Bushwick is located right in the middle of Brooklyn. It is home to more than 100,000 residents. Currently being gentrified, the neighborhood is changing tremendously.
Although Bushwick was originally a Dutch farming town called “Boswijck,” in the 1840s, the area experienced a flood of German immigrants, and many breweries opened as a result, with at least eleven in a fourteen block radius, widely known as “Brewer’s Row.” In 1854, the town officially became a part of the borough of Brooklyn, and development and industrialization in the area began, catalyzed by the 1888 opening of an elevated train line running to Manhattan. The lush farmland gave way to city blocks and more industrial businesses.
During this time, other groups were establishing enclaves in Bushwick, the most prominent ethnic groups being Italian, African-American, Puerto Rican, and Dominican. This influx of non-white residents caused a “white scare,” catalyzed by ambitious real estate agents who would leave notes in the mailboxes of white residents that said statements like “Don’t wait until it’s too late!” and “Houses wanted, cash waiting.” In 1960, Bushwick had ninety percent white population, but by 1970, the area was less than forty percent white, largely inhabited by Hispanic immigrant families.
On the night of July 13, 1977, a major blackout occurred in New York City. Arson, looting, and vandalism occurred in low-income neighborhoods across the city. Bushwick saw some of the most devastating damage 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 were burned (Goodman 104). Looters (and residents who bought from looters) saw the blackout as an opportunity to get what they otherwise could not afford.
The property value of the houses drastically decreased, and much like we saw in the South Bronx, landlords began torching their own empty buildings to collect fire insurance and gangs set fire to abandoned buildings, waiting for the fire department to do the hard work of knocking down walls and floors so that valuable fixtures and copper wiring were easier to steal. Other abandoned buildings became prime spots for crack dens during the 1980s explosion of the crack trade, and Bushwick became one of New York City’s biggest hubs for the drug trade.
Starting in the mid-2000s, the City and State of New York began pouring resources into Bushwick, primarily through a program called the Bushwick Initiative. The Bushwick Initiative was a two-year pilot program spearheaded by the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD), the Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council (Ridgewood Bushwick), and the Office of Assemblyman Vito Lopez. The program’s goal was to improve the lives of Bushwick residents in the twenty-three square blocks surrounding Maria Hernandez Park through various housing and quality-of-life programs. The Bushwick Initiative’s objectives included addressing deteriorated housing conditions, increasing economic development opportunities, reducing drug dealing activities, and enhancing the quality of life in the 23 square blocks surrounding Maria Hernandez Park. A combination of these projects and the popularization of street art in the neighborhood have catalyzed the process of gentrification, as evidenced by the increase in median rent by 44% from 1990 to 2014. While the neighborhood is still mainly inhabited by local Hispanic residents, it is gradually transforming to a hub for hipsters.
