New York Like a Native
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Bushwick and East Williamsburg tour


Stunning street art, Williamsburg spillover, food/drink influx, real estate gold rush, and a complicated history characterize Bushwick and East Williamsburg.

Brooklyn tour: a vegan bar in East Williamsburg/Bushwick called the Pine Box Rock ShopEast Williamsburg: Pine Box Rock Shop
The borderland of East Williamsburg and Bushwick has generated huge buzz for its influx of artists and hipsters moving east along the L train from Williamsburg, and galleries, bars, restaurants, and building conversions have proliferated. 

Since 2012, the outdoor gallery known as the Bushwick Collective has transformed a dowdy industrial zone into a internationally-known street art haven. (We will see a good amount of street art. But if you want a tour focused on street art, please choose one of them!)

But these neighborhoods have a deeper, more complicated, and more fraught history (which is why a street art celebration has faced protests).

We'll see signs of Bushwick's brewing history, fueled by a German population, in mansions and closed breweries. We'll see a few signs of the neighborhood's Italian heritage, and more that reflect the Latino (Puerto Rican, Dominican, Mexican, Ecuadorian) presence that later transformed Bushwick.

While we won't see 1970s decline (including a massive blackout, looting, and arson), we will see the response: the public investment in housing and other structures spurred by neighborhood activism and local political leadership. We'll see a park named for a brave crusader against drug dealing.

And we'll see the new investment, both recent and in-process, that has both drawn media attention as well as local resistance to gentrification, given displacement of the majority Hispanic population. It's at the heart of some recent debates, such as in the series from WNYC/The Nation called "There Goes the Neighborhood."

Note: we could easily extend a Williamsburg tour to visit East Williamsburg and Bushwick, focusing on the street art and (on weekends) some galleries. But we also can spend a full tour looking more broadly at these changing and charged neighborhoods.

Contact me

Distance from Midtown Manhattan: 30-35 minutes by subway

Basic tour length: 2.5 hours (see fees) or do add on with Williamsburg

Starting place: Near L train; note that, on weekends, the L train is very infrequent

Ending place: Near J train, L train

Highlights: Street art, galleries, gentrification

Before/after tour: Many food options, including Roberta's

Potential tour extensions with me: Williamsburg, Greenpoint, Ridgewood


Why I like leading this tour: In various articles and social media, "Bushwick" gets a lot of attention, but those often refer to only a tiny slice. It's a huge neighborhood worth more thoughtful attention.
New York Like A Native: Energetic, eclectic tours of Brooklyn & beyond. Experienced guide. Personal service.
  • Home
    • Brooklyn 101 tour >
      • Brooklyn 202 tour
  • Brooklyn tours
    • North & west of Prospect Park >
      • Fort Greene & Clinton Hill tour
      • DUMBO, Fulton Ferry, Brooklyn Heights tour
      • Park Slope tour
      • Brooklyn Bridge (and more) tour
      • Atlantic Avenue & Downtown Brooklyn
      • Cobble Hill/Carroll Gardens tour
      • Red Hook tour
    • Williamsburg & north Brooklyn >
      • Williamsburg tour
      • Greenpoint tour
      • Bushwick and East Williamsburg tour
    • Central Brooklyn >
      • Bedford-Stuyvesant tour
      • Crown Heights tour
      • (Not Just) Victorian Flatbush tour
      • Green-Wood Cemetery tour
    • Coney Island and southern Brooklyn >
      • Coney Island Webinar, Virtual Tour, & Resources
      • Coney Island (& Brighton Beach) tour
      • Sunset Park tour
      • Bensonhurst tour
      • Bay Ridge tour
    • Jewish, food, and Xmas lights tours >
      • Jewish Neighborhood Tours
      • Food, dessert, ice cream tours
      • Dyker Heights Christmas Lights tour
    • Moving to Brooklyn/layover tours >
      • Moving to/Studying in/Retiring in Brooklyn
      • Airport/Cruise/Layover tours in Brooklyn
    • Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park/Barclays Center
  • Beyond Brooklyn
    • Jackson Heights tour
    • Lower East Side tour
    • Long Island City tour
    • Ridgewood tour
    • Sunnyside & LIC East
  • About your guide
  • Fees/Schedule/FAQ
    • Fees for private tours
    • Schedule
    • FAQ
    • Vehicle and custom tours
    • Tours for classes
    • Resources on Brooklyn
    • How to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge
  • Contact me/Book
  • Blog