See photos of 20 Jay Street, a Dumbo home to creative and technical firms

Technology communities are built by the density of like-minded members. Brooklyn is full of spaces that do just that.

There’s no clearer leader than Dumbo and among its fastest growing technology hubs is inside 20 Jay Street. In addition to being home of the Dumbo Improvement District, which has grown its tech interests, the building is home to video reporting wire service Storyhunter, design firms Toda and Free Association, couples dating website HowAboutWe, and others.

Find more about the firms below.

The building

Their are a lot of bikes out front of 20 Jay. It’s hard to find a spot to lock a bike up in Dumbo.

Each floor has a different color of wood panel lining the walls.

There are communal conference rooms on many of the floors.

Storyhunter

Jaron Gilinski and Alex Ragir founded Storyhunter in April 2012. It’s the first video journalism wire service for the Internet. They have built a complete workflow in the cloud, to connect talented video producers with skilled editors, in order to ensure high quality content for publishers in their network.

Storyhunter works out of a shared space with other media firms. Technical.ly Brooklyn caught them on new intern orientation day. See below Storyhunter’s cofounders, both former freelance video journalists that worked internationally.

Storyhunter interns begin to get oriented.

Gilinski replaces one of his older maps with a map of China.

Storyhunter works in a shared office space.

Not sure who the bird head belonged to.

Toda

Marcos Chavez cofounded Toda in Manhattan 14 years ago. His cofounder is now in London, and they also have an office in Hamburg, Germany. The design firm moved to Brooklyn three years ago after Chavez realized it was no longer essential to work from Manhattan. In fact, he said, “We probably should have moved to Brooklyn years before.”

Toda does work for all kinds of companies, from startups to internationally recognized brands.

Chavez lives in Cobble Hill, which he describes as “two towns over.”

HowAboutWe

HowAboutWe is a four-year-old couples dating site that, as we reported this morning, has expanded its services to Seattle and Chicago, to follow New York and San Francisco. Its staff has put together a book on modern dating. Its blog, The Date Report, is very clever.

Free Association

Free Association is a design firm that operates under a number interesting principles, including “Dream of Sushi.”

We have dedicated our working lives to crafting products that offer both incredible aesthetics and meaningful utility. This is a business pursuit, a cultural pursuit, and even a spiritual pursuit for our organization.