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History of Bushwick
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By the time of the Backout on July 13, 1977, Bushwick was in far worse
condition that it had been in 1969. On that fateful night and the
following days, hundreds of Bushwick stores were looted, many were
destroyed permanently and fires burned everywhere. Flatbush, Pitkin,
Utica and other shopping streets were looted, but none suffered as
much as Bushwick�s Broadway or took as long to recover. One third of
the stores closed after the Blackout and a year later 43% were
vacant. An arson fire in an abandoned factory at Knickerbocker and
Bleecker destroyed 4 blocks and 45 homes, the second worst fire in the
history of New York.
Many people, including city officials, were quoted afterwards as
doubting whether Bushwick could be rebuilt, or if it were even worth
the effort to try. Some believe that that attitude resulted in
wholesale demolition of far too many buildings.
Bushwick�s other shopping strip, Knickerbocker Avenue, lost fewer
stores, because many of the owners lived in the area and spent
Blackout night protecting their stores with the help of neighbors.
Broadway merchants lived outside Bushwick, and few could get back in
time to head off the looters, who appeared almost immediately after
the lights went out, ready with their shopping carts to �get theirs�.
Broadway, from Flushing Avenue to Eastern Parkway, had been losing
stores and its market population for years. By 1977 it was no longer
a continuous strip, but three distinct strips separated by abandoned
stores and factories. Stores regularly went out of business between
1975 and 1977, but the Blackout was the final blow.
The results of the Blackout can be quickly summarized in the
population figures:
�
138,000
residents in 1970
�
122,000 in
1975
�
93,000 in
1980
Parochial schools were closing before the Blackout and even a church
like St. Barbara�s was in danger of closing in 1979. Fortunately, it
did not.
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