these companies, the Polytechnic Institute (now the Tandon School of Engineering) also benefitted, in which it was finally in a environment teeming with innovation.

Although the MetroTech Project was intended to be a solution to the deterioration of downtown Brooklyn, the Project was initially met with heavy resistance from the city, developers, and especially from the residents of the downtown area. Though MetroTech's proximity to Wall Street was meant to provide an advantage over other vacant lots in gaining tenants, the stock market collapse of 1987 caused cutbacks and reduced expansion plans at investment firms. Given this drawback along with the standing crime rate in the area, companies were becoming more inclined to take positions in office projects taking place in New Jersey, given they were catering to the same group.

"And an even bigger economic headache for Brooklyn is New Jersey, where several large office projects, most of them built on speculation and far from fully occupied, have been going after the same tenants from Wall Street." -New York Times-

Another problem accompanying the MetroTech Project was the negative response the residents of downtown Brooklyn had towards it. An ad hoc committee formed as early as 1982 called "Stand Together Against Neighborhood Destruction" in which they exclaimed that the Project "will basically benefit a private institution" at the cost of "a viable and growing neighborhood" (Oser). Along with the concern about the neighborhood, concerns escalated even further in which in 1989, the Project was challenged in court on the basis of traffic pollution, and displacement.

"A more immediate problem is in court, where some merchants and neighborhood residents have challenged some of the planned development on grounds that it would increase traffic, create air pollution and displace poor people." -New York Times-

MetroTech Center is a textbook example of the process of gentrification. As stated by Richard Florida in his essay, "The Complicated Link Between Gentrification and Displacement", Florida explains that the surface relationship between gentrification and displacement is that gentrification often causes an increase in wealthier residents within gentrified area. With new accommodations and wealthier residents, rents increase, thus gradually pushing the poor out of the neighborhood. However, Florida explained that according to a study conducted by Columbia University came to the conclusion that residents at a disadvantage within gentrifying neighborhoods were less likely to move compare to their counterparts.

"A follow-up  2007 study , again with Braconi, examined apartment turnover in New York City neighborhoods and found that the probability of displacement declined as the rate of rent inflation increased in a neighborhood. Disadvantaged households in gentrifying neighborhoods were actually 15 percent less likely to move than those in non-gentrifying households." -Richard Florida-

Now although such promising evidence exists, seeming to disprove that gentrification causes displacement, Florida moves on to the claim that gentrification at a "feverish pace" can cause displacement. Florida cites UC Berkley's Urban Displacement Project, in which he states, "Over a quarter of San Francisco’s neighborhoods (422 of the nearly 1,600 surveyed) are at risk of displacement" (Florida). With such renovations, Florida elaborates on the process of displacement further by explaining that gentrified cities tend to " attract new businesses, highly skilled workers, major developers, and large corporations, all of which drive up both the demand for and cost of housing" (Florida). According to Florida, gentrification doesn't cause displacement, but at an uncontrollable pace, can result in urbanization at the cost of existing residents.

Along with this claim that rapid gentrification causes mass displacement, Robert Sullivan brings to light the deeper effects gentrification has on communities through his essay "Directions". Sullivan explains that living within Brooklyn, giving directions is "one of the most gratifying aspects of city life, an elegant and utilitarian intersection of the human need to both seek and give help" (Sullivan). However as Brooklyn has been gentrified over time, he explains that the more he gives directions around the city, he more concerned that "we are somehow terribly lost" (Sullivan). He elaborated stating that with periodic "revival" on an area that wasn't particularly in need of resurrection, Brooklyn has lost its identity causing its residents to be lost. Sullivan questions what is the distance between the old Brooklyn from the New Brooklyn? What if this measure of distance is not proximity, but rather public investment and gentrification?

"As you ponder these distances you can see more clearly than ever that the narrative that has built the new Brooklyn is not only partial but also false. The old Brooklyn of Farragut and Fulton Street wasn’t in need of revival but care. Can we find the directions back to the city that wasn’t dead, to the city that’s not a marketable commodity but a collective responsibility?" -Robert Sullivan-

All in all, as engineers, we must think not only about the implications of a mass renovation from a technological standpoint or according to urbanization, but we must also think about the social implications they may yield. Gentrification not only causes the mass displacement of local residents, but can also erode the existing identity of a community. As Sullivan stated, "The old Brooklyn of Farragut and Fulton Street wasn’t in need of revival but care" (Sullivan). Gentrification in Brooklyn allowed new companies and opportunities to roll in, however what did they do to the identity of Brooklyn?

Work Cited:

Lueck, Thomas J. “Transforming Downtown Brooklyn.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 22 Jan. 1989, https://www.nytimes.com/1989/01/22/realestate/transforming-downtown-brooklyn.html.

Oser, Alan S. “METROTECH: A TEST FOR A NEW FORM OF URBAN RENEWAL.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 6 Jan. 1985, https://www.nytimes.com/1985/01/06/realestate/metrotech-a-test-for-a-new-form-of-urban-renewal.html.

CityLab, and University of Toronto’s School of Cities and Rotman School of Management. “The Complex Connection Between Gentrification and Displacement.” CityLab, 8 Sept. 2015, https://www.citylab.com/equity/2015/09/the-complicated-link-between-gentrification-and-displacement/404161/.

“MetroTech Commons.” Downtown Brooklyn, 5 Dec. 2019, http://downtownbrooklyn.com/listings/metrotech-commons.

Sherman, Elisabeth. “29 Photos Of 1970s And 1980s Brooklyn Before The Hipsters Invaded.” All That's Interesting, All That's Interesting, 27 Sept. 2019, https://allthatsinteresting.com/brooklyn-before-hipster-invasion.

Sullivan, et al. “Directions to Brooklyn.” Places Journal, 1 June 2018, https://placesjournal.org/article/directions/.