| Bushwick, Brooklyn |
Article Index for Bushwick |
Website Links For Bushwick |
Information AboutBushwick, Brooklyn |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT BUSHWICK, BROOKLYN | |
| neighborhoods in brooklyn | |
| 1661 establishments | |
| united states communities with hispanic majority populations | |
|
NEIGHBORHOOD New-comer immigrants and adventurous hipsters can cross Flushing Avenue or Broadway, Bushwick's northern and western borders, and stroll down Knickerbocker Avenue, the main shopping drag, and take the sights in at Maria Hernandez Park, or continue through this shopping district, filled with yellow brick buildings that only seem to have their ground floor occupied. After crossing under the M-train , the housing stock improves dramatically. Immigrant families rent these well-kept or new apartment buildings. The neighborhood's character becomes less like Williamsburg and more similar to that of neighboring Bed-Stuy and Brownsville once crossing Gates Avenue. Shopping can be done on Knickerbocker Avenue, whether for clothes, appliances, or food. EAST WILLIAMSBURG AND RIDGEWOOD East Williamsburg is a neighborhood that borders to the northwest of Bushwick. Prior to the late 1990s, residents rarely called their neighborhood East Williamsburg. Residents east of Graham Avenue or Bushwick Avenue preferred the better-known name of Bushwick. This association is still strong today, as both Bushwick and East Williamsburg are concurrent casual names for the area. Yet both neighborhoods are served by different community boards and police precincts, but same election districts and ZIP codes, and the New York City Department of City Planning recognizes East Williamsburg as a separate neighborhood. A similar situation of blurred boundaries occurs with the neighborhood of Ridgewood, Queens . The term Bushwick-Ridgewood (or '''Ridgewood-Bushwick''') can be seen in the names of community organizations on the Brooklyn side of the border. There are proponents of the Ridgewood neighborhood extending into Brooklyn territory (which overlaps with Bushwick), and there are others who strictly define Ridgewood as being only in Queens. HISTORICAL BUSHWICK Bushwick Township Four Villages In 1638, the Dutch West India Company secured a deed from the Canarsie Indians for the Bushwick area, and , and Greenpoint . Bushwick was the last of the original six Dutch towns of Brooklyn to be established within New Netherland . The community was settled, though unchartered, on , 2006 . The group centered their settlement around a church located near today's Bushwick and Metropolitan Avenues. The major thoroughfare was Woodpoint road, which allowed farmers to bring their goods to the town dock. {Link without Title} This original settlement came to be known as ''Het Dorp'' by the Dutch, and, later, Bushwick Green by the British. At the turn of the 19th century, Bushwick consisted of four villages, Green Point, Bushwick Shore Greenpoint History , accessed , 2006 . The English would take over the six towns three years later and unite the towns under Kings County in 1683 . Land annexation Bushwick's first major expansion occurred after it annexed The New Lots of Bushwick, a hilly upland originally claimed by the Native Americans in the first treaties they signed with European Colonists providing the settlers rights to the lowland on the water. After the second war between the natives and the settlers broke out, the natives fled, leaving the area to be divided among the six towns in Kings County. Bushwick had the prime location to absorb their new tract of land in a contiguous fashion. New Bushwick Lane (Evergreen Ave), a former native American trail, was a key thoroughfare to access this new tract suitable mostly for Potato and Cabbage agriculture. {Link without Title} This area is bound roughly by Flushing Avenue to the north, and Evergreen Cemetery to the south. In the 1850's, the New Lots of Bushwick area began to develop. References to the town of Bowronville, a new neighborhood contained within the area south of Lafayette Ave and Stanhope Street begin to appear dating to the 1850's. [http://www.brooklyn.net/neighborhoods/obsolete_street_names.html . Bushwick Shore and Williamsburgh The area known as Bushwick Shore was so called for about 140 years. Bushwick residents called Bushwick Shore "the Strand," another term for "beach" [http://www.freedict.com/onldict/onldict.php]. Bushwick Creek, in the north, and Cripplebush, a region of thick, Boggy Shrubland extending from Wallabout Creek to Newtown Creek, in the south and east, cut Bushwick Shore from the other villages in Bushwick. Farmers and Gardeners from the other Bushwick villages sent their goods to Bushwick Shore to be ferried to New York City for sale via a Market at present day Grand St. Bushwick Shore's favorable location close to New York City lead to the creation of several farming developments. Originally a 13-acre development within Bushwick Shore, Williamsburgh rapidly expanded during the first half of the nineteenth century and eventually seceded from Bushwick to form its own independent city. [http://www.bklyn-genealogy-info.com/Town/Wmsburgh.html] Early Industry When Bushwick was founded, it was primarily an area for farming food and tobacco. As Brooklyn and New York City grew, factories that manufactured sugar, oil, and chemicals were built. The inventor extended a branch from its hub in Jamaica via Maspeth to Bushwick Terminal at the intersection of Montrose and Bushwick Avenues {Link without Title} , allowing easy movement of raw materials and finished goods. In the 1840s and 1850s, a majority of the immigrants were , 2006 Streetcar Suburb The first elevated railway in Brooklyn, known as the shortly thereafter. By the end of 1889, the Broadway Elevated and the Myrtle Avenue Elevated were completed, enabling easier access to Downtown Brooklyn and Manhattan and the rapid residential development of Bushwick from farmland. With the success of the brewery industry and the presence of the Els, another wave of European immigrants settled in the neighborhood. Also, parts of Bushwick became affluent. Brewery owners and doctors commissioned mansions along Bushwick and Irving Avenues at the turn of the 20th century. New York mayor , 2006 The wealth of the neighborhood peaked between World War I and World War II , even when events such as Prohibition and The Great Depression were taking place. After the WWI, the German enclave was steadily replaced by a significant proportion of Italian American . By 1950 Bushwick was one of Brooklyn's largest Italian American neighborhoods, although some German-Americans remained. {Link without Title} RECENT HISTORY: DECLINE 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s: White Flight and Economic Depression Beginning in the mid-1950s and particularly in the 1960s, poor working class coincided with changes in the local economy. At the same time, locally rising energy costs, advances in transportation, and the invention of the steel can encouraged beer companies to move out of New York City. As the breweries closed, the neighborhood deteriorated along with much of Brooklyn and New York City . Discussions of Urban Renewal took place in the 1960s, but never materialized. In 1960 Bushwick was 70% white; by 1977 it was over 70% Black and Puerto Rican (Goodman 180). The U.S. Census records that it went from almost 90% white in 1960 to less than 40% in 1970. According to the ''New York Times'', "In a five-year period in the late 1960's and early 70's, the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn was transformed from a neatly maintained community of wood houses into what often approached a no man's land of abandoned buildings, empty lots, drugs and arson."[http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A0DE2DF1530F931A35751C0A960948260 One out of every 8 buildings was damaged or destroyed by fire every year from 1969 to 1977 (Goodman 122). Blackout: Riots and Looting On the night of July 13 , 1977 , A Major Blackout occurred in New York City. Arson , Looting , and Vandalism followed in poor neighborhoods throughout the city. Bushwick, however, saw some of the most devastating damages and losses. While local owners in the predominantly Puerto Rican Knickerbocker Avenue and Graham Avenue shopping districts were able to defend their stores with force, suburban owners with stores on the Broadway shopping district saw their shops looted and burned. Twenty-seven stores, some of which were of Mixed-use , along Broadway had burned (Goodman 104). Looters (and residents who bought from looters) saw the blackout as an opportunity to get what they otherwise could not afford. Fires spread to many residential buildings as well. After the riots were over and the fires were put out, residents saw "some streets that looked like Brooklyn Heights , and others that looked like Dresden in 1945" (Goodman 181): unsafe dwellings and empty lots among surviving buildings. Broadway business space had a 43% Vacancy rate in the wake of the riots. {Link without Title} 1980s and 1990s: Blight and Poverty Bushwick was left with a lack of both retail stores and housing, and the neighborhood was at its poorest point. After the blackout, residents who could afford to leave abandoned the area. But new immigrants were coming into the area during the late 1970s and early 1980s, many of whom were from the '', June 11 , 2006 In the 1990's it remained a poor and relatively dangerous area, with 77 murders, 80 rapes, and 2,242 robberies in 1990. 83rd Precinct CompStat Report Covering the Week of 12/04/2006 Through 12/10/2006 THE NEW BUSHWICK L-Trainization In the 2000s, in the wake of lower crime rates citywide and a shortage of cheap housing in "hip" neighborhoods such as , 2005 Hipster nightlife has begun to stir at venues like Goodbye Blue Monday , and Potion . Model Housing Borinquen Plaza Houses , Bushwick Houses , Hylan Houses and Hope Gardens are housing projects in North and South Bushwick. Hope Gardens had a favorable portrayal in a 1993 article in the New York Times . http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE7D61230F936A2575BC0A965958260 TRANSPORTATION Major subway stops include , Jefferson Street , DeKalb Avenue , and Myrtle–Wyckoff Avenues on the BMT Canarsie Line (), Central Avenue on the BMT Myrtle Avenue Line (), and Flushing Av , Myrtle Av , Koscuisko Street , and Gates Av on the BMT Jamaica Line (). Bus lines serving Bushwick include the B13 , B26 , B38 , B52 , B54 , and B60 . The Myrtle Avenue/Wyckoff Avenue bus and subway hub is currently being renovated into a state-of-the-art transportation center, expected to be completed in 2007. COMMUNITY ORGANIZING IN BUSHWICK Bushwick also has a strong history of community organizing, most notably with the organization Make The Road By Walking . Make the Road by Walking was founded in 1997 in a Bushwick church basement by local residents to address the potentially devastating effects of welfare reform on America's poor and immigrant communities. While initially focusing on organizing immigrant welfare recipients, they soon expanded their focus to organizing to combat systemic economic and political marginalization of Bushwick residents. They have been largely successful, with victories including helping workers organize several union shops on Knickerbocker Ave. and getting translation services into hospitals. However, Bushwick's current spate of gentrification is pushing this group aside. NOTABLE BUSHWICK RESIDENTS/FORMER RESIDENTS
REFERENCES EXTERNAL LINKS
|
|
|