Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Categories: Brooklyn neighborhoods | Orthodox Jewish communities | Satmar Hasidism | Polish-Americans
Williamsburg is a neighborhood in northern Brooklyn, New York City. It is connected to the East Village and Lower East Side in Manhattan by the Williamsburg Bridge over the East River. Williamsburg is home to many ethnic groups and a thriving art community.
The area originally called Williamsburg is today referred to as "South Williamsburg" and occupied mainly by the Yiddish-speaking Satmar Hassidim, who continue to wear the traditional dress of their ancestors in Europe and adhere closely to Jewish religious law. North of traditional Williamsburg is an area known as South Side, occupied by Puerto Ricans and Dominicans. To the north of that is an area known as North Side, traditionally Polish and Italian, but now hosts increasing numbers of hipsters: artists and those who wish to associate with artists. So-called East Williamsburg is home to many industrial spaces and forms the largely black and Hispanic area between Williamsburg and Bushwick. Williamsburg, South Side, North Side, Greenpoint and East Williamsburg all form Brooklyn Community Board 1. The hipster center of Williamsburg radiates from the strip of Bedford Avenue near the Bedford Avenue Station on the L train, the first stop from Manhattan.
On May 11 2005 the city passed a mammoth rezoning of the North Side and Greenpoint waterfront from manufacturing and low density residential to high density residential with a set aside (but no funding) for the creation of open waterfront park space. The land is being rezoned to permit luxury highrises, high-end retail, a proposed waterfront park, and privately owned riverfront promenades. Proponents of the rezoning seek to gentrify and recast an area currently characterised active warehouses and light industrial, some smaller residential buildings, and a handful of mammoth obsolete manufacturing buildings. The projected increase in the area population is estimated to be 40,000 new residents with an expected correlated increase in property values and real estate tax revenue. Critics of the rezoning have contended that the rezoning will change the existing community's character (Manhattanization) and force out existing residents, and that the plan lacks of adequate provisions for public transportation or public safety infrastructure to accommodate the projected new residents.
Contents |
History
Independent Williamsburgh
In 1638, the Dutch West India Company first purchased the area's land from the local Native Americans. In 1661, the company chartered the Town of Boswijck, including land that would later become Williamsburg. After the English takeover of New Netherland in 1664, the town's name was anglified to Bushwick. In 1802, real estate speculator Richard M. Woodhull acquired 13 acres (53,000 m²) near what would become Metropolitan Avenue, then North 2nd Street. He had Col. Jonathan Williams, a U.S. Engineer, survey the property, and named it Williamsburgh (with an h at the end) in his honor (from the Scots language and Scottish English word burgh, see Williamsburgh).
Williamsburgh was incorporated as the Village of Williamsburgh within the Town of Bushwick in 1827. In two years it had a fire company, a post office and a population of over 1,000. The deep drafts along the East River encouraged industrialists, many from Germany, to build shipyards around Williamsburgh. Raw material was shipped in, and finished products were sent out of many factories straight to the docks. Several sugar barons built processing refineries. Now all are gone except Domino Sugar (formerly Havemeyer & Elder). Shipbuilding was also an important industry here. The great ironclad warship USS Monitor was built in neighboring Greenpoint. And there were several beer breweries as well as a variety of other industries.
Reflecting its increasing urbanization, Williamsburgh separated from Bushwick as the Town of Wiliamsburgh in 1840. It became the City of Williamsburgh in 1852, which was organized into three wards. The old First Ward roughly coincides with the South Side and the Second Ward with the North Side, with the modern boundary at Grand Avenue. The Third Ward was to the east of these, beginning to approach modern Eastern Williamsburg.
In Brooklyn's Eastern District
In 1855, the City of Williamsburgh, along with the adjoining Town of Bushwick, were annexed into the City of Brooklyn as the so-called Eastern District. The First Ward of Williamsburgh became Brooklyn's 13th Ward, the Second Ward Brooklyn's 14th Ward, and the Third Ward Brooklyn's 15th and 16th Wards.
In modern times the conception of Williamsburg (which lost its h with the Brooklyn merger) has expanded to cover areas not historically a part of the City of Williamsburgh. Much of what has later come to be understood as the heart of Williamsburg, the area south of Division Avenue in the west and Broadway in the east, was actually originally the Wallabout section of the City of Brooklyn. Also, much of what is today called East Williamsburg was originally organized as Brooklyn's 18th Ward from the Bushwick annexation, exclusive of the 27th and 28th Wards encompassing what is today called Bushwick, which were split off in 1892.
During its period as part of Brooklyn's Eastern District, the area achieved remarkable industrial, cultural, and economic growth, and local businesses thrived. Wealthy New Yorkers such as Cornelius Vanderbilt and railroad magnate Jim Fisk built shore side mansions. Astral Oil, founded by the Pratt family, which later became part of Standard Oil, was based here. Charles Pratt and his family founded Pratt Institute, the great school of art & architecture. Corning Glass Works was founded here before moving upstate to Corning, New York. Chemist Charles Pfizer founded Pfizer Pharmaceutical in Williamsburgh, and the company still maintains its headquarters in the neighborhood. Brooklyn's Broadway street, ending in the ferry to Manhattan, became the area's lifeline. At one point in the 19th century Williamsburg possessed 10% of the wealth of the United States and was the engine of American growth.
The Kings County Savings Institution was charted on April 10, 1860. It carried in business in a building called Washington Hall until, it purchased the lot on the corner of Bedford Avenue and erected its permanent home, the Kings County Savings Bank building. This was the bank used by the wealthiest men in America. It remains to this day probably the most historically important landmark in Williamsburg, representing a time of conspicuous wealth and the industrial and financial strength of the American phenomenon.
Crossing Boroughs
In 1898 Brooklyn itself became one of five boroughs within the City of Greater New York, and its Williamsburg neighborhood was opened to closer connections with the rest of the new city.
Just five years later, the opening of the Williamsburg Bridge in 1903 marked the real turning point in the area’s history. The community was then opened up to thousands of upwardly mobile immigrants and second-generation Americans fleeing the overcrowded slum tenements of Manhattan's Lower East Side. Williamsburg itself soon became the most densely populated neighborhood in the United States.
After World War II, the economy sagged. Refugees from war-torn Europe began to stream into Brooklyn, including the Hasidim whose populations had been devastated in the Holocaust. Hispanics from Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic also began to settle in Williamsburg. But with he decline of industry and the increase of population and poverty, crime and illegal drugs, Williamsburg became a cauldron of pent-up energies. Those who were able to move out did.
Since the 1980s a flood of artists out of areas like SoHo began to move into Williamsburg for cheap rent and convenient transportation, one subway stop from Manhattan. The community was small at first, but by 1996 Williamsburg had accumulated an artist population of about 3,000. Visitors from around the world started coming to see the new “cutting edge” art scene.
Yuko Nii founded the nonprofit Williamsburg Art & Historical Center(WAH Center) *[[1]] in late 1996 based upon what she calls her "Bridge Concept". She also wanted to preserve the WAH Centers building the Kings County Savings Bank building which is on the National Register of Historic Places and the 7th building to be landmarked in New York City.
Music Scene
In recent years, Williamsburg has become a rival to Manhattan clubs for live music and new bands. Venues like North 6, Galapagos, Warsaw, Pete's Candy Store, Asterisk Art Project, free103point9, Tommy's Tavern, the Glasshouse, the Woodser and the Local (aka Rock Star Bar aka Ship's Mast aka Rocky's aka the Mermaid Bar) are host to most of NYC's newest talents. Jazz has begun to find a foothold in Williamsburg as well, with classic jazz full time at restaurant venues like Zebulon and Moto, and - on the more avant / noise side - at tiny spots like the Lucky Cat, B.P.M., and Eat Records. Many roving warehouse parties have become cultural institutions of themselves for the performing arts in Brooklyn, including Mighty Robot, Twisted Ones, Todd P's parties, and Rubulad.
The neighborhood also has the dubious distinction of being the birthplace of electroclash, a genre fostered by self-styled New York celebrity Larry Tee and his Berliniamsburg parties (he even copyrighted "electroclash," the word). For two years - starting the week before September 11th, 2001 - Tee's Saturday parties at club Luxx (now Trash) introduced lofi electronic performers like W.I.T., A.R.E. Weapons, Avenue D, Misty Martinez and Stalker7. By the summer of 2003, the fad dried up, and Larry Tee's Williamsburg music nights were discontinued.
The neighborhood and its scene has produced alt rock bands such as They Might Be Giants, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, TV on the Radio (who featured an image of the Williamsburg Bridge approach on the cover of their debut EP, Young Liars), Japanther, Oneida, Black Dice, !!! aka Chk Chk Chk, Vic Thrill and Animal Collective.
Rents
Low rents were a major reason why (self-described) artists first started settling in the area, but that situation is changing. Rents in Williamsburg range from approximately $1,000 for a studio, $1,200-1,500 for a one-bedroom, and $1,600-2,000 for a two-bedroom. The North Side (above Grand Street, which separates the North Side from the South Side) and parts of Greenpoint are more expensive, as they are closer to the subway, but the South Side is now becoming quite gentrified as well, making rents similarly high there. Higher rents - and now the imminent spectre of waterfront rezoning and high-rise construction - have driven many priced-out bo-hos to found new creative communities further afield in areas like the East Williamsburg Industrial Park, Bushwick, Bed-Stuy, Clinton Hill and even Red Hook.
Feast of St. Paulinus and Our Lady of Mount Carmel
A significant component of the Italian community on the North Side were immigrants from the city of Nola near Naples. Residents of Nola every summer celebrate the "Festa del Giglio" (feast of lillies) in honor of St. Paulinus of Nola, who was bishop of Nola in the Fifth Century. The immigrants brought the traditions of the feast with them. For two weeks every summer, the streets surrounding Our Lady of Mount Carmel church, located on Havemeyer and North 8th Streets, is dedicated to a celebration of Italian culture. The highlights of the feast are the "Giglio Sundays" when a 100 foot tall statute, complete with band and a singer, is carried around the streets in honor of Paulinus and Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Despite the fact that many of the descendants of the early Italian immigrants have moved away, many return each summer for the feast.
See also
External link
- Williamsboard - a Williamsburg community discussion board
- Our Lady of Mount Carmel Feast
- Free Williamsburg Restaurant Guide
- Free Williamsburg Bar Guide
- Free Williamsburg Gallery Guide
- Williamsburger Neighborhood Guide, Bedford L Stop
- Williamsburger Neighborhood Guide, Lorimer L Stopde:Williamsburg (Brooklyn)