Pssst...Have You Heard About Bushwick?
Newsflash: Bushwick is hot, hot hot! “Next-neighborhood development has now reached a pivotal juncture in Bushwick. The area still won’t be mistaken for the Upper West Side or even Williamsburg. There is no giant luxury supermarket; there are no dry cleaners in the warehouse district, and not many anyplace else. Crime is still bad, or…
Newsflash: Bushwick is hot, hot hot!
“Next-neighborhood development has now reached a pivotal juncture in Bushwick. The area still won’t be mistaken for the Upper West Side or even Williamsburg. There is no giant luxury supermarket; there are no dry cleaners in the warehouse district, and not many anyplace else. Crime is still bad, or really bad (the rates of violent crime are still among the highest in the city) — last year, the local precinct reported 15 murders, 40 rapes, 467 robberies and 399 felonious assaults. And while there may not be as many cars burning in the warehouse district as there used to be, the streets still feel desolate. But Bushwick is now definitely in the next stage. In May 2004, the neighborhood got its first video store-cafe, the Archive. Northeast Kingdom, the latest artist-affiliated restaurant, opened in October 2005, started by two Vermont natives currently living in Williamsburg proper. In the past year, luxury condos started showing up for $400,000. And there is even a festival — a festival that uses an acronym, acronyms seeming to be the linchpin of the real-estate business.”
Last we checked, Bushwick was ahead in the NYT poll for “next cool neighborhood” through Bed Stuy was running a close second.
Have You Heard About Bushwick [NY Times]
i guess my point sounds kind of social-darwinist in a way. yikes. i am sad that there are ghetto-ized areas in bushwick. i hate it. i hate the slumlords. but at the same time the residents need to complain, call, oraganize, help eachother. a little can go a log way.
I’d like to address your comment crown heights proud :
“However, it really burns me that no one seems to be overly concerned about the conditions in these neigborhoods until the artists show up. I’m sure 99% of the residents of Bushwick, and all newly “hot” nabes, live in as much fear and loathing of the drug dealers, prostitutes, rats and roaches, filth and decreptitude as any artist”
this is something i have noticed and thought about since moving to buswick 2 years ago. since I moved i have called 311 many, many times. I have written long, detailed letters to my city councilperson and to the rodent task force, health dep’t, mayor etc. I am trying to get help for the nabe, for myself and my neighbors. It gets noticed now, perhaps, because I am complaining. (I am one of those artists) I just think that in the poorer areas some long-time residents don’t think to speak up. They just accept things, just to get by. So no one cares – the city lets the area persist in neglect.
Example: There is an apartment a block away from me that has sat with a broken and fully accessible window on the first floor for about 6 weeks now. i thought about calling 311 but i think to myself – if NO ONE in that building can bother to care to call the landlord and complain or call the city then forget it. i’m not doing it this time. ic could be wrong – maybe someone there has complained. but still it sits that way….
I’m almost a little sad that the nyt featured Bushwick…right now it’s quiet and has a few little gems that I like to eat and drink at. I just hope the hipsters stay in williamsburg.
Nothing would make me happier if more people like the ones profiled in that article moved to Bushwick. Begone!
To the credit of the times, at least they frame the story in the perspective of realtors and real estate developers. They’re the ones calling Bushwick the next neighborhood, not the Times itself. Normally, I find the Times articles about neighborhoods and gentrification cringeworthy.
They say the “L” is a major factor in the hotness of Bushwick, but I thought the L was supposed to be horrible?
The warehouse area of Bushwick strikes me as being much less safe than the commercial areas.
I have absolutely nothing against artists and creative people carving their niches out of abandoned and underused industrial spaces – more power to ’em. Too bad things don’t stay that way for very long. One only needs to look at Soho and Tribeca to see the end result of their efforts. However, it really burns me that no one seems to be overly concerned about the conditions in these neigborhoods until the artists show up. I’m sure 99% of the residents of Bushwick, and all newly “hot” nabes, live in as much fear and loathing of the drug dealers, prostitutes, rats and roaches, filth and decreptitude as any artist. The social darwinists on this blog will no doubt cry that people are responsible for their own conditions, or that the smart ones in Bushwick, etc should have bought before the artists landed. Easy for all of us to say. The artists, students and the other shock troops of gentrification might be moving into new (for them)and potentially cool neighborhoods, would that the present occupants of Bushwick could get something out of the deal other than an eventual heave-ho.
who/what company can do environmental testing?
pps Problem with this area is that it is still an industrial one, and therefore toxic as hell to live in. I lived next to a glue factory for a few months, then decided to spare my cells some unwanted contamination. All you people living in these buildings, get together and do environmental tests on water, air and soil (costs around $1,000).
ps. Wow, I really like that word Essential today, huh. Sorry.