Bushwick Booming, Or So The Brokers Say
Have you heard the news? Bushwick is hot. “It’s what Williamsburg was in the ’90s [and] what SoHo was in the ’80s,” says Len Moroz, co-owner of Potion Café in the McKibben Lofts building. With the first several condo projects in the area having sold at well above expected prices last year, brokers (hardly an…

Have you heard the news? Bushwick is hot. “It’s what Williamsburg was in the ’90s [and] what SoHo was in the ’80s,” says Len Moroz, co-owner of Potion Café in the McKibben Lofts building. With the first several condo projects in the area having sold at well above expected prices last year, brokers (hardly an unbiased crowd) are predicting that more and more landlords will be converting their rental buildings to condos in the near future. So who’s going to buy all these new condos? “Artsy Yuppies,” says Douglas Elliman’s Lisa Maysonet, who’s had her hand in the sale of several new condos in the nabe. “They’re artsy in look and feel,” she says of the gentrifiers, “but not in occupation.” That is, they have a real paycheck but are still partial to the bed-head look. Do you think there are enough of these folks to fuel a continued condo boom in the area or do you not believe the hype?
Approaching the Summit [NY Post]
Photo by martha martha martha
When I was a social worker, one of my clients, who lived in Bushwick, had just gotten out of prison for drug dealing. He was a nice guy with a sense of humor and he asked me if I could somehow warn all the other people like me (young white artsy kids, I guess) that they shouldn’t be living in Bushwick. He said they probably just didn’t know how rough the neighborhood was. “We don’t just got guns in Bushwick,” he said, “we got automatic-focken-weapons.” It made me laugh, and he laughed, and then said “seriously, though, you should tell them.”
So I tried, but you know how stubborn those hipsters and their real-estate-broker lapdogs can be. Tell them something’s gross, and overpriced, and polluted, and dangerous, and they’ll jump all over it. I say let’em have it.
psst, i bought in the *real* new hot area, down the J side of the neighborhood, in South Bushwick. or as i like to call it, “SoBu.” think that’ll catch on with the ‘artsy professionals’? or as i like to call them, ‘posers.’ why are real estate agents so lame?
Anon 11:01 better get moving. There already is a Dunkin Donuts, a pretty decent grocery and several laundramats on Wykoff Ave around the DeKalb Ave. L train stop.
actually I believe that. I can see bushwick being hot in a few years. I don’t know much about bushwick but for some reason it doesn’t seem far fetched. what kind of amenities are we looking at over there? and by ameneties I mean the basics, perhaps a dunkin donuts a laundry place, and a decent grocery store. perhaps I should buy a condo there now before the word gets around.
some of the most interesting parties, things, events, etc I’ve been to in last decade have taken place in Bushwick. I would buy there in heartbeat the only problem is the prices are already gentrified prices without being gentrified yet. They need to really price these out for actual artists, at least for a year or two, to keep the really creative people there. Once that’s secure they can jack it up for the type of “artists” they describe. At any rate. Yes, Bushwick is cool – if you consider 90’s Williamsburg . 60’s – 70’s Soho / 70’s – 80’s East Village cool.
I’m still waiting for summer indie rock shows in Maria Hernandez Park.
I collect 80s hc records. she went to art school and is now a marketing exec. I guess Lisa salivates over people like us.
must be awesome to be so cool, so desired….
my girlfriend and I go to northeast kingdom (near the jefferson stop) for dinner a lot. we live near grand and graham stops, so we’re in either bushwick, east williamsburg or williamsburg, as the above poster noted. we don’t really care. anyway, we agree that area is pretty rad and would consider living there if we found the right real estate.
neither of us have bedhead but are professionals. I collect 80s hc records. she went to art school and is now a marketing exec. I guess Lisa salivates over people like us.
Much of Bushwick is serviced by the L line also. In fact the Grand, Montrose,Morgan stops on the L are often referred to as Bushwick or East Williamsburg, or sometimes just plain old Williamsburg. My commute from Montrose into Manhattan is 10-15 minutes. I can connect to the G at Metrolitan Ave if I want to go to Bed Stuy,Clinton Hill, Ft. Greene, Carroll Gardens, BK Heights,etc…
It’s actually quite easy.