Bushwick, Brooklyn

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bushwick is a neighborhood in the northeastern part of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. It is bounded by East Williamsburg to the northwest, Bed-Stuy to the southwest, the Cemetery of the Evergreens and other cemeteries to the southeast, and Ridgewood, Queens to the northeast.^[1] The neighborhood, formerly Brooklyn's 18th Ward, is now part of Brooklyn Community Board 4. New York City Council Member Diana Reyna represents this area. The neighborhood is served by the NYPD's 83rd Precinct.^[2]

Contents 1 Statistics 1.1 People 1.2 Housing 2 Transportation 3 Land use 3.1 Parks and public space 3.2 Public housing 3.3 Educational facilities 3.3.1 Elementary school 3.3.1.1 Public 3.3.1.2 Private/parochial 3.3.2 Middle school 3.3.3 High school 3.3.4 Combined middle and high school 3.4 East Williamsburg 4 History 4.1 Bushwick Township 4.1.1 Four Villages 4.1.2 Land annexation 4.1.3 Bushwick Shore and Williamsburgh 4.1.4 Early Industry 4.2 Streetcar Suburb 4.3 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s: White flight and economic depression 4.4 Blackout: Riots and Looting 4.5 1980s and 1990s: Blight and Poverty 4.6 2000s: Rebirth 5 In Literature 6 Notable residents 7 References 8 Sources 9 External links 10 See also

[edit] Statistics

[edit] People

The effects of the last half of the 20th century have transformed Bushwick into a home for low-income renters in a primarily immigrant community. Bushwick's population in 2007 was 129,980, 38.9% of that population was foreign born.^[3] Ethnic groups common in the neighborhood are Puerto Ricans, Hondurans, Dominicans, Mexicans, Ecuadorians, African Americans, Haitians, Jamaicans, and Afro-Caribbean. There are also smaller number of Chinese, Koreans, Indo-Caribbeans (Guyana and Trinidad), Filipinos, Arabs.^{[citation needed]} Since 2000, the rise of real estate prices in nearby Manhattan has made the neighborhood more attractive to younger professionals.^[4]

Though an ethnic neighborhood, Bushwick's population is relatively homogeneous, scoring a 0.5 on the Furman Center's racial diversity index, making it the City's 35th most diverse neighborhood in 2007. The neighborhood's median household income was $31,531, making it the 45th highest earning neighborhood in the City. 32% of the population falls under the poverty line, making Bushwick the 7th most impoverished neighborhood in New York City. 40.3% of students in Bushwick read at grade level, making it the 49th most literate neighborhood in the City in 2007. 58.2% of students do math at grade level in Bushwick, 41st best in the City. Bushwick experienced 0.0252 violent crimes per person in 2007, in line with the City's overall rate of 0.0250 violent crimes per person.^[3]

[edit] Housing

Bushwick's diverse housing stock includes six family apartment buildings and two- and three-family converted townhouses.

Vacant land fills 4.1% of Bushwick, making it the 21st emptiest neighborhood in the City. The median age of the housing stock is 76 years. Over 91% of housing units are within 400 meters of a park, and over 97% of housing units are within 800 meters of a subway.

About one-out-of-six rental units is subsidized, and greater than one-out-of-three units is rent regulated. Median rent in 2007 was $795, the 40th highest median rent in the city. 4% of renters live in in severely overcrowded conditions.

In 2007, the neighborhood had a 18.7% home ownership rate, though roughly 1 out of 20 owners of a 1-4 unit building received a notice of foreclosure.^[3]

[edit] Transportation

Major subway stops include, Jefferson Street, DeKalb Avenue, Myrtle–Wyckoff Avenues and Halsey Street on the BMT Canarsie Line (L), Central Avenue on the BMT Myrtle Avenue Line (M), and Flushing Av, Myrtle Avenue, Koscuisko Street, Gates Avenue, and Halsey Street on the BMT Jamaica Line (J) and (Z). Bus lines serving Bushwick include the B15, B26, B38, B52, B54, and B60. The Myrtle Avenue/Wyckoff Avenue bus and subway hub was renovated into a state-of-the-art transportation center in 2007.

[edit] Land use

The total land area is two square miles.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Parks and public space

Bushwick Pool & Park is a 1.29-acre (5,200 m²) park located on Flushing and Bushwick avenues. The park which is administered by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation has a free public pool (a large pool as well as a children's pool is available), basketball courts, a handball court and a children's playground. According to the NYC Parks Department Website the park was originally owned by the NYC Housing Authority from 1956 until 1983 when it was transferred to the NYC Department of Parks & Recreation

Bushwick Playground is a 2-acre (8,100 m²) Park under the jurisdiction of NYC Department of Parks and is located at Knickerbocker Avenue and Putnam Avenue. Bushwick Playground park features basketball courts, sitting areas and a children's playground.

Bushwick Green Park, also known as "Green Central Noll Park" is a 2.5-acre (10,000 m²) park located on Flushing Avenue and Central Avenue. According to the Parks department website, the park is located on the former site of the Rheingold beer brewery. New York City took ownership of the property after the beer company closed due to failure to pay taxes but it wasn't given to the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation until 1997. The park includes a baseball field, sitting areas and a children's playground.

Ridgewood/Bushwick Youth Center is a youth activity center administered by the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation located between Gates Avenue and Palmetto Street.

Memorial Gore Park is a granite monument located in a small .066-acre (270 m²) park at the intersection where Bushwick Avenue, Metropolitan avenue and Maspeth Avenues meet in the Bushwick / Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. It is dedicated to the Bushwick residents who fought and died in the world war. The monument is owned and cared for by the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation.

Hope Gardens Multi Service Center is a building located on Wilson and Linden, it serves as an elderly bingo game building, an after school program for children grades kindergarten to fifth grade, a karate class host, and a summer day camp for the neighborhood children.

[edit] Public housing

Three New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) developments are located in Bushwick.^[5] They are mainly occupied by low-income families:

• Bushwick II CDA (Group E); five three-story buildings.
• Hope Gardens; four seven- and fourteen-story buildings.
• Palmetto Gardens; one six-story building.

[edit] Educational facilities

Bushwick has a robust educational infrastructure of thirty-three public and private, primary and secondary schools.^[6] This includes 14 public elementary schools, one charter school, four parochial schools, seven high schools, and one secondary school.

[edit] East Williamsburg

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. Real estate agents often call Bushwick East Williamsburg in order to capitalize on the popularity of Williamsburg.

[edit] History

New Netherland series
Exploration
Fortifications:
Fort Amsterdam Fort Nassau (North) Fort Orange Fort Nassau (South) Fort Goede Hoop De Wal	Fort Casimir Fort Altena Fort Wilhelmus Fort Beversreede Fort Nya Korsholm De Rondout
Settlements:
Noten Eylandt New Amsterdam Rensselaerwyck New Haarlem Noortwyck Beverwyck Wiltwyck Bergen Pavonia Vriessendael Achter Col Vlissingen Oude Dorpe	Colen Donck Greenwich Heemstede Rustdorp Gravesende Breuckelen New Amersfoort Midwout New Utrecht Boswyck Swaanendael New Amstel Nieuw Dorp
The Patroon System
Directors of New Netherland: Cornelius Jacobsen Mey (1620-1625) Willem Verhulst (1625-26) Peter Minuit (1626-32) Sebastiaen Jansen Krol(1632-1633) Wouter van Twiller (1633-38) Willem Kieft (1638-47) Peter Stuyvesant (1647-64)
People of New Netherland New Netherlander Twelve Men Eight Men Nine Men
Flushing Remonstrance

[edit] Bushwick Township

[edit] Four Villages

In 1638, the Dutch West India Company secured a deed from the local Lenape people for the Bushwick area, and Peter Stuyvesant, chartered the area in 1661, naming it "Boswijck," meaning "little town in the woods" or "Heavy Woods" in 17th Century Dutch.^[1][7] Its area included the modern day communities of Bushwick, Williamsburg, 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 February 16, 1660 on a plot of land between the Bushwick and Newtown Creeks^[1] by fourteen French and Huguenot settlers, a Dutch translator named Peter Jan De Witt^[8], and Franciscus the Negro, one of the original eleven slaves brought to New Netherland who had worked his way to freedom.^[9][10]. 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.^[11] This original settlement came to be known as Het Dorp by the Dutch, and, later, Bushwick Green by the British. The English would take over the six towns three years later and unite the towns under Kings County in 1683.

At the turn of the 19th century, Bushwick consisted of four villages, Green Point, Bushwick Shore^[12], later to be known as Williamsburg, Bushwick Green, and Bushwick Crossroads, at the spot today's Bushwick Avenue turns southeast at Flushing Avenue.^[13].

[edit] 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.^[14] This area is bound roughly by Flushing Avenue to the north, and Evergreen Cemetery to the south.

In the 1850s, 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 1850s.^[15][16]

[edit] 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".^[17] 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 (53,000 m²) 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.^[18]

[edit] 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 Peter Cooper built a glue manufacturing plant, his first factory, in Bushwick. Immigrants from western Europe joined the original Dutch settlers. The Bushwick Chemical Works, at Metropolitan Avenue and Grand Street on the English Kills channel, was another early industry among the lime, plaster, and brick works, coal yards, and other factories which developed along English Kills, which was dredged and made an important commercial waterway.^[19] In October, 1867, the American Institute awarded The Bushwick Chemical Works the first premium for commercial acids of greatest purity and strength.^[20] The Bushwick Glass Company, later to be known as Brookfield glass company established itself in 1869, when a local brewer sold it to James Brookfield.^[21] The Bushwick Glass Company made a variety both bottle and jars. Around the same time, in 1868, the Long Island Rail Road built the Bushwick Branch from its hub in Jamaica via Maspeth to Bushwick Terminal at the intersection of Montrose and Bushwick Avenues,^[22] allowing easy movement of passengers, raw materials, and finished goods.

In the 1840s and 1850s, a majority of the immigrants were German, which became the dominant population. Bushwick established a considerable brewery industry, including "Brewer's Row": 14 breweries operating in a 14 block area by 1890.^[23] Thus, Bushwick was dubbed the "beer capital of the Northeast." The last Bushwick brewery closed its doors in 1976. ^[24]

As late as 1883, Bushwick maintained open farming land east of Flushing Avenue.^[25]. In fact, a synergy developed between the brewers and the farmers during this period, as the dairy farmers collected spent grain and hops for cow feed. The dairy farmers sold the milk, and other dairy products, to consumers in Brooklyn. Both industries supported blacksmiths, wheelwrights, and feed stores along Flushing Avenue.^[26]

[edit] Streetcar Suburb

The first elevated railway in Brooklyn, known as the Lexington Avenue Elevated, opened in 1885. Its eastern terminus was at the edge of Bushwick, at Gates Avenue and Broadway.^[27] This line was extended southeastward into East New York 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 John Francis Hylan kept a townhouse on Bushwick Avenue during this period.^[28] Bushwick homes were designed in the Italianate, Neo Greco, Romanesque Revival, and Queen Anne styles by well known architects. Bushwick was a center of culture with several Vaudeville era playhouses, including the Amphion Theatre, the nation's first theatre with electric lighting.^[29] 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.^[30]

[edit] 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s: White flight and economic depression

Beginning in the mid 1950s and particularly in the 1960s, poor working class African American and Puerto Rican migrants began to move into Bushwick.^[2] Small apartment buildings were built to accommodate the incoming residents. The change in demographics 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. Racial discrimination stopped most investment as it changed from a mostly white community to an African-American and Hispanic community. 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.^[3] A contributor to this drastic change was the Lindsay administration's policy of raising rent for welfare recipients, which encouraged Bushwick landlords to fill vacant units with such tenants, since they now brought higher rents than ordinary tenants would pay on the open market. By the mid-seventies, half of Bushwick’s residents were on public assistance. ^[31] Another contributor to the drastic change was the practice of blockbusting which encouraged speculators to buy homes from Bushwick residents for an average of $8,000 apiece and then sell them to poor blacks and Puerto Ricans at the unaffordable average price of $20,000 per home, using fraudulent appraisals and a Great Society federal mortgage program that insured home loans to low-income buyers. Many defaulted, abandoning their homes and massively depressing local property values.

According to the New York Times, "In a five-year period in the late 1960s 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."^[4] One out of every 8 buildings was damaged or destroyed by fire every year from 1969 to 1977 (Goodman 122).

[edit] 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 low income neighborhoods across 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.^[32]

[edit] 1980s and 1990s: Blight and Poverty

Bushwick was left with a lack of both retail stores and housing. After the blackout, residents who could afford to leave abandoned the area. But new immigrants were coming into the area during the late 1960s and early 1970s, many of whom were from Puerto Rico, and more recently the Dominican Republic. However, apartment renovation and new construction did not keep pace with the demolition of unsafe buildings, forcing overcrowded conditions at first. As buildings came down, the vacant lots made parts of the neighborhood look and feel desolate, and more residents left. The neighborhood was a hotbed of poverty and crime through the 1980s. During this period, the Knickerbocker Ave shopping district was nicknamed "The Well" for its seemingly unending supply of drugs.^[33] In the 1990s, it remained a poor and relatively dangerous area, with 77 murders, 80 rapes, and 2,242 robberies in 1990.^[34]

[edit] 2000s: Rebirth

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In the wake of lower crime rates citywide and a shortage of cheap housing in "hip" neighborhoods such as Williamsburg, Greenpoint, and Gowanus, an influx of young professionals and artists moved into converted warehouse lofts, brownstones, limestone-brick townhouses and other renovated buildings. And, while murders and car thefts are higher in the 83rd precinct now than they were to start the decade^[34], property values are increasing. Bushwick's 83d Precinct has a similar crime rate to neighboring Williamsburg's 90th Precinct. ^[35]

[edit] In Literature

Bushwick is the subject of the poem "Bushwick Bohemia" by the poet Emanuel Xavier.

[edit] Notable residents

Notable current and former residents of Bushwick include:

• Tod "Tod A." Ashley, musician.^[36]
• Ryan J. Davis (born 1982), theater director and liberal activist
• D-Stroy, Arsonists (rap group)
• Jackie Gleason (1916-1987), actor.^[37]
• Rick Gonzalez (born 1979), actor.^[38]
• John Francis Hylan (1868-1936), Mayor of New York City.^[39]
• Julius La Rosa (born 1930), singer
• Henry Matyjewicz, artist and spokesperson for Poster Boy (street artist) collective
• Kenneth McMillan (1932-1989), actor
• Eddie Murphy (born 1961), comedian, actor.^[40][41]
• Harry Nilsson, singer/songwriter
• Jeannie Ortega, singer
• Rosie Perez, actress
• Vincent Schiavelli, actor/writer
• Connie Stevens, actress
• Tony Touch, rapper and DJ
• Rachel Trachtenburg, singer, musician and actress
• Mae West, actress
• Dondre Whitfield, actor
• Emanuel Xavier, poet/actor

[edit] References

[edit] Sources

• Goodman, James, Blackout. North Point Press. New York, NY 2003 ISBN 0865476586

• Jackson, Kenneth T. and John B. Manbeck, The Neighborhoods of Brooklyn, 2nd ed. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004, 4448. ISBN 0300103107

• Robert Sullivan (2006-03-05). "Psst... Have You Heard About Bushwick?". http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/05/magazine/305bushwick.1.html?ei=5070&en=3fe2d8336ab2041c&ex=1155182400&pagewanted=all. Retrieved on August 8 2006. 

• Christine Lagorio (2005-12-07). "CloseUp on Bushwick, Brooklyn". http://www.villagevoice.com/nyclife/0550,lagorio,70798,15.html. Retrieved on August 8 2006. 

• Jeff Vandam. "BargainHunting? Stay on the LTrain a Little Longer". http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/11/realestate/11livi.html?ex=1155441600&en=4880ae356bd5d439&ei=5070. Retrieved on August 11, 2006. 

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Bushwick, Brooklyn

• "My House in Bushwick" ...community safety discussion
• The Death and Life of Bushwick, City Journal, Spring 2008
• Brownstoner: Bushwick
• http://www.time.com/time/photoessays/2007/boogie_bushwick
• The Bushwick Renaissance Initiative
• Bushwiki
• Make The Road By Walking Community Center and Organizing Project.
• Nonprofit Organization for Bushwick Artists and Community
• Ridgewood Bushwick Seniors Citizens Council
• BushwickBK.com

[edit] See also

• Opportunities for a Better Tomorrow (OBT)

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Coordinates: 40°41′39″N 73°55′07″W / 40.69417°N 73.91861°W / 40.69417; -73.91861