Bushwick made national news in 1977 when the New York City Blackout
unleashed a riot that left the already impoverished neighborhood
destitute–134 stores looted, 44 of them burnt to the ground, fires
flickering for a week. In the late sixties, unscrupulous real estate
agents began “blockbusting,” leaving disturbing messages about the
influx of Southern Blacks and Puerto Ricans to encourage the
historically white homeowners to sell. Bought cheap, those homes were
sold at much higher prices under bad loans and abandoned by their new
owners within a few years. In 1972, the city had estimated at least 500 homes
in the neighborhood stood empty. Hoping to collect on insurance
policies, some desperate owners set their homes on fire.
Gang crime also
proliferated, starting fires that would rip through tightly packed
wooden frame buildings in order to collect wiring and copper once the
fire department had tamped the flames. Some parents would put their
children to sleep in street clothes in case their building was ignited
during the night. When the city nearly went bankrupt, budget cuts
drastically reduced the number of police officers and fire fighters,
allowing the mayhem to grow in poor neighborhoods like Bushwick. One
apartment building was raided by a crew who started pulling piping from
the walls; residents phone calls to the police precinct went unanswered
for three weeks. The Blackout simply released what little was still
being controlled.
The Eighties crack epidemic naturally
scoured Bushwick. One area was dubbed The Well for its ceaseless drug
supply. Abandoned buildings made natural havens for the city’s poor and
desperate. Gang violence escalated. The often berated “draconian” crime
reduction policies that Giuliani instated, however, helped reduce
Bushwick crime 66% between 1990 and 1998. As the neighborhood calmed
down, across the first decade of this century, artists moved to the
large loft spaces as other neighborhoods got too expensive.
Now,
Bushwick thrives. Shared work spaces like Bat Haus (279 Starr Street,
off the Jefferson stop) and 3rd Ward (195 Morgan Avenue) provide space
for small business owners to operate outside of their home among other
young, idea-driven entrepreneurs. These spaces offer classes in
everything from how to write an “About You” page on a website, to
woodworking, to mastering various computer programs. Of course, crime
remains in Bushwick as it does in every neighborhood in New York, but
the graffiti is renowned and respected, and street scenes are often
being shot by aspiring directors and photographers.
At Bushwick Open Studios, the history of the neighborhood is washed out in the ardent art enthusiasm. In a few years, like SoHo, that too will be forgotten. Who knows what art does to you personally, but it certainly changes a neighborhood.
Bushwick Open Studios, pt 2- food and fun
Just like the program, the app will include all the participating galleries, venues, studios with artists names and addresses. As BOS has grown, the galleries and venues have become major destinations because they are large and central. The BogArt collects over a dozen galleries within its industrial building who collaborate on openings and events to support each other’s efforts (56 Bogart, across the street from the back exit of the Morgan Ave L train). English Kills remains a local favorite (114 Forrest St). While Norte Maar has been called “the beating heart of the Bushwick art scene” (83 Wyckoff Avenue, #1B). These galleries are major sponsors of the festival because they are also important galleries for local artists and deeply rooted in the Bushwick scene of the last decade. These locations know who’s who and what’s what, so can answer many questions about what you are seeing. Curated galleries establish a certain standard in the quality of work, but don’t avoid the smaller ones. Paul D’Agostino runs Centotto Gallery out of his apartment, politely welcoming MoMA curators and other art world leviathans to his small but significant salon (250 Moore Street #108). Most recently Roberta Smith positively reviewed D’Agostino’s own collage works and drawings, but in keeping with the Bushwick ethos, Paul determined that this year’s BOS would still see Centotto Gallery displaying artists whose works he hopes will get more notice for his support. He plans to send his visitors onward to the artists’ studios whose work he is showing. It is after all “Bushwick Open Studios,” he emphasizes.
Studio visits can be off putting because it is such a mixed bag. Last year, one attendee complained that she walked into someone’s living room where they had push-pinned some drawings that had clearly been scrawled with little effort. The artist seemed indifferent to her presence, drinking a beer on his couch. Why did he bother, she asked upon arriving at the studio of a full-time professional painter, Tim Kent (250 Moore St #104). He declined to answer, but proceeded to tell her about his interest in perspective, the English tradition of interior design, his influences, why he continues to love oil painting, and then over a slice of watermelon, introduced her to another guest. Discovering that they shared acquaintances, the two visitors joined forces and information, happily setting off to see more work together. Studio tours may sometimes be dismal, but they also provide a setting for such serendipitous encounters.
Most people are familiar with the Bushwick area around the Morgan Avenue stop, where many of the galleries already mentioned are located. In 2012, the Bushwick art scene centered around Morgan in part because of the group gallery building at 56 Bogart but also because Luhring Augustine, the renowned Chelsea gallery, opened a space within walking distance (25 Knickerbocker Ave). The gallery has done little to become a part of the community; it will be open during BOS, but is not participating as a sponsor or a hub. Its presence however makes an important statement about Bushwick’s place in the ever shifting, always seeking, art scene of New York City.
Despite the growing art community, many visitors to the Morgan area have never entered a gallery. They were lured there by Roberta’s pizza. Lauded by foodies internationally, Roberta’s helped make the immediate neighborhood a destination spot. Anytime after 7PM, diners can wait up to three hours to be seated–and do, so expect an even longer wait if you want to get a meal there during the festival (261 Moore Street). Momo’s, the communal-table sushi restaurant around the corner, has received commendations in New York and London newspapers, but before those reviews used to post on their street sign: “Roberta’s packed? Come on in!” Now, Momo’s diners too can have a long wait. Tutu’s just opened this Spring but already has a loyal following, with music playing in their three rooms on weekends (25 Bogart Street).
Besides such fine dining, Bogart street provides plenty of quick and easy food options: two delis with plenty of organic choices, a falafel joint and Swallow, the coffee bar that took over one of the neighborhood’s first establishments, The Archive. Stepping off Bogart even just a few paces will reveal Fine and Raw, a chocolate factory (288 Seigel Street); Shinobi, a small spot that serves homemade ramen soup (53 Morgan Avenue); L’Ange Noir, serving typical coffee shop fare (247 Varet Street); and 983 which took over the space when the much beloved East Village off-shoot, Life Café 983, closed its doors in 2011, and continues to serve satisfying American comfort food (983 Flushing Avenue). During BOS, boutique food trucks also offer an assortment of fancy foods.
Unlike Williamsburg’s long main stretch, Bushwick has many pockets, each vital with its own great restaurants, bars and shops. Different scenes grow around various stops along the L train with stretches of nothing in between. Four busy blocks in Manhattan can be four long, desolate, industrial wastelands in Bushwick. A short distance on the map can suddenly feel drawn out when walking past windowless buildings with loading docks filling large brandless Mac trucks. Crowds center during the festival within particular busy points, and going from one to the next usually includes other wanderers, but every once and a while you’ll have the same experience of every Bushwick resident when you wonder where am I, and should I be going in this direction? The barren emptiness is a reminder of Bushwick’s slow rise out of destitution.
Arts in Bushwick hopes to keep the neighborhood a space for artists in all media to live and work, so that they don’t get pushed out of yet another neighborhood. The Bushwick Open Studios festival encourages work across the arts to help cement a general arts community. After the noon to seven period when most studios and galleries are open, the BOS night offers a range of happenings. Galleries have dance parties, but there are many performance events as well. Artists who’ve been inside studios spill out of their buildings, and the streets overflow as groups head to a dance show or a theatrical, a poetry reading or a music concert. Sunday will launch the first CinemaSunday, screening the efforts of local filmmakers. Unlike the rest of BOS, CinemaSunday works will have gone through a selection process and has been scheduled as the closing event of the festival. The screening will be held at Bat Haus, followed by a barbecue and dance party.
Bushwick likes to party and Bushwick Open Studios revels in presenting the enthusiasm of today’s lesser known artists. Irony is prevalent in New York and the art world, except among those who can’t afford to be blasé about their passion. Producing art has never been easy but the rising costs of New York make it ever more difficult. Certainly the neighborhood has its share of pretenders–any art scene will. Those indifferent hipsters may be a crime against Fashion and Reason but they keep the restaurants and bars in business while the real artists work behind industrial walls that haven’t yet been zoned residential, that haven’t yet become yuppy havens. For now, Bushwick artists offer a refreshing breath of earnest pleasure in the real struggle that is making art. The 2013, 7th Annual Bushwick Open Studios is a weekend long opportunity to observe art so fresh the paint’s still wet, to be inspired by the effort these artists make to keep their work real, to participate in a community committed to art.
Studio visits can be off putting because it is such a mixed bag. Last year, one attendee complained that she walked into someone’s living room where they had push-pinned some drawings that had clearly been scrawled with little effort. The artist seemed indifferent to her presence, drinking a beer on his couch. Why did he bother, she asked upon arriving at the studio of a full-time professional painter, Tim Kent (250 Moore St #104). He declined to answer, but proceeded to tell her about his interest in perspective, the English tradition of interior design, his influences, why he continues to love oil painting, and then over a slice of watermelon, introduced her to another guest. Discovering that they shared acquaintances, the two visitors joined forces and information, happily setting off to see more work together. Studio tours may sometimes be dismal, but they also provide a setting for such serendipitous encounters.
Most people are familiar with the Bushwick area around the Morgan Avenue stop, where many of the galleries already mentioned are located. In 2012, the Bushwick art scene centered around Morgan in part because of the group gallery building at 56 Bogart but also because Luhring Augustine, the renowned Chelsea gallery, opened a space within walking distance (25 Knickerbocker Ave). The gallery has done little to become a part of the community; it will be open during BOS, but is not participating as a sponsor or a hub. Its presence however makes an important statement about Bushwick’s place in the ever shifting, always seeking, art scene of New York City.
Despite the growing art community, many visitors to the Morgan area have never entered a gallery. They were lured there by Roberta’s pizza. Lauded by foodies internationally, Roberta’s helped make the immediate neighborhood a destination spot. Anytime after 7PM, diners can wait up to three hours to be seated–and do, so expect an even longer wait if you want to get a meal there during the festival (261 Moore Street). Momo’s, the communal-table sushi restaurant around the corner, has received commendations in New York and London newspapers, but before those reviews used to post on their street sign: “Roberta’s packed? Come on in!” Now, Momo’s diners too can have a long wait. Tutu’s just opened this Spring but already has a loyal following, with music playing in their three rooms on weekends (25 Bogart Street).
Besides such fine dining, Bogart street provides plenty of quick and easy food options: two delis with plenty of organic choices, a falafel joint and Swallow, the coffee bar that took over one of the neighborhood’s first establishments, The Archive. Stepping off Bogart even just a few paces will reveal Fine and Raw, a chocolate factory (288 Seigel Street); Shinobi, a small spot that serves homemade ramen soup (53 Morgan Avenue); L’Ange Noir, serving typical coffee shop fare (247 Varet Street); and 983 which took over the space when the much beloved East Village off-shoot, Life Café 983, closed its doors in 2011, and continues to serve satisfying American comfort food (983 Flushing Avenue). During BOS, boutique food trucks also offer an assortment of fancy foods.
Unlike Williamsburg’s long main stretch, Bushwick has many pockets, each vital with its own great restaurants, bars and shops. Different scenes grow around various stops along the L train with stretches of nothing in between. Four busy blocks in Manhattan can be four long, desolate, industrial wastelands in Bushwick. A short distance on the map can suddenly feel drawn out when walking past windowless buildings with loading docks filling large brandless Mac trucks. Crowds center during the festival within particular busy points, and going from one to the next usually includes other wanderers, but every once and a while you’ll have the same experience of every Bushwick resident when you wonder where am I, and should I be going in this direction? The barren emptiness is a reminder of Bushwick’s slow rise out of destitution.
Arts in Bushwick hopes to keep the neighborhood a space for artists in all media to live and work, so that they don’t get pushed out of yet another neighborhood. The Bushwick Open Studios festival encourages work across the arts to help cement a general arts community. After the noon to seven period when most studios and galleries are open, the BOS night offers a range of happenings. Galleries have dance parties, but there are many performance events as well. Artists who’ve been inside studios spill out of their buildings, and the streets overflow as groups head to a dance show or a theatrical, a poetry reading or a music concert. Sunday will launch the first CinemaSunday, screening the efforts of local filmmakers. Unlike the rest of BOS, CinemaSunday works will have gone through a selection process and has been scheduled as the closing event of the festival. The screening will be held at Bat Haus, followed by a barbecue and dance party.
Bushwick likes to party and Bushwick Open Studios revels in presenting the enthusiasm of today’s lesser known artists. Irony is prevalent in New York and the art world, except among those who can’t afford to be blasé about their passion. Producing art has never been easy but the rising costs of New York make it ever more difficult. Certainly the neighborhood has its share of pretenders–any art scene will. Those indifferent hipsters may be a crime against Fashion and Reason but they keep the restaurants and bars in business while the real artists work behind industrial walls that haven’t yet been zoned residential, that haven’t yet become yuppy havens. For now, Bushwick artists offer a refreshing breath of earnest pleasure in the real struggle that is making art. The 2013, 7th Annual Bushwick Open Studios is a weekend long opportunity to observe art so fresh the paint’s still wet, to be inspired by the effort these artists make to keep their work real, to participate in a community committed to art.
Bushwick Open Studios, pt 1
Booming Bushwick: 7th Annual Bushwick Open Studios
Bushwick Open Studios launches its seventh annual arts festival on Friday, May 31st with over 500 artists’ studios and galleries participating in the weekend long event. In a three square mile area, in lofts, residential buildings, art spaces, up stairs, on rooftops, in basements and on the street, deciding what to see becomes in part a question of how to navigate the scene. Do not expect the pristine and polite gallery walks of other art neighborhoods. This is a homegrown extravaganza, a fascinating fun-house.
Unlike curated festivals, the offerings at Bushwick Open Studios range in style and skill. Anyone can register to participate by filling an online form and attending one of the mixer events. These gatherings are required, and instill a sense of community among the participants, who range from after-work, occasional scribblers to full-time, professional artists. There are sculptors, woodworkers, oil painters, landscape painters, collagers, watercolorists, graffiti artists, sketch artists, installation artists, portraitists, conceptualists, photographers, curators, gallerists, art professors, students, all of the above and none of the above, because there are also events with actors, dancers, musicians and more. It’s hodge podge of what is being created today, with all the terrible and the great inherent in such a wide array.
Arts in Bushwick, the oversight organization, was begun by fifteen grassroots organizers and local artists in 2007 to promote an integrated, sustainable community that could counter development-driven displacement. Artists have been pushed out of the West Village, SoHo, the East Village, Williamsburg, and Dumbo because of development plans to upscale and gentrify. Arts in Bushwick gathers artists through the annual festival to create a sense of commitment to the neighborhood as a vibrant and authentic arts quarter. The organization is completely volunteer driven and non-hierarchical, and much to everyone’s continued surprise runs an orderly, engaging, and exciting three day festival, every year on the first weekend in June.
This year the festival will officially open at Shea Stadium–not the sports arena, but the recording studio, all-ages showspace, and radio station that’s been hailed by NPR, The New York Times, The Village Voice and others (20 Meadow Street, halfway between the Montrose and Grand Street L train stops). Just as artists in New York wear many hats so do their spaces often include several business angles, so don’t be surprised when you stop by a gallery-boutique bookbinder-monthly dance space. Such collaborations are particularly common among Bushwick’s small business owners. Shea Stadium will provide music and celebration, enthusiasm and noise on Friday night starting at 7PM. Some programs will be available (as they usually are at every studio and gallery) but information on what and where will always be available at any one of the several dozen “hubs” the festival has established, precisely to help those unfamiliar with the neighborhood.
“Hubs” are major galleries, bars, cafés and venues that have committed to remain open throughout the weekend to answer questions, provide directions, offer a bathroom and hand you a program. Located near subway stations and bus stops, they will have information on events and activities, as well as maps to guide the perplexed. A full list of all the hubs is still being developed but will be provided online for newcomers. All participants are identifiable by signs with a large red dot on a white square that includes their identification number in the program. The signs are located on building entrances, apartment and gallery doors, and sometimes on the street to guide audiences to little known locations. Stopping by a hub can help orient a visitor who hasn’t been to the neighborhood before, especially on a weekend that is swarming with people. For those committed to digital platforms, an Android and Apple app is being produced by last year’s volunteer team and should be available for download by mid-May.
Note: As it turned out, Bushwick Open Studios is still scheduling events. Galleries are still selecting who will be in their group shows. Sponsors and Hubs are being determined. As such, much factual information is missing that would need to be included for this to be an actual presentation of the upcoming BOS 2013. Instead, I did an overview of the event, the neighborhood and area to help prepare visitors about the general scene. By the beginning of May, it will be possible to include a great deal more information (which food trucks will be there, what galleries will have on display, what evening events are scheduled, and so forth).
Bushwick Open Studios launches its seventh annual arts festival on Friday, May 31st with over 500 artists’ studios and galleries participating in the weekend long event. In a three square mile area, in lofts, residential buildings, art spaces, up stairs, on rooftops, in basements and on the street, deciding what to see becomes in part a question of how to navigate the scene. Do not expect the pristine and polite gallery walks of other art neighborhoods. This is a homegrown extravaganza, a fascinating fun-house.
Unlike curated festivals, the offerings at Bushwick Open Studios range in style and skill. Anyone can register to participate by filling an online form and attending one of the mixer events. These gatherings are required, and instill a sense of community among the participants, who range from after-work, occasional scribblers to full-time, professional artists. There are sculptors, woodworkers, oil painters, landscape painters, collagers, watercolorists, graffiti artists, sketch artists, installation artists, portraitists, conceptualists, photographers, curators, gallerists, art professors, students, all of the above and none of the above, because there are also events with actors, dancers, musicians and more. It’s hodge podge of what is being created today, with all the terrible and the great inherent in such a wide array.
Arts in Bushwick, the oversight organization, was begun by fifteen grassroots organizers and local artists in 2007 to promote an integrated, sustainable community that could counter development-driven displacement. Artists have been pushed out of the West Village, SoHo, the East Village, Williamsburg, and Dumbo because of development plans to upscale and gentrify. Arts in Bushwick gathers artists through the annual festival to create a sense of commitment to the neighborhood as a vibrant and authentic arts quarter. The organization is completely volunteer driven and non-hierarchical, and much to everyone’s continued surprise runs an orderly, engaging, and exciting three day festival, every year on the first weekend in June.
This year the festival will officially open at Shea Stadium–not the sports arena, but the recording studio, all-ages showspace, and radio station that’s been hailed by NPR, The New York Times, The Village Voice and others (20 Meadow Street, halfway between the Montrose and Grand Street L train stops). Just as artists in New York wear many hats so do their spaces often include several business angles, so don’t be surprised when you stop by a gallery-boutique bookbinder-monthly dance space. Such collaborations are particularly common among Bushwick’s small business owners. Shea Stadium will provide music and celebration, enthusiasm and noise on Friday night starting at 7PM. Some programs will be available (as they usually are at every studio and gallery) but information on what and where will always be available at any one of the several dozen “hubs” the festival has established, precisely to help those unfamiliar with the neighborhood.
“Hubs” are major galleries, bars, cafés and venues that have committed to remain open throughout the weekend to answer questions, provide directions, offer a bathroom and hand you a program. Located near subway stations and bus stops, they will have information on events and activities, as well as maps to guide the perplexed. A full list of all the hubs is still being developed but will be provided online for newcomers. All participants are identifiable by signs with a large red dot on a white square that includes their identification number in the program. The signs are located on building entrances, apartment and gallery doors, and sometimes on the street to guide audiences to little known locations. Stopping by a hub can help orient a visitor who hasn’t been to the neighborhood before, especially on a weekend that is swarming with people. For those committed to digital platforms, an Android and Apple app is being produced by last year’s volunteer team and should be available for download by mid-May.
Note: As it turned out, Bushwick Open Studios is still scheduling events. Galleries are still selecting who will be in their group shows. Sponsors and Hubs are being determined. As such, much factual information is missing that would need to be included for this to be an actual presentation of the upcoming BOS 2013. Instead, I did an overview of the event, the neighborhood and area to help prepare visitors about the general scene. By the beginning of May, it will be possible to include a great deal more information (which food trucks will be there, what galleries will have on display, what evening events are scheduled, and so forth).
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