Soccer, Avocados, Trump & More: The Midweek Roundup

Essential reporting on Brooklyn business news from 'The Bridge' and our colleagues

(Photo by Sean Pavone/Alamy)

Here’s what’s happening: A giant new nightclub opens in Williamsburg. Pro soccer arrives in Coney Island, to a crowd of 6,204. An engineering school rises downtown. An iconic condo sells for $15 million. And an “avocado bar” is set to open in Sunset Park. At last!

1. How music became big business in Brooklyn

This week’s opening of the mammoth club Brooklyn Steel affirms the borough’s status as a national music capital [The Bridge]

2. How to pitch your food startup in two minutes

A Bronx-based hot sauce and innovative food-waste programs took their best shot during a contest run by the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership [The Bridge]

3. What a kick! Pro soccer lands in Brooklyn, with attitude

Why a feisty cable-TV mogul decided to buy the struggling New York Cosmos and launch their comeback in Coney Island [The Bridge]

cosmos

The team, which plays in the NASL, has three recent championships (Photo courtesy of the New York Cosmos)

4. The making of a Brooklyn design star

Shanan Campanaro of Williamsburg-based Eskayel turned dreamy patterns into a small-batch success story, but it almost didn’t happen [The Bridge]

5. An engineering hub on the rise in downtown Brooklyn

NYU’s expansion of the Tandon School takes the Jay Street tech-school corridor to a new level [The Bridge]

6. This indie publisher is throwing the books at Trump

Brooklyn’s Melville House, an activist press, is having a heyday as a voice of the resistance [The Bridge]

7. How Brooklyn’s Middle East survives against the odds

In an age of anti-Muslim politics, the businesses of Atlantic Avenue have drawn fresh support from neighbors [The Bridge]

8. Dumbo's clock-tower penthouse sells for a record $15 million

That’s the most ever for a Brooklyn condo, according to Corcoran Group, the brokerage that represented the seller, Two Trees Management [Brooklyn Daily Eagle]

9. An economy grows in Brooklyn, briskly

The economic rise of the borough, as told in chartsFrom 2001 to 2015, the total wages of people working in Brooklyn rose by 40%, to $23.2 billion, in 2015 dollars [Quartz]

10. 'World's first avocado bar' coming to Brooklyn (of course)

Avocaderia should be opening “soon” in Sunset Park’s Industry City. As the New York Times quipped, now “Brooklyn has it all” [Food & Wine]