Technically this is vinyl tile, but I call all such coverings “linoleum.” There are so many sizes and patterns of this stuff in the yard, I could probably cover a whole apartment floor with them in a full rainbow. This particular pattern is not the most offensive of the stuff I have pulled up, but it’s still pretty nasty.

Under a good portion of my yard, just a few inches down, are several large expanses of roofing. Plants seem to have no problems thriving around them, but they have to be removed to get to the knotweed roots lurking underneath. When you bend them in half, you get a strong whiff of tar as fresh as the day it was slathered on. Because the trash men don’t take bags that weigh more than 60lbs (especially on days when the trash men are trash women, *grumble*), we have to break these up into 2-foot sections and place each one in its own bag. It’s basically a mini environmental disaster in every way. The only debate is whether the roofing is an older roof from the current house, or from the house that burned down which occupied most of what is now the yard. That will take more research.

As we have once again begun tackling the back yard, with much help from our fantastic new housemates, we’ve been uncovering a whole new stash of trash. Some of it is interesting enough to share, as a sort of dorky “urban archaeology” study. Won’t you join us as we uncover Bushwick’s depressing past as told by a single patch of dirt?

This find dates itself pretty well — Pepsi that still has the “-Cola” on the can, and sugar as the sweetener — something that went away in the early 80s as massively subsidized corn farming plus sugar tariffs brought us nearly free high-fructose corn syrup as compared to beet and cane sugar. As people are beginning to demand a return to sugar, more products are reintroducing it — especially since the ethanol debacle is making the price of corn skyrocket of late. Say, can we stop paying corn farmers to not farm now?

Chauncey Street balcony houses. See more from this set>>

I went on the latest BCUE walking tour of Bushwick, this time focusing on the southern tip of the neighborhood. Bushwick Specialist Adam Schwartz (of Up From Flames fame) led some 20-odd folks around, getting down to the Trinity Cemetery and up to Irving Square Park, going through the side streets along the way. I’m not sure if the route was selected for this purpose directly, but we went by some lovely homes, and not the kind of thing I would have expected.

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I was heading for the J yesterday and was shocked to see my absolute favorite house in Bushwick being dismantled. The house reminded me of a haunted mansion in miniature, though at one time most houses in the neighborhood looked similar. I loved that even the original shingles remained, all the woodwork preserved under a thousand layers of paint. Two creepy birdhouses tilted in front like guards, as if they knew the house was in danger.

Another house a few doors down, a squat brick box, was also taken down until only a short rim of bricks remained. I snagged one of the smaller cornices from it in a neighbor’s car. It was sad, but the house was already in major disrepair and half-covered by plywood — the loss was less obvious.

This beautiful green house stood in perfect contrast to the 1930s-40s brick homes on either side, and the other architecturally compromised structures on the block. I walked by that house and smiled every time, taking pleasure in some or other detail in the woodwork. And today it’s raining inside what remains.

Of all the available spots in Bushwick, they had to pick the best house and knock it down for some stuccoed shitshack that I’m sure is to come. It’s not even a particularly nice or popular street — the house faces a cinderblock warehouse. The hideous 76 Jefferson lies fallow up near Evergreen. The only charm on the block is being systematically bulldozed.

I feel sick over this. Bushwick already isn’t much in the architecture department.

If anyone has any history to share about this house or block, please do.

Historian and teacher Adam J. Schwartz invites you to tour Bushwick’s South End with him.

“Bushwick is a bustling neighborhood with a sleepier southern side. We’ll be taking in Bushwick’s more distant past, including the Irving Square Park area, as well as Trinity Cemetery, where almost every gravestone is cast from metal. The historic houses lining the leafy streets of Southern Bushwick date from a late 19th century real estate boom. We’ll learn about this boom that occurred against the topographic demands which guided development in the area. This eye-opening stroll will demonstrate the need for historic preservation in this rapidly changing community.”

Adam worked on last year’s Up From Flames exhibit at the Brooklyn Historical Society, and has given other walking tours in Bushwick. There is a $13 fee for participating, and it helps support the Brooklyn Center for the Urban Environment. Founded in 1978, BCUE is “dedicated to educating individuals about the built and natural environments of New York City.”

Saturday, May 17, 1-3pm

Meet at the NE corner of Chauncey Street and Broadway, under the J Train elevated line.

Visit BCUE for more info or contact Ruth Edebohls at 718-788-8500 x 217.

Through the last year, every time I dug up a part of the back yard, I cursed the former owners. “Why is there so much garbage tossed back here!?” Luis tried to reason: “Maybe they didn’t pick up the trash for a certain period?” We have asked many people from “back in the day” and nobody seems to have a good answer.

Now that it’s spring, I’m cleaning the yard with renewed intensity so that we have something more to enjoy by summer. Always keen to find old labels and stuff, I snatched this up out of a pile of glass and old carpet, and dusted it off. It was a medicine label from a local pharmacy, from 1983. I didn’t recognize the name as that of anyone in the family we got the house from (they had been here since 1970). Then I realized the address is from the building two doors down. I had been blaming the massive mess on the owners of the house — why would they do this to their own property???, we constantly ask the wind. I was amazed they could even generate this much trash. It now seems that for 30 years, the lovely neighbors have been flinging their household trash into yards all around here. This jibes with contemporary stories of (and my own experience with) neighbors tossing trash over fences.

There is still plenty of trash that cannot be blamed on the neighbors — tens of shower curtains (they seem to have had a fetish), acres of shag carpet, an entire truck’s drive shaft — but it’s clear to me now that they may have just given up under the wave of trash and decay forced upon them by the times.

I still don’t have the whole answer, but the more evidence I find and people I talk to, the more I realize just how bad it was in Bushwick in the 80s.

What’s this magnificent building, you ask? Surely it’s a museum or a bank or some equally important building. Sorry, but no. Originally the Ridgewood National Bank, then the Hanover National Bank, the Beaux-Arts structure on Myrtle was taken over by Rite Aid.

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It looks like the only movie theater left in Bushwick and Ridgewood has finally bit the dust. Forget fresh produce — the movie theater “shelf,” so to speak, in 1970s Moscow was probably better stocked than in New York today. The closing leaves all of North Brooklyn — Williamsburg, Greenpoint, and Bushwick — with no local options for watching first-run movies in a theater. Not to mention large swathes of Queens.

The theater opened in 1916, and for generations served Bushwick and Ridgewood. “It is believed to be one of the oldest continuously operated theaters in the country, having never closed for renovations during its 89-year run.”

Sadly, the only thing I can imagine leasing 17,000 sqft is another chain drug store. Hopefully, whatever happens, the facade remains intact.

Photo of Bushwick Creek from Trainweb page on Long Island stations.

Bushwick history genius John Dereszewski wants you to take a walk with him down the path of Bushwick Creek.

“Discover and explore a long lost body of water that once formed the Greenpoint-Williamsburg border and continues to influence life in these two communities to this day. This trip will also trace the all-but-forgotten course of one of Brooklyn’s oldest railroads. Finally, this journey will end at the oldest settlement in northern Brooklyn — the original town of Bushwick, which isn’t even in the current neighborhood of Bushwick.”

John has proven his expertise in these pages with his informative comments and on previous walking tours he has helped conduct in Bushwick. There is a $13 fee for participating, and it helps support the Brooklyn Center for the Urban Environment. Founded in 1978, BCUE is “dedicated to educating individuals about the built and natural environments of New York City.”

Saturday, April 5, 1-3pm

Meet at the Bedford Ave. stop of the L train, at Bedford and North 7th St.

Visit BCUE for more info or contact Ruth Edebohls at 718-788-8500 x 217.