Bushwick Goes National
Like Williamsburg before it, the Bushwick brand is spreading beyond New York City’s borders. This weekend, The Philadelphia Inquirer brought news of the gritty but increasingly arty nabe to its readers in the City of Brotherly Love. “Over the last few years, the two-square-mile Brooklyn neighborhood has been attracting visionaries outpriced by neighboring Williamsburg or…
Like Williamsburg before it, the Bushwick brand is spreading beyond New York City’s borders. This weekend, The Philadelphia Inquirer brought news of the gritty but increasingly arty nabe to its readers in the City of Brotherly Love. “Over the last few years, the two-square-mile Brooklyn neighborhood has been attracting visionaries outpriced by neighboring Williamsburg or disillusioned by Chelsea’s artiste scene,” writes the paper. “Studios, galleries and spaces that defy categorization are appearing in former bodegas, 99-cent stores, and other unglamorous structures.” The ‘Wick manages to maintain its street cred with a killer quotation from Laura Braslow of non-profit Arts in Bushwick: “The Bushwick art scene is not about sipping wine and looking at white walls,” she said. A few of the recommended galleries include English Kills, Ad Hoc and Factory Fresh.
Art Grows in Bushwick [Philadelphia Inquirer]
pierre…many years ago I met two Japanese guys who were going to school in New Jersey to study English. I shuddered.
DIBS we cannot disagree more dude. New Yorkers are actually well looked at in most places outside NY and rightfully so. The sympathy factor after 9/11 helped a ton and even Europeans who can’t stand Americans give New Yorkers a pass. Now We personally like Philly albeit not as much as NY.. simply a better place to us overall. Maybe we just had different experiences qui sait?
For even more contradictory anecdote when we went to visit family in France of all places everyone treated us like rockstars with all sorts of admiration for NYC including Brooklyn. Tons of folks with NY Yankees caps and “I love NY” t-shirts plus the young kids tried to emulate “that annoying accent”.
I enjoyed my Philly steak. How about them Steelers?
pierre…from the people I know down there I don’t think there’s any inferiority complex…just the opposite actually. Didn’t you know that everyone, everywhere outside of NYC thinks all New Yorkers are assholes?? You can always tell one in a restaurant in Philly…loud, obnoxious, pushy with that annoying accent!!!
This is good exposure for Bushwick…we have to go visit never been there but the place seems genuinely interesting:)And MM we will try to always look at the positives and not look for racism in everything. This article thankfully had nothing about race as far as we can tell… and we will venture to say the artists are from all ethnic backgrounds right?
DIBS we went to college in Philadelphia and we really understand the massive “inferiority complex” the town folk have in relation to NY…it can be tough being a big proud city but completely overshadowed in all respects by a much better city just 100miles away.
Very true, Santa. Certainly why I don’t post as daveinstuyvesantheights LOL
living in Bushwick gives you more street cred than living in “east williamsburg”
Oh, please.
As per usual, the poor and the hard working, working class people, mostly Hispanic and black, are tossed to the side. These families, who have struggled since before the riots and fires of thirty years ago to make Bushwick a decent home, have been so totally forgotten by the city, they may as well have not even been in the city.
My relatives told me about the vibrant, thriving shopping district that was Broadway under the J train, and of the well kept beer meister mansions, and solid middle class homes of Bushwick Ave, when they were growing up in the 40’s – 60’s. When I first visited the area in the late 70’s, early 80’s, the store fronts on Broadway were still burned out, the area was desolate, and the whole area looked like Dresden after WW2. It was the worst place I’d seen in NYC, and I’ve seen pretty much all of the city at one time or another.
Since then, some semblance of rebirth has occurred, and many new Central and South American Latinos have come to call this neighborhood home, but most of them are not people of great wealth. Services have slowly returned, but this is still a poor neighborhood, with some fine old housing stock, lots of new construction, and great old manufacturing buildings, and some of the ugliest public housing in New York.
I have no problem with artists and hipsters occupying the old factories and starting businesses, galleries, and shops. That is great. I do wish that in all of the ga-ga celebration of new hipsterhood, someone, lots of someone’s, would look around and realize that a good neighborhood is made when everyone’s boat is floating, everyone is benefiting, not just the hip and happening newcomers. Williamsburg has a unique mix of old timers, Hispanics and white ethnics, as well as the separatist Ultra Orthodox, who combined with the new hipsters and wealthy people, exist without much interaction, while most of the services and attention go to the newcomers. Bushwick is set to have this happen to them, as well, and that is not right or fair.
“most artists” and, of course, real estate brokers.