The Southwest Brooklyn Bulletin | | SBIDC creates equal opportunity for the people, businesses and community of Southwest Brooklyn’s working waterfront. | | Made in Bed-Stuy: The Shop Behind NYC's World Cup Jersey | | | | |
When the Mamdani administration needed a Brooklyn manufacturer to produce 1,500 hand-sewn, NYC-inspired World Cup jerseys in time for the tournament, Mazzi Sports delivered. Alexander Campaz Jr., who leads Mazzi alongside his business partner Dan, is a 2022 graduate of SBIDC's Plan for Growth business education program.
Mazzi is a family business in the deepest sense. Alexander Campaz Sr. (pictured here), Alex Jr.'s father, nearly 90, began making jerseys in Colombia in the 1970s and brought the trade to New York in 1983, moving the factory through Jackson Heights, Midtown, and East New York before settling in Bed-Stuy in 2020. Alex Jr., who also leads Infinite Wave Inc, a vertical product developer and garment manufacturer, and his business partner Dan now lead the Mazzi operation.
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This is what Alex told us about what it took to be ready when the Mamdani administration came calling:
💡"Any business in New York City trying to manufacture shirts locally could not work on the timeline this administration needed, unless they had relationships built over years. What SBIDC provides is exactly that, support that compounds over time. They support businesses that work quietly, in the shadows. Thanks to SBIDC, I was able to establish myself as a manufacturer, to survive, to pivot, and to reach a scale where I could respond to what the Mamdani administration needed. SBIDC’s training program, Plan for Growth, gave me the tools to grow, so that when the moment came, I was ready. SBIDC has the connections to support dreams. My vision is to make the essential commodity, a cotton t-shirt, a soccer jersey, right here in New York City, instead of importing blanks from overseas. That vision is alive because of the foundation SBIDC helped me build." — Alexander Campaz, Owner of Mazzi Sports and Infinite Wave Inc.
🙌Connect with Alex and the team @mazzi_sports and @infinitewaveinc.
✏️ Jersey design by @arshraziuddin
👋Curious about Plan for Growth? Fill out our interest form.
| | Mazzi Sports team at their Bed-Stuy studio, with Alex Campaz Jr. standing on the left, his business partner Dan standing on the right, and Alex Campaz Sr. seated in the front row, center. Photo credit: Mayor's Office of New York. | | 🍻We Source NYC Happy Hour in the Bronx with Oswald Supply on July 14th | | |
RSVP for We Source NYC Happy Hour with Oswald Supply
📆Tuesday, July 14th 5-7pm
📍2929 3rd Ave, Bronx, NY 10455 (BXL Bronx Incubator)
Contractors, building owners, and property managers are invited to this happy hour, highlighting the building electrification products offered by 100+ year old family-owned Bronx business Oswald Supply. Join us to learn more about Oswald Supply, Panasonic heat pumps, and their applicability in the NYC market, and to hear from the We Source NYC team about the program’s upcoming business assistance and events, followed by networking over light bites and refreshments.
Stay up to date with We Source Building Electrification Dispatch or join us on LinkedIn.
📩Questions? Contact Erin Johnson at ejohnson@sbidc.org, 718-965-3100 x102.
| | Special Screening of "Made in Brooklyn": The Case for Local Manufacturing, Thirty Years in the Making | |
Last Monday, we had the pleasure of attending a special screening of Made in Brooklyn at Anthology Film Archives, as part of the Historic Districts Council's 2026 Conference, Making it in New York: The Preservation of Manufacturing.
The 1993 documentary by filmmaker and urban planner Isabel Hill takes viewers inside Brooklyn's industrial lofts and factories, where thousands of people were making everything from sugar and chocolate syrup to pleated skirts and gargoyles. Isabel had been working at DCP, surveying waterfront businesses, when the city's 1993 plan recommended rezoning the Greenpoint-Williamsburg waterfront to high-density residential. She quit, and made this film instead. That rezoning would eventually come to pass in 2005, one of the most consequential industrial displacements in Brooklyn's recent history. If this history resonates, don't miss Evergreen Exchange's event on June 23rd, more details below.
| Isabel Hill (pictured left), filmmaker, alongside Frampton Tolbert, Executive Director of Historic Districts Council, receiving an audience question from Dawn Ladd from Aurora Lampworks (also featured in the film!) | |
Praised by Jane Jacobs as "the most lucid explanation of America's economic self-crippling and the direction to take to overcome it," the film remains urgent thirty years later, as a lesson in how city decisions shape who gets to stay, what kind of jobs survive, and what kind of city we are actually building together.
You can watch Made in Brooklyn on Kanopy, or visit isabelhill.com/made-in-brooklyn to learn more.
| Sunset Park Economic Mobility Network Wraps Year One | | On June 16th, the Sunset Park Economic Mobility Network (SPEMN), operated by SBIDC with support from NYCEDC, held its final convening of FY26 as a coalition of seven community organizations working to connect Sunset Park residents with meaningful employment on the working waterfront. In addition to completing a robust workforce needs assessment this year, the Network produced a shared data collection system to measure the Network members' impact on economic mobility in the neighborhood. | | SPEMN team pictured above | |
As SPEMN heads into its second year, the group is preparing to share the findings of its workforce needs assessment, drawn from interviews with 13 local businesses, focus groups with community-based organizations and service providers, and responses from over 500 residents, with the public at a community forum in the early fall. The report surfaces what employers actually need: technically equipped workers, job readiness skills like communication and conflict resolution, pathways for internal promotion, and clearer solutions to barriers that prevent reliable Sunset Park residents from getting hired. The report also includes key findings from community residents; notably, 50% of survey respondents are underemployed: working, but looking to move to a better opportunity with strong interest in the sectors along our working waterfront.
Stay tuned for an announcement on the Network's community forum later this year!
For more information about SPEMN, contact Valerie Segal at vsegal@sbidc.org or 718 965 3100 x 213 and Natalie Camacho at ncamacho@sbidc.org or 718 965 3100 x 210.
| | Twenty Years On: Findings from the Greenpoint-Williamsburg IBZ | | Wind Connections Spotlight: Pirtek | | PIRTEK on-site. Photo credit: PIRTEK. | | |
Wind Connections is the essential guide for small businesses seeking opportunities in New York City's offshore wind supply chain.
Check out the latest newsletter spotlight on PIRTEK Staten Island/Brooklyn West, a franchisee of PIRTEK USA, nationwide distributor of products for hydraulic and industrial hose maintenance and replacement.
Founded in 2024 by veteran entrepreneur James O’Hare and his wife, Kayla, the business delivers on-site hydraulic hose maintenance and replacement through their fleet of fully equipped "shops on wheels," serving customers across New York City’s five boroughs while looking to expand its operations, workforce, and establish a permanent service center.
Learn how the WBE-pending franchise has carved out a niche supporting the offshore wind industry, including its role as a subcontractor to Sarens on crane operations for the Empire Wind project, and how the We Source NYC program, operated by SBIDC and BOC Network, has helped PIRTEK secure financing, access procurement and networking opportunities, and expand from its Staten Island roots into Western Brooklyn.
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At SBIDC we work to create opportunities for the people and industrial businesses of Southwest Brooklyn. Looking for help?
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Jesse Tinen Solomon
SBIDC Executive Director
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