The Dumbo neighborhood in Brooklyn is known for its cobblestone streets and prime waterfront views that draw hordes of tourists taking Instagram close-ups with the Manhattan Bridge.
But this former industrial enclave from the 1800s has also become a destination for a growing number of architects and designers who work inside its restored loft buildings to reimagine modern city life. More than 160 architecture and design companies now have offices, stores and studios in and around Dumbo, according to the Dumbo Business Improvement District, a nonprofit.
The architecture firm Snohetta, which redesigned Times Square for pedestrians, moved to Dumbo in December from the financial district in Manhattan. Its bright, inviting studio, which includes skylights and a terrace, looks right into the office of its competitor, Bjarke Ingels Group.
Mr. Ingels and two of his partners brought over flowers to welcome Snohetta to the neighborhood.
Many newcomers said they were attracted by Dumbo’s history, lively street life and light-filled work spaces that rent at a significant discount compared with much of Manhattan. The thriving community of creative types has, in turn, attracted others by word of mouth and encouraged collaboration across projects and companies.
“It gives you the sense that you belong with like-minded people,” said Craig Dykers, the co-founder of Snohetta, who also lives in Dumbo.
Dumbo was named New York’s latest “design district” last year by NYCxDesign, a nonprofit that promotes design industries. While Dumbo does not have the high-profile showrooms and stores of more established design districts like SoHo and Flatiron, its many working studios have made it “a major hub for design,” said Ilene Shaw, the nonprofit’s executive director.
On May 20, Dumbo — with a new logo designed by Snohetta — will hold open studios and panels for the city’s official design week during the NYCxDesign Festival.
The compact neighborhood, wedged between the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges, was once a major industrial hub where factories made coffee, soap and ceramics. Animal hides, indigo and tobacco carried by cargo ships were stored in brick warehouses.
It was called “Gairville” in the early 1900s for Robert Gair, who built an empire there to mass-produce cardboard boxes. Mr. Gair got the idea after a machine malfunctioned at his paper-bag factory in Manhattan and left horizontal cuts on seed bags. He later put the machines to work making prefabricated boxes in Brooklyn.
But the neighborhood’s industries faded in later decades, leaving abandoned factories and warehouses that were taken over by artists, including some who were priced out of Manhattan. In 1978, artists and residents came up with the name “Dumbo” — an acronym for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass — to keep developers away. It didn’t work.
Today, Dumbo is one of the city’s most expensive neighborhoods. In the first three months of this year, the median sales price for a home in Dumbo was $2.2 million, compared with $875,000 in all of Brooklyn and $1.2 million in Manhattan, according to PropertyShark, a real estate data company.
Still, Dumbo’s office rents remain affordable, reflecting a larger trend in the boroughs outside Manhattan, where office building stock is often older and farther from the major commuter hubs that much of the city’s work force relies on, said Frank Wallach, the head of New York research for Colliers, a professional services and investment management company.
The average asking rent for office space in the Dumbo area is $53 per square foot, compared with $89 per square foot in SoHo and $60 per square foot in the financial district, he said.
In 2012, Miriam Peterson and Nathan Rich started their firm, Peterson Rich Office, in Dumbo in a dingy building with no heat and later relocated to nearby Gowanus. The firm grew to 15 employees and was hired in 2023 for a major project at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In February, they returned to Dumbo after finding more offices and amenities to choose from and a revitalized streetscape with new dining options and freshly repaired cobblestones.
Mr. Rich said that he even liked all the tourists. “It adds more vitality and energy and those kinds of good feelings to the neighborhood when people are happy to be here and they’re amazed by the view,” he said. “It’s infectious.”
There are more than 1,000 businesses in the Dumbo area, ranging from tech start-ups to artist studios, said Alexandria Sica, the president of the Dumbo Business Improvement District. The Dumbo advantage, she said, is a “small-town-in-a-big-city feel.”
The growing design community is heavily concentrated in three loft buildings — 45 Main Street, 55 Washington Street and 20 Jay Street — that house 79 design, architecture and real estate firms, up from 55 such firms in 2020. The buildings are owned by Two Trees Management, which has led the redevelopment of Dumbo.
Alyssa Zahler, the managing director of commercial leasing for Two Trees, said the company has intentionally pursued creative industries, carved up larger spaces for smaller firms and offered shorter-term leases and flexible pricing.
On a recent tour, models were displayed on tables and blueprints were pinned to walls. Ethan Porter, a studio coordinator for Post Company at 45 Main Street, said he hears people talking about projects in the elevator. “I definitely feel like there’s an energy in this building and a lot of people doing really cool stuff,” he said.
Across the street, Bhaskar Srivastava, the founder of Dencityworks Architecture, said that a neighbor, Bjarke Ingels Group, had brought in his firm to collaborate on a mixed-use tower in Gowanus. When they have meetings, his team can head over just five minutes beforehand.
Bjarke Ingels Group moved to a 50,000-square-foot office in 2018 after outgrowing offices in TriBeCa, Chelsea and the financial district. Now, its 170 employees have room to spread out. On a recent workday, they brought five dogs and a baby to work.
Kai-Uwe Bergmann, a partner at the firm, said that a new generation of architects and designers had found a creative community in Dumbo. In buildings once used for manufacturing products like cardboard boxes, he said, they are “manufacturing unique designs and lifestyles.”
Winnie Hu is a Times reporter covering the people and neighborhoods of New York City.
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