A Possible New York Textile Industry For The Future

Robert Manning used to be a manufacturer in Sunset Park, and he’d like to be one again. As neighborhood groups fight to preserve and renew Brooklyn’s working waterfront amid a possible rezoning of Industry City, the New York City native hopes to make a case for his own longstanding proposal to create a textile manufacturing hub with the help of City Hall – and now, perhaps, local councilman Carlos Menchaca in particular.

An artist, Manning worked in the music and film industries before a friend, David Kushner, introduced him to textiles. Kushner (no relation to President Trump’s son-in-law) belonged to a family whose involvement in the textile industry stretched back to the late 1800s, and he perceived new cause for excitement in the technological developments of the 1990s.