As we slowly slide off the back end of the mountain – the first wave of covid-19 virus deaths in NYC, it is a good time to reassess all the mistakes that were made. One of them being the availability of Personal Protection Equipment (PPE).
On April 3rd, 2020, New York State Governor Cuomo questioned loudly in one of his early, now ubiquitous daily briefings, how can we have a country that produces no PPE?
You all know the answer. I’ve answered this question in various posts about industries that once existed in NYC, and in three separate books (7 Line LIC, Abandoned Industries of New York 1 & 2). The answer is simple: across America, and especially New York City, we have off-shored out means of production. Manufacturing companies were bought up, merged, and sometimes purposely run into the ground. This left us with a slew of abandoned factories and warehouses. It created an opening for the billionaire class (in this case, quite literally: Michael Bloomberg) to rezone our limited industrial areas and convert them all to housing (or occasionally, office space). All in the name of Capitalism—a state sanctioned race to the bottom for nearly everyone except people like Mike Bloomberg, Jeff Bezos, et al.
This capitalist war against our factories has continued right up until now. Check out whatever is happening with the Fresh Direct site in LIC. Check out the former Eppins Smith coffee factory, or the Blanchard Building, or the Paragon oil building. Check out the S.W. Bowne Grain Storehouse, or the Ferrera Brothers concrete plant site on the Gowanus canal. All are manufacturing or essential service locations pushed aside in the name of money.
The Former United States
In 2020, the United States are no longer the united states. Trump has his FEMA goons literally looting PPE from any state that tries to buy it. He has attempted to create a PPE monopoly, from which he will only help save the lives of our doctors, nurses, EMTS, firefighters and food delivery & store employees when each states governor properly kisses his ass or know the right people.
In this regard, The United States is now a failed state. The divisions sown by this behavior cannot not be forgotten. Trump has made it clear: the states are on their own. When it comes to producing products such as PPE, we better take action. And it’s not just Trump. His whole political crew is down with it, and ‘resistance’ democrats have barely put up any fight.
Thus, I propose NYC take charge of our own PPE affairs. We still have a few abandoned factory spaces that could be cleaned up and used to produce reusable, ecologically sustainable gloves, masks and gowns. We can use them to manufacture more low cost ventilators that could be sold around the world (which we’re already doing). And when we no longer need ventilators, we’ll need generators for the next blackout, solar panels for when the national grid falls off the rails, etc. The uses for these industrial spaces are endless and frankly necessary for NYC to be viable in what may eventually become the former United States. NYC could, and absolutely should, be a center of green manufacturing innovation. We need to take a hard look at NYC’s every day essential needs and have a plan in place for when those needs can no longer be met by our big dumb capitalist world.
Potential Locations
Last I looked, the former Paragon paint factory in LIC is still vacant. The building is a little beat up but could be used to produce PPE, similar to what is already happening at it’s neighbor, Plaxall. Hell, maybe Plaxall could be rented this property from the city a buck per year, if it is used solely for PPE?
Same goes with the former Eagle Electric factory on Queens Plaza South (documented in 7 Line LIC): it’s large, it’s vacant, and it is still hard wired for industrial electrical use.
On Staten Island, the former Wrigley Gum factory would be a great spot to manufacture any of the things NYC needs to survive.
Now, I’m sure the real estate developer class will lose their minds at this idea. The urbanists who swear that we need more density and that NYC doesn’t have enough housing might agree. But hear me out as I say this again: you can’t have a viable city without some industry. You can’t have a viable city without warehouse space (in this case, to store all that PPE). Maybe three months ago y’all could make the argument that trucking everything in from across the country and planet made sense, but that’s not our new reality.
Besides, that ‘housing crisis’ NYC has been facing is going to shift considerable. NYC, with it’s high rents, high cost of living, and dirty overcrowded germ spreading subways is not going to be an attractive place for many people to move to in the years to come. In fact, we’ve already seen loads of people run away from New York and go back to where ever they consider home. How many of these mostly non-native, zero generational self described “New Yorkers” will come back? (It’s clear they don’t truly love this city as us gen 4 folks do). How many will stay longer than they need to before escaping when the second wave hits? Or when the next pandemic, hurricane or terrorist attack threatens our city?
Make no mistake, my opinion here isn’t anti-any other country, or any other state. China should keep making their own PPE. Oklahoma should manufacture their own PPE. At the very least we need a regional system where the Northeast meets it’s own needs, the west coast handles their own needs. This is about de-centralizing a system that only benefits billionaires. Sure it might cost a bit more, but we’ll have better control over quality and zero reliance on those who might be openly hostile towards us.
To do this, NYC needs whatever manufacturing space we have left. We need to design build and construct all the essential things we possibly can right here in New York. If we can still manufacture ties, we can definitely make high quality PPE. In fact, we already are—this high end fashion company at the Brooklyn Navy Yard has joined the fray. Perhaps these businesses can keep this new line of revenue whenever we transition back to ‘normal’? Maybe we could even hire some of the tens of thousands of newly unemployed? Maybe bring back union jobs? There are plenty of details to work out. But if there’s one thing that should be clear, it is that we’re on our own. We need to start acting like it.
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This pandemic has left states and governments bare when it comes to manufacturing PPE. It goes to show you that the buyout period where companies were using money to transfer over to China shows how vulnerable supply and distribution have shifted to one country. If that country gets sick what happens has shown nations that they definitely cannot depend on overseas manufacturers. Germany is already at the forefront of this new realization. Its strange Germany is a huge manufacturing hub and economically solvent but look over to the USA and things look more service-oriented leaning towards insolvency. Whatever happened to industrial American might?
The NYTimes had a good article of some guy who could have made 1 million masks a month because the machines only cost about 80K but shipment of them was around 500K but Jared and the Ivy League COVID Crisis team did not look even look his way but yet NY gave 63 million to a company that never produced a single iota of ventilators based on the team’s recommendation. Graft and corruption all around when the dust settles on this pandemic response.