Thirty years ago, Bushwick burned; today, it’s being slapped with a disorderly conduct summons. I know that I probably shouldn’t lambaste people in search of love but I just can’t help myself. Doing some research on Bushwick last night (yes, actual research), I stumbled upon the following Craigslist “Missed Connection”:

mckibbin lofts roof party the cops broke up - w4m - 22
NYU Philosophy student! I was talking to you on the upper roof deck Friday night. I threw a beer can before climbing down. I’m a girl (duh), shortish brown hair, recent Columbia grad, trying to be a writer. The fucking cops got me and I had to follow them downstairs to get my bullshit summons. You seemed nice and I thought you were cute. You must be smart too, cause you got away from the goddamn police. Email me!

Do I feel sorry for this young woman? Not a bit, I fear. First of all, is this the finest prose we can expect from the graduate of school that nurtured the likes of Allen Ginsberg and Langston Hughes? I might use better words than “cute,” “smart” and “nice” to describe the potential mate of my dreams. Also, how does one “try” to be a writer? I imagine that all one needs is a MacBook and the $3 requisite to score a soy latte and table space at Potion or the Archive. Last I checked, both were in ample supply around these parts.

What really piques my sense of civic pride, however, is the beer can that seems to have been tossed by our lovestruck friend as she was on the verge of an encounter with New York’s Finest. I knew guys who used to throw beer cans from apartment windows — when they were in high school. Perhaps the mysterious Casanova in question, a Philosophy student at NYU, could have discoursed on Emmanuel Kant’s categorical imperative, which stipulates that an action is moral based on whether one can imagine everyone else in the world doing it.

Now, can you imagine everyone in Bushwick (forget the entire world for now) throwing beer cans, chicken bones and other refuse on the street? If that were the case, we would live in a neighborhood with perpetually dirty streets, besotted sidewalks, and a battered housing stock that is only affordable to enterprising young “artists” because it has been neglected for so long. Oh, wait, nevermind. Scratch that last paragraph. Party on, cans away!

I mentioned in my introductory post that I teach at The Brooklyn Latin School, located near the intersection of Bushwick and McKibbin, in the handsome old P.S. 147 building. We are a specialized high school, which means that students must take an exam to gain admission to TBLS. Though this exam has earned the unfortunate nickname of the “Stuy exam,” after Stuyvesant High, the most famous of the specialized high schools, there are actually seven schools on the exam, of which we are the newest. Our “specialty,” you may have guessed, is a classical education. Consequently, our students wear a uniform, take four years of Latin, and practice public speaking along with Socratic debate. I have the honor of teaching Virgil and Homer in my class, whereas at my last school I had students who, quite literally, could not read.

Having a magnet school in Bushwick has been interesting, to say the least. Our students come from all five boroughs, and though a few of them know the neighborhood, most are quite unfamiliar with their surroundings. It should come as no surprise that I’ve met parents who cringe merely at the name “Bushwick” — as if it were still 1977 and Broadway was burning. I could mention that Brooklyn Tech — the other specialized high school in Brooklyn - is a stone’s throw from some fairly notorious projects, or that Bronx Science isn’t exactly on Central Park West, but I’d rather let the things we do at my school — which I think are pretty wonderful — speak for themselves.

At the same time, we are trying to focus on raising awareness about ourselves in the Bushwick community, which is the subject of this post (perhaps you thought it was mere self promotion). From the first, we’ve resisted the label of carpetbaggers who use Bushwick space to offer an elite education to students who come from elsewhere. Quite to the contrary, we’d like to integrate ourselves into the community, and I’d like to get some input from readers of this blog about how Brooklyn Latin can contribute to the improvement of Bushwick for all its residents.

So far, we have a couple of programs, and are looking to do more. For example, a Reading Buddies program that has our students reading to the tykes in PS 147. At the same time, we’d like to start tutoring area middle schoolers for the specialized high school exam. While many privileged students are privately tutored for the exam for 2-3 years, those in disadvantaged neighborhoods rarely get such intense preparation, and are consequently under-represented among those who pass. In addition, since all of our students have a public service requirement, we are thinking of some bigger projects we can do in the community (an oral history of Bushwick, a forum on gentrification, et. al.)

Again, I would love to hear from the opinionated readers of this blog regarding the above. Whether you’re a long-time resident or newcomer, I am sure you have some notion of what we could to make Bushwick a better place. So, by all means, please chime in.

Also, since we’re on the the topic of education, I’d like to plug an excellent blog. Bottom Shelf Books, written by my very close friend Minh Le. It focuses on children’s literature, but is — quite honestly — one of the funniest and most original blogs I’ve read in a while.

Bushwick Beer Distribution on Bushwick Avenue, near the intersection with Flushing, is a low-slung warehouse that announces itself with a faded sign that looks ready to tumble to the street below. In the morning, as I drive to work, the warehouse is shuttered. In the afternoon, after a long day of teaching and coaching, when a beer is likely on the mind, no activity suggesting beer distribution is evident inside.

This is, of course, the sad irony of Bushwick today. The neighborhood was once the center of New York’s thriving brewing culture, and, according to the Encyclopedia of New York City, housed as many as fourteen major breweries — including well-known stalwarts like Rheingold and Schaefer. Many of the dilapidated mansions along Bushwick Avenue were the dwellings of German entrepreneurs who made their buck fermenting hops.

Well, that’s all gone now. The Germans, along with most of Bushwick’s white residents, decamped for greener pastures (i.e., Long Island), while the gradual corporate takeover of brewing has all but destroyed the little guy (thank you, Anheuser Busch). Thus we are left with Bushwick Beer Distribution, hemmed in by auto repair shops and housing projects, living out its last, inglorious days. And those days are numbered: men in construction masks can be seen working in the afternoon, and Property Shark shows that a new owner, probably intent on rehabilitating the property, bought the building six years ago.

I wonder, however, if things will ever change. Brooklyn Lager is thriving, and the rise of microbrews has challenged the supremacy of Coors, Miller, and other piss-water behemoths. In addition, as the popular Saturday tours at the Brooklyn Brewery demonstrate, the young and moneyed who’ve made Brooklyn their home have an interest in beer culture. Smaller brewers might one day find their way back to Bushwick. It would be nice if urban renewal took on the deep amber of a well-pulled pint.

Last Saturday, I had the good fortune to attend the walking tour of Bushwick that Jeremy advertised in an earlier posting. Led by Adam Schwartz, curator of the Up From Flames exhibition at the Brooklyn Historical Society, the tour also featured fascinating commentary by John A. Dereszewski, who was a community leader in Bushwick during the worst of the arson and looting of ‘77.

Some walking tours have the feel of a not-particularly-exciting history dissertation, but this was not one of them. Schwartz and Co. mainly focused on the turbulent history of the neighborhood, from the slow decline of the late 60s and early 70s to the rejuvenation that followed in the wake of the crack epidemic and the inevitable gentrification that seems to be the fate of many a Brooklyn neighborhood.

Though we did not visit some fairly notable sites like St. Barbara’s Church (one of New York’s greatest houses of worship, in my opinion), the tour explored neighborhood stalwarts like the Hope Gardens housing project, described as “highly successful,” and the reorganized Bushwick High School, both of which point to better things for the residents of Bushwick. At the same time, the hideous condo development on Grove St., which was another stop on the tour, suggests that many of these residents won’t be around to enjoy the improving quality of life.

I am not a resident of Bushwick, but I do work here, and I am very curious about what readers think the future holds in store. Will the new residents and those who survived Bushwick’s lowest points find a balance, as has been the case in Fort Greene (where I reside) and Ditmas Park (where I used to teach)? Or will the tide of new development simply erase the past — as it has in Puerto Rican pockets of Park Slope or countless ethnic neighborhoods in Manhattan?
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Hi everyone, I wanted to briefly introduce myself as a new poster on this fine blog. Jeremy has been kind enough to bring me on board, and I’ll be posting on a fairly regular basis on topics relating to Bushwick and East Williamsburg.

A little about myself: I write, mostly on literature and education, for The Village Voice, The New Republic Online, Salon, and The New Criterion. Though I am a native of St. Petersburg (Russia, not Florida), my adopted home is New York, and I am going to be posting some on the fascinating history of Bushwick and Williamsburg — as Jeremy has already done on many occasions.

I also teach at The Brooklyn Latin School, a new selective high school that sits at the quite loud intersection of Bushwick Avenue and McKibbin Street. This is technically East Williamsburg, but my school is very much tied to the surrounding area, including Bushwick, and I’ll try to tackle some educational issues without sounding preachy or self-righteous.

Anyway, that’s all for now. I look forward to my first venture into blogging and hope that you enjoy reading my posts.