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]
MrsCWB, thanks for your comments. A lot of people in the US love to heap abuse onto other groups of people who least deserve it — they don’t know any better.
Brownstoner:
I met recently with a prominent and influential New Yorker who’s been in the city his/her entire life — good times and bad.
Why’s the town doing so well? I asked.
Because of the immigrants, s/he answered, who help fill formerly empty housing, create demand for real estate expansion “from the bottom” and replenish depleted neighborhoods.
Just 15 or 20 years ago, vast tracts of New York’s housing were in tax arrears and taken over by the City. No more!
For the immigrant haters, there was a time when the Irish were depicted as sharks in Papal hates coming out of the sea to devour New York and Italians were considered “black” with all the racist hogwash that went with it. (And that was as recently as the 1920s, according to my parents.)
The town looks different from when I was a boy in the 1950’s. And I’m delighted.
Nostalgic on Park Avenue
As a quasi-illegal high-income wine-loving tight-jeans-wearing hard-working white alien, I’d like to join 11217, DIBS etc. in being mind-boggled and more than slightly revulsed by winelover’s comments.
Even if you did have a point about illegal immigrants (which you don’t, since entire sector of your country’s economy relies on exploiting cheap labor), your going from “Hispanics, mainly of whom are illegal” (…) to “f*ck them all” is a thing of beauty. Not even to mention your fetish for US citizenship, or the fact that you seem to mistake “company” for “country”.
The list goes on.
Every New York Times reporter I know lives in Manhattan or Park Slope. I think it shows.
Thanks, Benson! (Bow in your direction).
benson…I agree with you on this one as well. I beleive the Associateds are all independently owned but its surprising that something of that nature (its a coop is it not) would allow that sort of thing.
My friends work down in Brooklyn Terminal Market.
The parts of Bushwick that I am more familiar with are next to Bed Stuy, near Halsey, Broadway, Bushwick, which is mostly residential, with a commercial strip. I’ve also worked with businesses in the industrial spaces that are near the back of the cemetary, going towards Queens, and near Cypress Gardens. I realize Bushwick, like many Bklyn neighborhoods, is quite large, and I’m glad that there is really room for everyone. I still hope that there is enough political activism from both oldtimers and newcomers to work out the inevitable gentrification issues. I defer to the most excellent Mopar on this regard. Her posts in defense of Bushwick have always been right on.
I’m sorry, Pierre, but I continue to disagree that the racial and ethnic makeup of Bushwick is irrelevant. It is neither racist, or non-racist, to bring it up, it’s just a fact of the neighborhood, and a part of what makes Bushwick, Bushwick. I think it is possible to be so worried about not offending, or being politically correct that we cancel out those things that contribute to what or who we are. To have a gallery in Chinatown and not mention the area’s rich ethnic history is to deny its importance, in my opinion. To describe me and leave out the fact that I am African American, is not elevating us into a non-racial society, it’s overlooking who I am, and negating a part of me that helps define who I am. That is all I am saying here.
we heart you benson 🙂
Glad someone is making above minimum wage. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case at the Associated on Knickerbocker.