Market Trend: Don’t Mention Bed-Stuy
I love bringing up the faux war Petra of the Bed-Stuy Blog and I had last year — even though we both keep saying it was done on purpose to piss off the overly sensitive among us, some of you keep getting angry! Delicious. But all kidding aside, Bed-Stuy has its plusses: there are many “together” blocks full of residents who care, the neighborhood’s “striver” community is far larger and more cohesive than anything similar in Bushwick, and lovely Stuyvesant Heights is a wealth of fabulous architecture — but it’s hard to ignore the stankitude of North Bed-Stuy and the fringes that surround the handful of cared-for blocks. Much of the hood is very transportationally challenged, menacing, dirty, bombed-out, and littered with massive megablock projects. And say what you will about Bushwick’s retail scene, we don’t have NEW dollar stores opening on this side of Broadway (not that I don’t shop at the dollar store myself).
But just in case you weren’t sure that long-neglected Bushwick is now overtaking Bed-Stuy in respectability (albeit for a different demographic), just take a gander at Craigslist the last year or so. I don’t even bother to mention “Bushwick wannabes,” apartments listed as Bushwick but which are actually in Bed-Stuy, anymore; there are just too damn many. Guess how many Bushwick apartments are listed as being in Bed-Stuy? Exactly ZERO. And it’s notable that places half a block off Broadway are listed as Bushwick, but I’m not even talking about that stuff anymore — there are properties half a mile into Bed-Stuy listed as Bushwick and even outrageously as East Williamsburg.
Here’s a list of places I saw this morning on just one page of a search for “Bushwick” on Craigslist:
Hancock and Broadway — I actually put this on the apartment roundup today before realizing it’s actually on the Bed-Stuy side — with no mention of that neighborhood whatsoever
Pulaski and Malcolm X — on the Bushwick border but in Bed-Stuy, with only Bushwick mentioned
Hancock and Saratoga — just a half block into Bed-Stuy but listed only as Bushwick
Park and Throop — 2 long blocks into Bed-Stuy
Park and Tompkins — 3 long blocks into Bed-Stuy
Hancock and Ralph — 2.5 long or 7 short blocks from Bushwick in either direction
Monroe and Malcolm X — 3 long or 9 short blocks from Bushwick in either direction
Lexington and Franklin — the most outrageous at all, this is damn near Clinton Hill, OVER A MILE from Bushwick.
Landlords and agents are more and more listing their Bed-Stuy properties as Bushwick. Someone recently emailed me to ask if their new venue, at Marcy and Myrtle half a mile from Bushwick, could be listed in Bushwick Culture because they heard they’re on the border. What is going on here?
It’s a good sign that Bushwick is getting ever-more popular. But this particular trend is bad because, well, do you want some horrid block of Bed-Stuy being confused with your neighborhood? I know I don’t. Bushwick pwns Bed-Stuy.
Really? Hancock and Broadway is Bedstuy?
The other side of Broadway is.
Hancock and Saratoga isn’t Ocean Hill?
well…guess what! I had a choice btw Bushwick or Bed-Stuy; I relocated to Bed Stuy instead. I noticed more gentrification in the nabe & I was able to get a great price on my condo loft. Bed-Stuy is the best kept secret on rents or buying a loft or condo!!!
Duh…just FYI; realtors were using the same tactics when trying to rent out or sell
Property in Bushwick. The market trend was…don’t mention Bushwick.
Same BullSh!t; they sold it as East Williamsburg! Wow…how quickly we all forget.
Just in case you haven’t read the Business week article about gentrification; here’s an excerpt:
“Artists turned around Soho and the Lower East Side of Manhattan in the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s, and then Brooklyn’s Williamsburg in the 1990s. Now you’ll find them in Bushwick and Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn, and Astoria in Queens.”
Wow…Bushwick & Bed-Stuy all in the sentence. Go figure!?
New York Community Bank has many branches in Brooklyn, listed as “Bay Ridge”, “Bensonhurst”, “Boro Park”, “Dyker Heights”, etc. However its Bed-Stuy Roosevelt Savings Bank branch is listed as “Gates Avenue”. Hmmmmm.
a few months ago i thought i was going to have to move, and spent hours searching craigslist for decent bushwick apartments. it really pissed me off how difficult it was to find an apartment with the actual neighborhood listed. i was more likely to find bushwick area apartments by searching williamsburg than anything else. maybe each neighborhood get’s “upgraded” by one level of gentrification by these sketchy brokers.
You know, I can’t argue this one with ya, Jeremy. According to a whole hell of a lot of people, I live in Clinton Hill or Bushwick or Williamsburg but rarely does anyone call the area where I live Bed-Stuy. I think many people think that Bed-Stuy ends at Lexington, and the vast space between Lex and Flushing/Classon and Broadway is just someplace else. One time I heard this area being called Tompkins Park North. I kinda like that name.
kind of reminds me of the days when the realtors were calling Bushwick East Williamsburg…I guess Bushwick has become the place to be..