Meryl Meisler “A Garden Grows in Bushwick (Snake in the Grass)” 1984-90, detail
It’s too bad I’m hijacking a story about the “Up From Flames” exhibit to complain about this, but at the very end, the journalist asks “So is Bushwick destined to be the next Williamsburg?” Gag. If you plant a new garden at home is it the next Versailles?
The answer to this insipid, hackneyed question is even worse — “The question is who will win the battle—are the Latinos going to maintain ownership, or are they going to be priced out by gentrification?” I love how to many white people, The Latinos is some monolithic group, characterized possibly by brownish skin and a Spanish last name. And “ownership”? In what sense does the vague group “The Latinos” own Bushwick? Does a migrant worker who has been here 6 months “own” more than a white artist who has been around for 10 years because the former has darker skin? And does this assume a Mexican is the same as a Puerto Rican or Dominican? It’s all so ignorant-sounding and just plain tired, and using the phrasing “battle” borders on the irresponsible.
But I didn’t want this to turn into another gentrification debate. My real complaint is: why must every neighborhood that artists and their media cheerleaders suddenly discover be a continuation of some other? Is Williamsburg the next East Village? Maybe it is. Shit. I like Bushwick. It doesn’t have to be the next anything, though it could be a whole hell of a lot nicer version of itself. There’s enough indigenous history and architecture here (hell of a lot more than in Williamsburg) that if anything — our neighbors to the northwest are the old Bushwick.
Despite my complaints, you should go see “Up From Flames” at the Brooklyn Historical Society (through August 26).
jukeboxgraduate June 4th, 2007 at 12:31 pm
You make great points. It irks me that people think that a neighborhood is only successful if it becomes gentrified, which is slang for “all the people who were living there for years are pushed out for the kids from iowa moving here.” and i don’t mean to give kids from iowa a bad rap. i mean, lou reed was a kid from long island and patti smith was a girl from south jersey.
we were driving around long island over the weekend, and there’s this big gated community near a target we go to. and i stared at the gated community and said, ‘why would anyone want to live here?’ i mean, it’s LONG ISLAND. who are they shutting out?
the boyfriend (who is from long island) answered: “because they’re scared of black people.”
which is sarcastic and flippant, but it IS the reason people go to live in gated communities, isn’t it? and it’s why people won’t live in bushwick, and why they want it to turn into williamsburg.
it’s not about artists any more, because the artists are priced out of bushwick – i know this, because I spent a year and a half trying to find space for the artists getting kicked out of 184 kent and the like. even taking them as far out as halsey st. L stop – they can’t get the kind of space they need for the price they can afford. the artists have to go to jersey, or to philly, or somewhere that’s not new york, because there’s nowhere left in new york city for them to go to.
and that’s what i worry about, a lot – we’re in greenpoint and we’re rent stabilized until 2013, which is probably about the time greenpoint will start to be park slope and we won’t want to live there any more, or won’t be able to afford to live there any more (or both).
so then where do we go? where do people who want a neighborhood, maybe a coffee shop or two, a decent grocery store, i don’t need more than that. i don’t need hip bars and clubs in my actual neighborhood. i like a NEIGHBORHOOD. i like people. and by ‘people’ i dno’t mean, ‘people exactly like me’ – or maybe that’s nto true, people who care about the neighborhood and work hard and are good people, in that sense, yes, people like me. but not ‘people like me’ meaning ‘white people’.
i keep thinking harlem or jackson heights. maybe bushwick, still, or who knows what bushwick will be like in five years.
david June 4th, 2007 at 12:54 pm
I wouldn’t agree that artists have been priced out of Bushwick at this point. Just this weekend there was a huge event called Bushwick Open Studios. I saw work by dozens of artists. There are still affordable lofts, studios,apartments here….relatively speaking of course.
Jeremy June 4th, 2007 at 1:03 pm
Yeah Bushwick is still pretty cheap — worst case, you pool funds and share a space. Or do art in your apartment, which is a lot of what the studios were at the Bushwick Open Studios.
Ben June 4th, 2007 at 2:06 pm
Well, the way to not be priced out as things change is to buy. And Bushwick does offer affordable properties to those with a will.
Regarding the question, “Are the Latinos going to retain ownership?” I do believe this is referring to property ownership. Sure there are lots of people renting but there are also lots of 2 and 3 family homes owned by people who have been here a long time.
What we see happening in other gentrifying neighborhoods is that the group that has been there for a while ends up selling their properties to the new group and then leaving the neighborhood. Will the current owners do the same or will they stick around? If they leave the culture of the neighborhood will definitely change.
Mary June 4th, 2007 at 4:19 pm
I went to Williamsburg this weekend, and you still see a fair number of spanish natives around there. It’s just that the hypsters have really populated this area.
By the way wasn’t East Williamsburg Bushwick. Wonder what name they’ll come up with for the area further east of this, and also south of it, down by the J line. I was think of SoBu for south bushwick. Sound good?
Jeremy June 4th, 2007 at 4:27 pm
There’s no way to know if the “Spanish” people you saw in Williamsburg were “natives” or not. That’s part of that annoying debate — if you’re brown, do you automatically belong, even if you’re not even from NYC? Is it like the Israeli Law of Return — any Jew, whether or not they have ever stepped foot in the Middle East, automatically gets citizenship? Weird.
East Williamsburg used to just be Williamsburg — the East is new to distinguish it from the Bedford-Lorimer area. Landlords and developers didn’t exactly make it up. The “Morgantown” loft area never WAS a neighborhood, it was an industrial area, so really, calling it E Wburg or Bushwick is a matter of taste, but since it’s so much closer to us, it might as well be Bushwick.
–Jeremy in NoBu…or maybe NoMo (North of Myrtle). Not SoFlo (South of Flushing), because that’s been used for South Florida. :-D
david June 4th, 2007 at 5:12 pm
Actually East Williamsburg is an actual neighborhood that shows up on every NYC Gov. map I have ever seen. Also if you walk around “morgantown” you will see signs everywhere that say “East Williamsburg Industrial Park”. From what it looks like the City considers East Williamsburg to encompass Graham-Morgan. The border between the it and Bushwick being Flushing Ave.
Some maps show Montrose-Morgan to be Williamsburg, others East Williamsburg, but never Bushwick.
But East Williamsburg is definitely not “new”, it is just more widely known now that gentrification has been making it’s way East.
david June 4th, 2007 at 5:50 pm
http://home2.nyc.gov/html/dcp/pdf/neighbor/neighbor.pdf
Should have linked to this in my message above but here you go.
jukeboxgraduate June 6th, 2007 at 2:04 pm
You’re right that Bushwick is cheap, but it’s not cheap if you’ve been living in 184 Kent or wherever for years, and have square footage you’d never believe at that kind of price. There were the artists who were willing to compromise and go to Bushwick, but then there were the ones who were used to the space and the access and were convinced they’d find their 1200 sf for $900. Maybe that is out there, too, but it’s nothing I’d have access to as a broker.
OF course, the oldest, longest time artists bought and are now renting to the hipsters.
David has it right about east williamsburg. Morgantown is official E’Burg – for me the dividing line was Bushwick Ave. Bushwick starts at Flushing Ave.
I would call Graham Ave. “Italian Williamsburg” and would try to use the subway stops as descriptors. It’s all Williamsburg, but people hear ‘williamsburg’ and think Bedford L and that’s it. “No, I’m sorry, the Grand stop on the L is, actually, Williamsburg”
Meryl Meisler June 12th, 2007 at 6:09 pm
Hi. I am very glad that you wrote about “Up From Flames” and included my image in your blog. I would really appreciate it if you credited my image:
Meryl Meisler “A Garden Grows in Bushwick (Snake in the Grass)” 1984-90, detail
Thanks-
Meryl
Meryl Meisler June 12th, 2007 at 6:09 pm
I enjoy your blog.
Jeremy June 13th, 2007 at 9:45 am
Thanks Meryl, I added the credit.
bushwicknative June 14th, 2007 at 9:14 am
as far as neighborhood monikers go old maps (1850 1860) indicated what is now North Bushwick Wyckoff Irving etc as East Williamsburg and the Ridgewood area really being where the resevoir is now ..over time East Williamsburg became the industrial area and Bushwick became the other side of Flushing Avenue…
I do like Jeremy’s name of NoBu. We will know the neighborhood has gone beyond the pale when a branch of NoBu the restaurant in SoHo (Manhattan) moves onto Knickerbocker Avenue
Jeremy June 14th, 2007 at 9:18 am
Credit where it’s due: Mary said SoBu for South Bushwick, so I called mine NoBu. :-D
Jimmy Legs June 15th, 2007 at 10:54 am
i’d like to point out my use of the SoBu name in Feb:
http://www.jimmylegs.com/2007/02/shell-ruin-you-like-she-ruined-me.html
plus i’d like to try again to get people to start calling the whole area “the Shwick” because i think it sounds real stupid :)
Bushwicker June 15th, 2007 at 12:30 pm
check the deeds..the area was German and Irish then Italian..everything changes.