WWW.QNS.COM RIDGEWOOD TIMES JULY 20, 2017 19
OUR NEIGHBORHOOD: THE WAY IT WAS
forever changed Bushwick
close that night and never re-open.
This was a horribly destructive,
though not entirely irrational, act
committed in a very troubled time.
As a witness to the blackout’s devastation,
I walked through Broadway
on the following aft ernoon during
what was basically the third phase
of the looting. I still remember the
horror of the destruction. Specifi cally,
those stores that had not been burned
were now an open target to whoever
wanted to wrest whatever goods still
remained on its shelves. It was all
very ugly.
THE FIRE
While the blackout and
the resulting looting
were major national
news stories that
highlighted the
crisis that affl
icted many of
New York City’s
poor neighborhoods,
it was
the all-hands fi re,
which occurred
only fi ve days aft er
that really put Bushwick
on the map.
Set accidentally
by a few young
people in an
abandoned factory—
now the site of
Mayor Ed Koch came back
to Bushwick in 1978, a year
after his election, to announce
the construction of new
public housing and a new 83rd
the 83rd Precinct
on Knickerbocker
Avenue—the fire
literally exploded and soon engulfed
over twenty buildings situated on
three separate blocks in a matter of
minutes. Remarkably, this confl agration
Precinct.
claimed no lives. The catastrophe,
though, was page one news and
focused national attention upon
Bushwick’s plight.
The very next day, the Executive
Editor of the New York Daily News
contacted the Bushwick Community
Board’s district offi ce and asked to tour
the area. This generated a series of detailed
news stories written by such future
stars as Martin Gottlieb and Sam
Roberts that vividly told Bushwick’s
story to a very wide public. This, in
turn, made the future of Bushwick a
major issue in the 1977 Mayoral race.
It probably doomed Mayor Beame’s
feckless re-election eff ort, and, in a
meeting between the two mayoral
fi nalists, Ed Koch, the ultimate victor,
committed to making the revival of
Bushwick a major priority.
THE RECOVERY
Koch proved good to his word, and
his administration strongly implemented
such eff orts as the demolition
of literally hundreds of abandoned
buildings that horribly blighted much
of the area; the construction of the
Hope Gardens public housing development—
the last major such construction
in NYC to date; the development of
a huge number of Partnership Housing
that made Bushwick an attractive
community for many working class
people who otherwise would have
moved to other neighborhoods; and,
as previously noted, the construction
of a new 83rd Precinct that, at the
insistence of the community
board, rose
phoenix-like over
the ashes of the
all-hands fi re.
Even with
all of these
positive developments,
the road to
Bushwick ’s
recovery was
still a very long
one, and such
serious problems as
a continuing high
crime rate and the
awful impact of the
crack epidemic significantly
slowed
progress.
It was not until
the end of the
last century that a new and revived
Bushwick really began to emerge.
One telling proof of this was that new
housing developments, which previously
required government subsidies
to exist, now were built without any
such support.
In 2007, the 30th anniversary of the
blackout and Bushwick’s road to recovery
were recognized by the Brooklyn
Historical Society’s notable “Up From
Flames” exhibition, which was organized
by the superb Adam Schwartz.
At that time, the celebration of
Bushwick’s revival was tempered by
the fear that the pendulum was now
swinging in the direction of runaway
gentrification and the resulting
displacement of the neighborhood’s
poorest residents. The events of the
past decade have, if anything, further
accelerated this trend.
THE FUTURE
As we take a big picture view of both
the past event and future possibilities,
a very ambivalent picture emerges. On
the one hand, it would be foolish to deny
the very signifi cant improvements
that have occurred in Bushwick as
well as the valuable contributions its
newer residents brought about.
In fact, some of the strongest
advocates for the preservation of
Bushwick’s still considerable rent
stabilized housing resources and
the implementation of much needed
zoning reforms have been many of
these new residents. But at the same
time, the sheer force of the current
economic trends does not bode well
for those who will not benefi t from
gentrifi cation, and continuing urban
displacement looms as a continuing—if
not inevitable—possibility.
Hopefully, this projection will
prove to be overly bleak and policymakers
will favor a more balanced
approach. It will require the continuing
eff orts of all Bushwick residents—
both new and old. How successful
these eff orts are will clearly emerge
when we visit the blackout’s 50th
anniversary.
Images courtesy of the FDNY
via Up From Flames,
www.upfromfl ames.brooklynhistory.org,
and the Ridgewood Times archives
Time Credit Jewelers on Broadway was left in ruins by looting
