Bushwick, Brooklyn

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, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn to the southwest, the Cemetery of the Evergreens and other cemeteries to the southeast, and Ridgewood, Queens to the northeast. The neighborhood, formerly Brooklyn's 18th Ward, is now part of Brooklyn Community Board 4. The neighborhood is served by the NYPD's 83rd Precinct. .

People
Bushwick's population in 2007 was 129,980, 38.9% of that population was foreign born. 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. Most residents are Latinos from the Caribbean islands of Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic but more recent years have seen an increase in other Latino and Caucasian groups. In 2008 the neighborhood's median household income was $28,802. 32% of the population falls under the poverty line, making Bushwick the 7th most impoverished neighborhood in New York City. Over 75% of children in the neighborhood are born in poverty. Only 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 in the city. Although many social problems such as violent crime are still a problem in the community, steps continue to be taken to gradually improve quality of life. In 2007, Bushwick averaged with 25 felonies per 1000 persons, the 25th, out of 55, most felonious community district in the city.

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, rating it the 21st most vacant neighborhood in the city. The median age of the housing stock is 76 years. Over 91% of housing units are within 440 yards of a park, and over 97% of housing units are within 880 yards 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 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.

Transportation
Major subway stops include Jefferson Street, DeKalb Avenue, Myrtle–Wyckoff Avenues,Halsey Street,Wilson Ave, and Bushwick-Aberdeen on the BMT Canarsie Line, Central Avenue, Knickerbocker Avenue, Myrtle–Wyckoff Avenues on the BMT Myrtle Avenue Line , and Flushing Av, Myrtle Avenue, Koscuisko Street, Gates Avenue, Halsey Street, Chauncey on the BMT Jamaica Line  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.

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. 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 by fourteen French and Huguenot settlers, a Dutch translator named Peter Jan De Witt, and Franciscus the Negro, one of the original eleven slaves brought to New Netherland who had worked his way to freedom. . 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. 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, later to be known as Williamsburg, Bushwick Green, and Bushwick Crossroads, at the spot today's Bushwick Avenue turns southeast at Flushing Avenue. .

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 its 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. This area is bounded 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 Avenue and Stanhope Street begin to appear dating to the 1850s.

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." 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 led 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.

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. In October, 1867, the American Institute awarded The Bushwick Chemical Works the first premium for commercial acids of greatest purity and strength. 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. The Bushwick Glass Company made a variety of both bottles 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, 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. Thus, Bushwick was dubbed the "beer capital of the Northeast." The last Bushwick brewery closed its doors in 1976.

As late as 1883, Bushwick maintained open farming land east of Flushing Avenue. . 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.

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. 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 brewing 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. 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. 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 WWI, the German enclave was steadily replaced by a significant proportion of Italian Americans. By 1950, Bushwick was one of Brooklyn's largest Italian American neighborhoods, although some German Americans remained.

1950s, 1960s, and 1970s: White-Flight and Economic Depression
The demographic transition of Bushwick mirrored many other Brooklyn neighborhoods after WWII, as young Bushwickites relocated with the help of the FHA loans to emerging suburbs such as Levittown. Initially, working class African American and Caribbean American families took over homes in the southeastern edge of the neighborhood, closest to Eastern Parkway. But beginning in the mid 1950s and particularly in the 1960s, poorer African American and Puerto Rican migrants began to move into central Bushwick, which later lead to dangerous overcrowding in that area. This 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. 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. 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. 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 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." 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 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.

Late 20th century: 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, early 1970s and 1980s, many of whom were from Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and more recently Central America. 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. In the 1990s, it remained a poor and relatively dangerous area, with 77 murders, 80 rapes, and 2,242 robberies in 1990.

2000s: State and Local Government Funded Revitalization
Starting in the middle of the 2000s, the City and State of New York began pouring resources into the Bushwick neighborhood, 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 goal is 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 aims to address deteriorated housing conditions, increase economic development opportunities, reduce drug dealing activities, and enhance the quality of life in the twenty-three square blocks surrounding Maria Hernandez Park.

One of the most critical pieces of the Bushwick Initiative is the strengthened relationship between HPD’s Narcotics Control Unit (NCU) and the New York City Police Department’s 83rd Precinct and Narcotics Division, who have joined together to reduce the extensive drug dealing operations within the target area.
 * Crime Reduction

In an effort to reduce lead hazards in buildings, HPD and DOHMH created a grant program focusing on residential buildings in the Bushwick Initiative target area. As a result of this outreach, 64 buildings received lead abatement work worth approximately $750,000. 150 buildings were referred to HPD’s Housing Litigation Division (HLD) for action. HLD brought cases to compel the owners of those buildings to correct outstanding violations; to obtain civil penalties for the owners’ failure to comply with the Housing Maintenance Code and the Multiple Dwelling Law where appropriate; and to compel those owners who had failed to register with HPD to do so. In addition, in situations where the owners had failed to correct emergency conditions, including lead paint hazards, and had denied HPD’s inspectors and contractors access to scope and complete the necessary work to remediate the conditions, the Housing Litigation Division obtained access warrants ordering the owners to allow HPD’s inspectors and contractors into the buildings to complete necessary emergency repairs.
 * Housing Improvement

Many of the Bushwick Initiative’s efforts towards economic development are focused on revitalizing Knickerbocker Avenue, the primary commercial strip in the area. Ridgewood Bushwick spoke to business owners in the area about reviving the now-defunct Knickerbocker Avenue Merchants’ Association. Through this organization, Ridgewood Bushwick hopes to utilize SBS’s resources to increase economic opportunities for local business owners in the area.
 * Commercial Revitalization

In addition to DOHMH’s lead prevention work, the Bushwick Initiative has benefited from a series of public health programs addressing pest control, infant health, and fitness. DOHMH spent $25,000 purchasing 1,000 rodent-resistant trash cans, which were distributed to buildings with a high number of rodent complaints. Educational information in both English and Spanish concerning rodent control was distributed at the same time, and cans were plastered with the flyyers reading “CAN IT – Keep Rats Out of Your Community.”
 * Sanitation Improvement

The last half of the 20th century transformed Bushwick into a home for low-income renters in a primarily white-Hispanic, immigrant community. 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, and Arabs. Since 2000, the rise of real estate prices in nearby Manhattan has made the neighborhood more attractive to younger professionals. In the wake of reduced 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.
 * Comparatively low rents

Land use
The total land area is two square miles.

Parks and public land
Bushwick Pool & Park is a 1.29 acre 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 and Recreation

Bushwick Playground is a 2 acre 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 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 was not given to the New York City Department of Parks and 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 and run by the Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council (RBSCC).

Memorial Gore Park is a granite monument located in a small .066 acre park at the intersection where Bushwick Avenue, Metropolitan Avenue and Maspeth Avenue meet in the Bushwick / Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. It is dedicated to the Bushwick residents who fought and died in the world wars. 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 from kindergarten to fifth grade, a karate class host, and a summer day camp for the neighborhood children.

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


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

Educational facilities
Bushwick has a robust educational infrastructure of thirty-three public and private, primary and secondary schools. This includes 14 public elementary schools, one charter school, four parochial schools, seven high schools, and one secondary school. {|

Public

 * Achievement First Bushwick Charter School
 * PS 45 Horace E Greene School
 * PS 75 Mayda Cortiella School
 * PS 86 Irvington School
 * PS 106 Edward Everett Hale
 * PS 116 Elizabeth L Farrell School
 * PS 120 Carlos Tapia School
 * PS 123 Suydam School
 * PS 145 Andrew Jackson School
 * ps 147 Isacc Remsen
 * PS 151 Lyndon B Johnson School
 * ps 257 john f hylan
 * PS 274 Kosciusko School
 * PS 299 Thomas Warren Field School
 * PS 376 Felisa Rincon De Gautier
 * PS 377 Alejandina Benitez De Gautier
 * PS 384 Frances E Carter School

Private/parochial

 * Saint Brigid School
 * Saint Elizabeth Seton School
 * Saint Frances Cabrini School
 * Saint Mark's Lutheran School
 * Saint Nicholas Elementary School (Grades Pre-K to 8)

Middle schools

 * IS 49 William J Gaynor
 * IS 291 Roland Hayes
 * IS 318 Lorimer street
 * IS 347 School of Humanities
 * IS 349 School for Math, Science and Tech
 * JHS 162 Willoughby
 * JHS 296 The Halsey
 * JHS 383 Philippa Schuyler Junior High School
 * IS 296 The Halsey
 * MS 582

High schools
-High school for legal studies -Progress High -EBT High school
 * Academy for Environmental Leadership
 * Academy of Urban Planning
 * Bushwick Community High School
 * Bushwick School for Social Justice
 * Bushwick Leaders' HS for Academic Excellence
 * EBC for Public Service-Bushwick
 * Grand street campus(schools within grand street below)
 * New York Harbor High School

Combined middle and high schools

 * All City Leadership Secondary School
 * }

Notable residents
Notable current and former residents of Bushwick include:

Current Representatives

 * City Council: Diana Reyna (34) & Erik Martin Dilan (37)
 * State Assembly: Vito Lopez (53) & Darryl Towns (54) William F. Boyland Jr. (55) & Annette Robinson (56)
 * State Senate: Martin Malave Dilan (17)
 * U.S. Representative: Edolphus Towns (10) & Nydia Velasquez (12)

All of Bushwick's representatives are Democrats.

Acting/Theater

 * Ryan J. Davis (born 1982), theater director and liberal activist
 * Jackie Gleason (1916–1987), actor.
 * Rick Gonzalez (born 1979), actor.
 * Kenneth McMillan (1932–1989), actor
 * Eddie Murphy (born 1961), comedian, actor.
 * Charlie Murphy (born 1959), comedian, actor
 * Rosie Perez, actress
 * Vincent Schiavelli, actor/writer
 * Connie Stevens, actress
 * Mae West, actress
 * Dondre Whitfield, actor
 * Emanuel Xavier, poet/actor
 * Aleister Price, Writer/Entertainer

Artists

 * Henry Matyjewicz, artist and spokesperson for Poster Boy (street artist) collective
 * André' Pierre Charles, graffiti artist
 * Joey Lawrence (photographer), photographer and explorer

Music

 * Tod "Tod A." Ashley, musician.
 * Da Beatminerz, hip hop production team
 * Chance A Million - Shon 'Chance' Miller, Emcee, Producer, Videographer, Activist.
 * D-Stroy, Arsonists (rap group)
 * Julius La Rosa (born 1930), singer
 * Harry Nilsson, singer/songwriter
 * Jeannie Ortega, singer
 * OC, rapper
 * Tony Touch, rapper and DJ
 * Kyle McCammon (M-TRAIN) Bassist/ Hype Man
 * Rachel Trachtenburg, singer, musician and actress
 * LD Beghtol, musician, writer and designer
 * Daptone Records, indie Music Label
 * Richard Shaw, aka Bushwick Bill, rapper
 * The Fort, recording studio owned by engineer Jim Bentley

Politics

 * John Francis Hylan (1868–1936), Mayor of New York City.

Sports

 * Phil Rizzuto (1917–2007), baseball player and broadcaster