About my Community

From its graffiti-strewn artists' lofts, to the hip-hop shops on Knickerbocker, to the volleyball courts jammed with Hispanic kids in Maria Hernandez Park, Bushwick is as diverse as Brooklyn itself. And it is booming.
This is springtime in the life of Bushwick, with businesses sprouting up across its terrain, the shells of factories being cleaned out and re-inhabited, and sparkling new condos are finding footholds. The late 1970s saw the last area breweries close their doors. And due to the massive blackout and subsequent riots and then sustained power outages and looting, the housing stock declined 20 percent.
This bust and boom comes 350 years after Bushwick, along with its neighboring Williamsburg and southern Queens, was last owned and inhabited by the Canarsie natives. Dutch settlers bought the land in 1638, calling it Boswijck—"town in the woods." Two centuries later, Boswijck joined four towns to its south to become Brooklyn. With the merger, Brooklyn inherited the rich farming community that Bushwick had become (its ethnic composition was never simple: from Dutch, it became predominantly Scandinavian and French, then German in the late 18th Century and Italian in the 20th) and profited from its small breweries.
After 1950, many Italian families were edged out by the influx of alot of Puerto Rican immigrants and African Americans—both of these groups still dominate Bushwick. What's missing is the breweries.
What's here is the mid-"L-ification" of what is becoming "East Williamsburg," with art spaces, vintage stores, organic markets, and music venues popping up between the Montrose and Morgan L train stops. It can be real hip—homemade skirts paired with hundreds-dollar boots don't need to follow their resident wearer to Manhattan on weekends. The cheap west Bushwick loft apartments may be hummus-happy, drafty roach homes, but they are filled with musicians and crafters who create by- hip entertainment at home. One loft contains an indoor skate park; another (a former opera house) has a yoga studio. I saw a post-punk Lauper-wannabe on stage at an art space that seemed to serve homemade moonshine. Archive, a film library and coffee shop, hosts screenings, chats, and occasional music.
But most of the time, hanging in the sunshine at Maria Hernandez Park feels a lot more genuine. One-fifth of the area's residents are on public assistance, and garment factories and pungent food-processing plants are prevalent. But so are Make the Road by Walking, a social justice group comprised of hundreds of low-income community members, and Still We Rise, a nonprofit community-advocacy group focusing on HIV/AIDS, education, and affordable housing in Bushwick.Our families and teens stroll through Knickerbocker,looking for clothes and kicks and scoping out all weekend—it is downright bustling and crazy in the summertime, with ices dripping from many hands. In Bushwick, everything happens in the summertime. Maria Hernandez Park is likewise a neighborhood hub in the summer, where all ages, all languages, and all styles seem comfortable. Yes, like everyother neighborhood in Brooklyn, Bushwick has a small rate of crime but none compared to other parts in Brooklyn. Our politicians, Erik Martin Dilan and Diana Reyna along with the 83rd precint make sure of that.