Raanan Geberer of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle takes a tour of Bushwick and teaches us even more history about our fair town. The best part for me is this bit:
Unlike, say, Park Slope, Clinton Hill or Brooklyn Heights, Bushwick in the 19th century was economically mixed, with middle-class rowhouses, upper-class mansions and working-class tenements existing side by side.
People have different views on the economic history of Bushwick — some say it was poor, some insist middle class, others make the case that it was wealthy — but a 10 minute walk around the hood proves it was all that in quite close proximity. The 1800s had no mandatory affordable housing, no vouchers, no projects, no minimum wage — and yet everyone had a place to call home in this neighborhood, which at the time was being pretty rapidly developed. In Bushwick, people were left unrestricted to pursue a living creating housing, and ta-da! They provided for all.
Does anyone have any info on more solidly ritzy areas of 1800s Brooklyn which had discriminatory rules against developments that might have attracted, shall we say, unsavory elements? Be interesting to know why Brooklyn Heights and Park Slope were so exclusive while Bushwick wasn’t — though I suspect it had more to do with those areas being mostly residential and Bushwick having plenty of employment opportunities.
Anyway, enjoy the fluff!
Ben May 22nd, 2007 at 11:10 am
I think that at the time proximity to the markets in lower manhattan was key. All the wealthy traders started settling in Brooklyn Heights, then moved inland a little to Fort Greene/Clinton Hill. I think Bushwick was just plain too far since the transportation options at the time were much less than the are today.
I think the map above is interesting, Williamsburg and Greenpoint are just small sub-neighborhoods of Bushwick.
Jeremy May 22nd, 2007 at 12:07 pm
Yeah, we ate dinner in Ft Greene the other night — first time visiting the area — and were struck by not just the amazing houses and their awesome ornamentation, but how much LAND they used up on the corners as garden space. As if to say, yeah we’re RICH!
Andrew May 22nd, 2007 at 10:46 pm
I spent some time recently trying to find out when my house near the intersection of Broadway and Myrtle was built. According to Propertyshark, many property records in Brooklyn were destroyed by fire in the early part of the 20th century, and the city had to estimate the construction dates for a lot of the Bushwick housing stock. However, I have found some circumstantial evidence that the city’s estimates may be wildly inaccurate – does anyone have any more information about this? For example, my house is a three family frame which the city records say was built in 1920 (estimated). However, I found an old news story from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle of September 1886 discussing building permits and mentioning a permit for the construction of five three story frame houses, 19×50, for three families each – the exact dimension of the houses that sit on my block today (one of which was mine). So, either my house was later demolished and rebuilt to the exact same size and specifications, or it was built originally in 1886, about 34 years earlier than I always thought! I guess it makes sense because a lot of the frame houses in Bushwick do look very old. Anyone else tried to figure out how old the Bushwick housing stock really is?
http://www.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/eagle/
Jeremy May 23rd, 2007 at 6:41 am
Ohhh, I always thought the city just couldn’t be bothered with searching through the records, that’s why every house estimated to have been built before 1900 is listed as having been built in 1899 — like my house. But then I find records online of people living and doing business here as early as 1878! I’m pretty sure my house is one of the oldest on the block because everything else here is 3-4 stories, tallish, brick, and mine is a squat 2 story frame thing. You don’t build a small house on a street when the best use is to build a big one. So I’m thinking it predates by a few decades my neighbor’s house which conveniently for us all has 1907 carved into the facade.
Jeremy May 23rd, 2007 at 6:57 am
Oh that is COOL. I’m having a problem, though, because when I search for “central avenue” it pulls up all mentions of “centre” and “avenue” — two words in pretty much every land notice.
The Changeling May 23rd, 2007 at 9:47 am
I love this map! I think I live in Cripplebush. I’m going to start telling people that.
Jeremy May 23rd, 2007 at 9:56 am
Yeah, it looks like Cripplebush is about where Weeksville is…but then that’s only based on where they have the dot for Bedford. I bet you could find out with some google digging.
Miss Heather May 23rd, 2007 at 1:39 pm
My understanding/two cents about Bushwick is this… As (German/German Jewish) immigrants became more affluent many of them migrated from my ‘nabe (Greenpoint) to Bushwick. At one time it was a solid middle/upper middle class neighborhood (with Beer Gardens, no less!)— and much of Greenpoint was an unrelieved slum.
bushwicknative June 18th, 2007 at 9:39 am
I know this post is a bit late but I was at the “Up from flames” exhibit Saturday at the Brooklyn Historical Society and went into the library where they were very helpful .
2 things that may help you folks determine the age of your building : there is a book called place name sin Bushwick (actually a masters thesis) which tels where the names came frombut more importantly fo rthis purpose whenthe streets were opened..
secondly they have a tremendous map collection of the streets indicating what buildings were on them by year.
I cannot swear which years are there and which are not but you should certainly be able to narrow the gap when your building was erected. The street where I was born St Nicholas Ave .. although having been laid out as early as 1855 did not have any houses on it in 1884 as it was all still labelled farmland.
Jeremy June 18th, 2007 at 9:52 am
Thanks BN! Man, I definitely have to go now.
bushwicknative June 18th, 2007 at 10:24 am
YW Jeremy great job on this whole site by the way..check the hours at Brooklyn Historical Society as the library is only open one Saturday a month
Andrew June 18th, 2007 at 11:22 am
Yes thanks BN! I’m definitley going to have to go to the library to check that out.
upfromflames June 18th, 2007 at 10:24 pm
I just wanted to add one small thing here: If you want to search old real estate ads for Bushwick, many can be found at the Brooklyn Daily Eagle archive.
[[http://www.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/eagle/]]
There was quite the boom in the 1880′s, it seems.
upfromflames June 18th, 2007 at 10:25 pm
oh, how silly, someone already posted that….
Brooklyn Pete September 2nd, 2007 at 4:56 am
Bushwick was more of a farming community in the 19th Century and was only lightly built up around Broadway which was mainly middle class Dutch families. German Bushwick began in 1888 when the El’s arrived and a ferry linked Broadway in Williamsburg to Houston St in Manhattan which was then called Kleindeutchland (Little Germany). The woodframe tenements north of Myrtle Ave starting going up at this time. Also Germans with money were excluded from living on Brooklyns Gold Coast aka Park Slope so they staked out Stuyvesnt Heights, Bushwick Ave and East New Yorks Highland Park. When the Williamsburg Bridge opened in 1903 the long standing working class German community in Williamsburg was pushed out by the huge waves of Polish, Lithuanian, Slovakian, Russian, Jewish and Italian peoples arriving from the Lower East Side. Subsequently the well built Brick tenements that line Bushwick, Ridgewood, Bed-Stuy and East New York were built to house the new German neighborhood. For a good 50 years the combined neighborhoods of Bushwick, Stuyvesant Heights, East New York and Canarsie in Brooklyn. And Ridgewood, Glendale, Maspeth, Woodhaven, Richmond Hill and Jamaica would house the largest urban concentration of Germans outside of Berlin and Vienna. If you notice all these neighborhoods are linked to Bushwick by the (J,L and M) lines. Most of the residents were working class but there were pockets of wealth in the neighborhoods as all Germans tended to live in close proximity to each other. The neighborhoods were economically and religiously diverde ie. Catholic,Jewish and Lutheran. Altough they had German majorities many other ethnics lived in these neighbrhoods during the same period.
If you are interested most of New Yorks Germans were natives of a region called Franconia-Swabia in difference to New Jerseys mainly Austrian-Germans, and the Bavarians of Chicago-Milwaukee.
bushwicknative September 3rd, 2007 at 12:35 pm
to follow up on Brooklyn Pete I recall in Ridgewood there was a Schwaben Hall where the Germans would dance and socialize.. I believe it was on Seneca and Woodbine.
Brooklyn Pete September 4th, 2007 at 2:05 am
I grew up being told that Schwaben Hall was on the corner of Knickerbocker Ave/Myrtle Ave where the precinct is now across from Heisser Triangle. The old Brooklyn Schuetzen Korps was at 2 Ralph Ave btwn Quincy St and Broadway. On Seneca Ave I was told there was a Bavarian lodge.
bushwicknative September 4th, 2007 at 11:26 am
You could be right BklynPete.. The thing for certain was in that era you were just as likely to hear German on the street as English.
I have found the Obituaries for my Great Grandparents and Grandparents 1908/1909/1937/1950 notin an English newspaper but the Staats Zeitung ( all German). They all lived in Bushwick at the time of their demise ( 1908/09) on Suydam right across from MH park and later dates just barely in Brooklyn on St. Nicholas Ave.