Bushwick and East Williamsburg tour

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Stunning street art, Williamsburg spillover, and a complicated history

East 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).

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What we'll see in Bushwick

We'll see signs of Bushwick's brewing history, fueled by a German population, in mansions and closed breweries.

A few signs of the neighborhood's Italian heritage remain, but far 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 political leadership.

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The buzz builds in Bushwick

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.

Food, nightclubs, street art can make for a buzzy scene on certain blocks, though the neighborhood is far more complicated.
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Note: we could easily extend a Williamsburg tour to visit East Williamsburg and Bushwick, touching 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.

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Distance from Midtown Manhattan: 30-35 minutes by subway

​​Cost: see fees here

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

Starting place: Near L train

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.