NYT’s City Room: Is China East30 Williamsburg?
DeKalb and Cypress. Is it Bushwick? Is it Ridgewood? Is it BOTH? *head explodes*
A few people sent me this bit from the New York Times‘ insipid “City Room” blog: Is Ridgewood the New East Bushwick? Fucking gag me. Nothing could be more expressive of the Times‘ complete disconnect from most things non-Manhattan than their inability to grasp the concept of modern Bushwick. (Except maybe thinking an address in downtown Brooklyn is in East Williamsburg.)
I’m going to spell it out simply for them: a loft building that is a 3-second sprint from the Brooklyn border, filled with the same types of people who live in Bushwick proper and the part of East Williamsburg also colloquially considered to be Bushwick, is, for all intents and purposes, Bushwick. Yes, it is politically in Queens. The sum total effect of this political difference is that to pick up a package from the post office (do people still use USPS for packages?), they have to go to one in Ridgewood instead of in Bushwick. That’s about it.
But not so fast, Jennifer 8, much of Ridgewood may not be considered Bushwick. It depends on the block, and it will certainly depend on what the future holds for the neighborhood. As of right now, Ridgewooders are not all cozying up to Bushwick. It seems a neighborhood defined by the people who actually live there and not based on some arbitrary line on a plat book is too much for a proper reporter, albeit one assigned to the journalistic equivalent of latrine duty, to fathom.
Poking fun at neighborhood relabeling is tired. Will the Times think it’s just as clever when it inevitably announces Glendale to be East East East Williamsburg? Oh the smarm will be so thick, won’t it just?
In time, Bushwick will be a cooler place to live than Ridgewood. Ridgewood represents quiet, family life to many. Bushwick, and East Williamburg identify more with the hipster movement from Williamsburg.
I like ridgewood, but always think of it so far removed from manhattan, but it’s just a few steps away from the Jefferson L, where I am often anway.
yeah Jen8, everyone knows that anything south of arbitration rock is bushwick.
ps, i mailed a package from the 11237 post office this morning
You seem to have no sense of humor.
Oh the houses in the photo are that strip of cute houses that go up the whole block right? The blocks around them are really unique.
Lets just call the border territories Ridgewick for now. I am sure the Times can agree with that name. As for me I am waiting to find out the hipster name for the borders of Bushwick/Brownsville Bushwick/East New York
(i)Suggestions Anyone?!?! :)(i)
Wyckoff Heights is pretty thoroughly a part of Ridgewood (as a former long-time Ridgewood resident who hates the neighborhood with a violent passion). The difference is pretty clear, even if you ignore the borough-line… Matthews tenements mean you’re in Ridgewood. Two-story houses mean you’re in Ridgewood. Definitely any kind of attractive housing like the DeKalb & Cypress area mean you’re in Ridgewood. Wyckoff Ave? Bushwick, baby. Seneca? Not so much.
BuWoo!
The Bushwick/Ridgewood border wars will never end.
Neighborhoods change and expand and contract. Rather than legal boundaries neighborhoods are states of mind . I am former resident like Zach but do not hate the neighborhood. I agree Wyckoff is Bushwick and Seneca is Ridgewood . Not quite sure where the line of demarcation is. In the 50s I would say Wyckoff was more Ridgewood than Bushwick .
The 11237 post office was always known as Wyckoff Heights and I am surprised that the realtors did not use that name to create a new neighborhood.
Time for all the folk who shunned Bushwick when times got bad to change their colors and jump on the Bushwick bandwagon. Ridgewood property values will go up for certain. Classic opportunists. They can keep the 11385 zip code because Ridgwewood and Glendale(barf) are no prizes. Probably right on par with Maspeth(I think I just threw up).
Brian, you should know that an attempt to call the area between Wyckoff Ave, and the Queens border Wyckoff Heights was seriously made in the late 1970-80’s. The main protagonists were a gaggle of old residents who did not wish to be associated with blighted Bushwick, which was then being associated with the entire area on the Brooklyn side of the border; they also did not want to be incorporated into a mostly Hispanic City Council district.
This group formed a civic association and had a number of street signs saying “Welcome to Wyckoff Heights” installed on Cypress and St. Nicholas Aves. (A few faded relics still exist.)
The name never caught on and, I believe, this group faded out - like the signs - a long time ago.
If the hipsters–or yuppies, or Martians, or whatever term du jour we’re using for arrogant, well-funded people who move into a neighborhood desiring only to change it–want nothing to do with Ridgewood, that’s just fine by me. I like the fact that the general feel of the neighborhood hasn’t changed too much since I was a kid. In my lifetime, the Germans and Italians have moved out and the Puerto Ricans and Eastern Europeans have taken their place, but the fundamental character of the neighborhood remains the same: working-class, unexciting, but solid.
PS: Hey Jeremy! Long time, no see. Happy holidays