Bushwick: The Possible Rebirth

(This is graffiti/art work I found outside of Bushwick High School.)

As I walked the streets of Bushwick I could hear my grandmother’s voice saying, “How do you never seem to know where you are?” She has said this to me a number of times when I would call her complaining about being lost.
Today, everything in Bushwick is somewhat new to me even though I have lived here all of my life.
I feel like a commuter rather than a resident. The J train on Broadway (along with my dad’s Ford Explorer) acts as my teleportation device; it gets me from my home on Hancock Street to any destination I want without ever experiencing anything else.
I am eleven years too young to remember the 1977 Blackout that for some reason I cannot seem to forget.  Bushwick goes hand in hand with that infamous event.
“People were walking through the streets with couches!” My grandfather recalls.
“Oh man, remember the number of fires?” My aunt asks while shaking her head.
Broadway was ruined, and until recently, the damage of that one day remained.  That seemed to be the turning point of Bushwick.
The residents, then predominately Dutch, moved away.  Mansions were left behind. The stores didn’t reopen.

http://www.forgotten-ny.com/STREET SCENES/bushwick/bushwick.html – You can copy and paste this link. There is a weird space in between the word street and scenes that will not allow it to open up when directly set as a link.

Today, Broadway is under construction. There are new stores being built and lots being cleaned out.  A Walgreens just recently went up on Gates and Broadway, along with a McDonalds and a Golden Krust that went up a few years ago. This is a big deal because Bushwick is actually developing a better shopping area.
The two main shopping strips are Broadway and Knickerbocker. Knickerbocker has more name brand shops like Jimmy Jazz, Game Stop, and Foot Locker, which increases its popularity.
The neighborhood is quiet without students going to and from school. There is a school within every one to ten blocks of one another. The elementary and junior high schools are fairly close to one another while the high schools are closer to the borders of the neighborhood like Bushwick Community High School and Acorn High School (which is actually located in a building on Broadway that use to be a movie theater.)
There are a lot of houses being renovated, sold and built. Many of these homes are multiple family facilities.  These residential blocks are quiet, too quiet.  Maybe it’s the weather or the fact that students are on winter recess.
Below are a few properties located on Bushwick Avenue that are currently being lived in. These have the appearance of what they used to consider mansions. Can the old Bushwick make a comeback? Only time and the economy will tell.