I see a lot of posts on the blog from people raised in a Bushwick that only exists in their memories. So I figured it would be great to have a place for them to talk about all kinds of things from the Bushwick they remember, and to help form a picture for the rest of us of the way the neighborhood once was. It’s also a general history forum, for those history sleuths who want to share what they’ve found.

Check it out here. If anyone has problems receiving their password, email me at jeremy .at. redfit .dot. com.

$1600 — 2 bedroom — Melrose and Wilson: This second floor apartment is close to everything cool in North Bushwick: the Morgan L is a 5 minute walk, and all of the good places to eat and drink are close by. There are wood floors and a decorative fireplace, and the entire place is renovated.

First month and security to move in. Call the owner, George, at 347-200-6925 for an appointment to see it. Available August 1, CATS OK.
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This week’s Bushwick Real Estate Roundup turns out to focus on “SoBu,” as the area south of Myrtle is jokingly called in these pages.

$799,000 | 3-family | 71 Cornelia Street | map
Once again, a gorgeous place dripping with details (outside at least) in the Bushwick Avenue mansion orbit. One of the few times “semi-detached” doesn’t just mean the house next door burned down. I would take this magnificent place over a brownstone any day. 3 over 4 over 3, don’t know the square footage. “New everything” — that worries me, but it could just be the systems. The price is high, but the Bushwick Avenue area is going to be prime in the next 5-10 years. I fully expect landmarking, which kicks gentrification into overdrive.

$619,000 | 3-family | 1150 Halsey Street | map
Okay house on an okay block. It’s three-family but being used as two (which is the opposite of what you normally see in Bushwick), which means there’s a duplex, suggesting it’s likely owner-occupied. Evergreen Avenue and much of Central there is totally gone, replaced by a strip of ugly, dirty buildings belonging to the poorly named Hope Gardens projects, and a few newer private-initiative slap-ups. But if you walk the other way up Halsey, it brings you to the gorgeous Irving Square Park, surrounded by gracious, well-kept brick homes, a stunning school building and a great old church. This will be a hot area once it gets a couple of cafés, and I can see it being called Irving Square in honor of the park. Real estate agents are very predictable.

$660,000 | 2-family | Chauncey Street | map
Gorgeous South Bushwick block, some great details, man this place might be a catch…if only they had a shot of the house itself. Well, there’s an open house this weekend, so you can go see it yourself.

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$499,999 | 2-family | Weirfield Street | map
This place is okay outside, and guessing by the ad’s language, a disaster inside. But it’s a good price and if you have the time/dough, you can whip it into shape and gain some quick sweat equity. Legal two-family but has three apartments, very common. Near nice stretch of Bushwick Avenue, by Halsey J.

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$725,000 | 2-family | Jefferson Avenue | map
Really sweet house, sort of pricey but looks well-renovated. Owner’s duplex and 3-bedroom top floor rental. Near Bushwick Avenue.

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#1 — $1400 — loft — This is cheap for a genuine loft. Top floor, tin ceilings, great windows… it’s a bit ratty-lookin but is set up in such a way that makes me think they don’t care what you do in there at all. Which is good for a person who appreciates that. Right ON the L. PETS OK Hart and Wyckoff

#2 — $1450 — 3 bedroom — Cheap! Newly renovated “prewar” (like 97% of Bushwick) brick building. Looks nice from what I can tell, basic new kitchen, very cool bathroom. They seem very strict, and there’s a fee, but this is a great deal, and the screening will guarantee good neighbors. This area is actually decent and very close to the Myrtle-Wyckoff L. Putnam and Irving

#3 — $1375 — 2 bedroom — Looks like a real residential building in the Morgantown area. Railroad, pretty basic, but looks nice enough and it’s a good location for the right kind of person: close to all hipster cultural attractions and the L. I question that it’s “less than 10 minutes into Manhattan” — maybe if the train does that thing where it clears the tunnel in like 90 seconds, which it sometimes does. Thames “off the Morgan and Jefferson L stops”

#4 — $4500 — 5 bedrooms — It’s the Brewer’s Mansion on Bushwick Avenue — I guess nobody can get an exclusive on this thing. You can buy it, or you can rent it! “Picture MTV cribs!!” Please. Anyway, it’s certainly a unique product in the city, forget Bushwick. Pile it with roommates and you have a pretty awesome place to throw insane parties, and who’s gonna call 311 on you in your own house? Linden and Bushwick

#5 — $900 — studio — Somebody might be interested in living at the very end of Bushwick: it’s very cheap, and these last row of blocks before the cemetery are actually very nice. And the L and JZ are both very close…even if the L has to loop all the way around Bushwick before going into the City. (I know I broke the “rules” by choosing something without a photo, but it’s a 400sqft studio — what is there to it?) PETS OK Pilling and Bushwick

We’re not in South Florida anymore, Niko.

I think of my house as a little bit of Miami in Brooklyn. There are four of us in here from the Magic City, and depending on who’s home, the stairwells smell of bistec empanizado and tostones, and fear not — someone will hook you up with something made of guava or tamarind, or the magic cheese that does not melt even when thrown in a frying pan.

The Changeling’s post about Broadway on BedStuyBlog today made me realize I hadn’t yet mentioned in these pages that there is a major outpost of Miami fast food here in Bushwick — Pollo Tropical. Housed in a freakishly-converted old brick commercial building (the upper half seems to be still abandoned!), it’s like a beacon of familiarity for us in this land of fried chicken, tacos, and different-enough-to-be-strange (though delicious!) Puerto Rican food. It’s a chain that makes Cuban food pretty well, very fast, and relatively cheaply. They sell all kinds of Caribbean food — apparently — but I’m not there for Jamaican jerk chicken, which they clearly only sell because of the likely local clientele. I want pork and rice and BLACK beans, please; I only eat red beans if Haitians touched them first.

The “Tropichop” is their BigMac or Whopper: a big bowl of all the staples. The chicken version is not so great, but the pork is awesome. Their maduros are always flawlessly caramelized outside, creamy and ripe inside. Their yuca is always perfectly frita, golden and flaky outside, soft and spongy inside, the better to soak up all that mojo (garlic, olive oil, OJ). Their desserts are okay — prepackaged flan and tres leches leave much to be desired, but hit the spot if you don’t mind a bit of partially hydrogenated petroleum oil and monosodium poisonate (Simpsons ref).

When we found out the only New York location was down the street, we rushed over there and pigged out until we had to undo our pants to breathe. It’s no Versailles (that’s Ver-sigh-yes), but if you need a big dose of Cubanidad, head to Broadway and stuff yourself full of the closest thing.

The battlefield.

The Brooklyn blogosphere is filled with many tales of woe, of homeland lost to marauding invaders. The occupiers are called many names: that weird bamboo stuff, that gross reddish-green alien-lookin weed; but their true name is Japanese Knotweed, and they are a cruel master. Nobody quite knows why they came: there’s even a rumor that they were invited as mercenaries to keep the wanderlustful soil from running away. Some claim they were first brought here for their exotic beauty. more »

Skewville sneakers (Juxtapoz magazine)

Official release from Ad Hoc on their latest show/event, “No Sleep ’til Bushwick”:

“Featuring artwork and installations from New York’s finest street legends… BAST, AIKO (of Faile) and SKEWVILLE along with special guest Chris Mendoza from the Barnstormers. Individually these artists are known all over the world for their contributions in street-art and will come together locally to show that they never forgot where they came from.”

Here’s what some attendees had to say:

-“If you missed the Faile show last weekend in Manhattan you’ll definitely want to make the trek out for this one.”
-“Skewville…hit hard and consistent, with works on wood and metal in a classic ode to the street and street fixtures.”
-“The pieces in the show were mesmerizing, Skewville’s stuff especially rocking.”
-A ton of great photos from Juxtapoz Magazine

Ad Hoc Art, 49 Bogart Street, show runs until July 15

The Brooklyn Paper visited Morgantown this weekend for its piece entitled “Bush-where?” They briefly reviewed all the places we’re already sick of (just kidding! no but seriously) after making an attempt to wade through the East Williamsburg-Bushwick label feud. Brave.

Organic development, that is. I’m not so sure many of the people opposed to the Atlantic Yards project would be the staunch foes of eminent domain that they are without the kick in the pants a cluster of giant taxpayer-funded shadowcasting skyscrapers provides. The folks at The Brooklyn Paper, on the other hand, in cheering the renaissance of Fourth Avenue, a formerly dour, semi-industrial stretch on the western border of Park Slope, prove they understand what it takes to build a great city. Hint: it’s not planning by bureaucrats. It’s individual developers responding to market demand, factoring in all risk and carrying it on their shoulders alone. The City simply had to get out of the way and let them build what they would. Maybe much of the new stuff won’t make it into Dwell any time soon, but developers — and their clients, for that matter — don’t exist to sate the aesthetic appetites of architecture snobs. Now if we could just get the City the hell out of Bushwick — they have done enough damage over the decades.

Kudos to TBP for keepin it real and hat tip to Brownstoner for bringing it to my attention.

Red Fire Escape (Ready, Set, Go), Meryl Meisler, March 1984

Blast from the past: I found a New York Times article from 1986 about the 70s blockbusting of Bushwick.

In a five-year period in the late 1960’s and early 70’s, the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn was transformed from a neatly maintained community of wood houses into what often approached a no man’s land of abandoned buildings, empty lots, drugs and arson.

Five years is fast for such a steep decline. The article goes on to say that it was the abuse of FHA mortgage guarantees that is to blame, and that it was mostly one company that lead the wholesale flipping of Bushwick.

The key bit here is that if the Feds had not been guaranteeing mortgages (bailing out banks for taking reckless risks), blockbusting could never have happened. The FHA, in effect, financed the destruction of Bushwick and countless other communities across the country. The fires, the vacancies, all those empty lots — point your blaming fingers at the federal government for way overstretching its bounds. This world is littered with the ashes, rubble, and corpses of good intentions, and for a long time in Bushwick you could find all three.