Emergent City

Tropic Sprockets by Ian Brockway

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New York has everything. The city is a smorgasbord of stimuli. Along the Brooklyn waterfront there is a community called Sunset Park, home to many diverse working-class people. Within Sunset Park, there is a place known as Industry City, a mainstay of homegrown tradesmen and women from welders to cooks and bakers.

After Hurricane Sandy, many residents left, and the businesses of Industry City vanished. Buildings transformed into ghostly shells. Corporations hungered, seeing opportunity and looking to gentrify this iconic neighborhood group, which is code for displacement of its citizenry and erasure of organic character.

The documentary “Emergent City” by Jay Arthur Sterrenberg and Kelly Anderson is an account of the struggle between businesses that want to awaken the community monetarily and the locals who want to keep their families and their sanity in place. The film is as pointed and buoyant as it is infuriating in fits and starts. 

At the heart of the matter, is a re-zoning battle highlighted by Industry City CEO Andrew Kimball, who argues for businesses to move in and move forward with new opportunity and supposed new jobs. All on the surface is well and good. Proposed bistros abound and frappacinos pour in ribbons of dark voluptuous curls of chocolate.

Midway in the film, however, it becomes clear that the interested parties do not have a set plan to help the locals who have resided at Industry City for generations. 

On the front lines is Elizabeth Yeampierre, Director of UPROSE, a champion for the environment. She is strong and resilient with a shield of sunflowers to aid the fight.

The lawyers for gentrification and economic prosperity, headed by the ultra-rich Jamestown group don’t do themselves many favors, employing euphemisms and double talk. While there are no twirling mustached villains here, empathy is sorely lacking, and it is not a good sign that Mayor Eric Adams is at the table only to make a hasty exit during the hearing.

The spirit of this film is Yeampierre, along with other women and locals like her speaking common sense for what is right, in challenging the pressed polyester suits wherever they may be. 

The film excellently has the flavor of the classic “High Noon” at a fated city meeting. Like Gary Cooper before him, councilmen Carlos Menchaca accepts the wishes of his constituents and consents to local concerns.

With observant calm and careful deliberation, Democracy is present with all of its ferocity, wear and worry but most of all, one is witness to its patient balance.

Write Ian at ianfree11@yahoo.com