Brooklyn's Progress
November 2003

By New York City Industries for the Blind

When New York City Industries for the Blind (NYCIB) was founded in 1995, their goal was to put the former blind employees of the Lighthouse manufacturing facility back to work. They started out in Long Island City, but when the dot-com craze hit, their landlord decided their space would make him more money if techies filled the space instead of a company that essentially is in the manufacturing and bulk mail business.

It’s no secret that Brooklyn has been losing manufacturing jobs -- jobs that traditionally allowed people with limited education and skills to support themselves and their families. New York City Industries for the Blind (NYCIB) is exceedingly proud to be bucking that trend. And, if the manufacturing challenge in New York City wasn’t enough, a majority of NYCIB’s workers are blind, and unemployment of working age blind people was more than 70 percent before the recession.

Today, NYCIB is alive and well in Brooklyn and has 142 workers, 89 of whom are blind, working at real jobs, with real pay and real benefits, at a 140,000 square foot facility right on 14th Avenue. The nearest subway stop is the Church Avenue station on the F line, which is important because nearly all NYCIB employees arrive every morning via public transportation – dogs, canes and all. When NYCIB was in Long Island City, Paul “Yim Fut” Lee, one of NYCIB’s best sewers, had one of the longer commutes because, as he put it, “I have long commute, because I live on last stop: Coney Island.” It’s easier now.

A large number of workers are from Brooklyn (60 of them) but not all, and some travel as much as two hours each way to get to and from their jobs. Sammy Davis III lives in the Bronx. His guide dog is an unusual breed, a Doberman Pinscher. But Sammy says, “Well, I never have a problem getting a seat on the subway.”

The most important thing about NYCIB is its people, and the next most important is the quality of the goods and services they produce. Charlie Murray works in NYCIB’s state-of-the-art lettershop, and he says it well when he says, “I take pride in what I do, and a person who doesn’t take pride in what they do doesn’t deserve a job.” Ricky Lopez, who operates a drill press and a riveting machine to make the handles for the mops and brooms NYCIB produces, says, “I make sure every handle is done right, because if I wouldn’t buy it, you can’t expect anyone else to.”

With no government or private foundation grants, NYCIB earns all its money the old-fashioned way -- making quality products and selling superior services at competitive prices. A new activity is sorting empty international mail bags from 140 countries around the world, that are trucked over daily from JFK Airport.. NYCIB is saving the U.S. Postal Service money, which makes even taxpayers happy.

As Richard C. Bland, president, CEO and founder of NYCIB says, “Our people want their jobs, and the quality of their work shows. They don’t want a handout, they want to work. As Helen Keller said, ‘The curse of the blind is not blindness, but idleness.’”

New York City Industries for the Blind is very happy to be in Brooklyn, and its workers want the chance to show more local businesses what a good job they can do. Interestingly, the only workers at NYCIB who’ve ever injured themselves have been sighted people. As Nilsa Tirado put it, “People don’t think we can do for ourselves, but they would be very surprised to see what we can do.” NYCIB hopes more Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce members come by and see for themselves.

For more information, please call Rick Bland at 718-854-7300, or Mike Bruneau or Bea Lund at 203-972-8501.  Or, visit NYCIB’s website, http://www.nycib.org/.