Telling me “pack a bag full of all your favorite things” was my parents’ last memory of Bushwick, in 1993, as they crammed my sister and me into my father’s silver Chevy Nova as FBI agents swarmed the surrounding area.
Recently, nearly 30 years later, I returned to Bushwick, with my parents, to give them a guided tour of the ever-changing neighborhood.
Huddled together, we exited the DeKalb Avenue L stop, squinting down several blocks like tourists, through the faded mist and the graffiti-filled walls. All my mother could remember was the vision of my sister and me in a maze of bright, yellow crime scene tape with our algebra textbook watching police officers interview witnesses linked to the murder that happened next door.
Memories heavily weighed on their minds as we started our walk.
My parents, who immigrated here in 1969, both came from small towns in Italy. They moved to Bushwick after they were married to find work so they could have a family. America, at that time, had promised what most places couldn’t – a job. They were both proud, leaving their families behind and focused on building a new family network of friends in New York so they could fill the house with people during the holidays.
But, after raising three daughters and trying to make ends meet, “we were done living in fear,” they said. I remembered my parents sitting at the edge of the bed as my sister and I eavesdropped through the door. “It’s not safe anymore,’ my dad said to my mom.
It was moments later when we left and moved in with my oldest sister who, months before, got married and moved to Queens.
Even though I knew going back to Bushwick would be hard for my parents, I wanted them to see how the neighborhood had changed so they could create new memories and let go of the past that always lingered.
Shopping on Myrtle and Knickerbocker Avenues
We began to walk to Myrtle Avenue. Surrounded by families preparing for outdoor BBQs, my mother slowly became more comfortable. She let go of my father’s arm and allowed the memories to rush back.
She shared stories of my sister and me playing house, pushing the supermarket cart, excited to fill it with more food than we could eat. With three kids, my mother explained, money was tight and we were always running out of food. Food shopping was a family effort, yet my parents always found ways to keep us entertained.
“I walked, with a baby carriage, pushing the cart and holding bags of food up and down Knickerbocker Avenue, every day,” my mother said as she limped because of the many back issues she suffers from now.
“Your dad was always worried. I had to call him at work every time I arrived home so he knew we were okay.”
Art on Wyckoff Avenue
After some needed retail therapy (my dad bought his favorite Mexican and Italian soccer jerseys in one of the many shops we went to), we continued our tour. As we kept walking, we moved closer to Wyckoff Avenue and the life within.
Artwork by @BushwickCollective
“It’s like a museum,” my parents said, as they took it all in. Now, tourists and photographers come from all over the world to take guided tours of Bushwick. My parents were amazed by this. “I can’t believe it,” my mother kept saying. She roamed around Wyckoff Avenue in astonishment, remembering the hardships these streets endured during the ‘70s and ‘80s.
“This is where your friend got shot,” my parents recalled. These were the same streets I was once forbidden to walk through alone.
The streets back then were raw, full of drugs, murder and everything in between. “We didn’t want to give up,” my dad said. “I tried making the backyard into an oasis so we didn’t have to leave the house.”
But eventually, that concept began to fade when my dad was mugged in the backyard in the late 80s. “I added barbed wire and iron window guards everywhere, but it only made us prisoners,” he said.
Energy of Bushwick
It was nostalgic going back after nearly 30 years to walk the streets as an adult with my parents. There is incredible energy in Bushwick. Throughout the day, more people gathered outside to have lunch, and the summer heat got more intense.
My father studied the blocks that were once filled with old factories and industrial buildings. He was excited to see them transformed into chic and re-purposed plant-based restaurants or art studios.
As he touched the walls, looking up and down the streets, he was excited by the life and art around him. He remembered working as a welder and using his interest in sculpting to encourage my love for the arts. Occasionally, when I would least expect it, he would weld small statues of bikes or giraffes to surprise me. It was through these gestures my love for design became real.
“Even in the summer heat, I would carry large metal pipes to and from the factories,” he shared.
Vintage Style
In Bushwick, you’re surrounded by textures, patterns and colors. Vibrant and edgy clothing made those who we passed blend into the aesthetic of the neighborhood and stand out as works of art themselves.
Growing up, my mother was a seamstress. She remembered getting fabrics from neighbors, using old curtains or anything she could find to make our dresses.
Fashion in the 80s still held onto the hippie vibe, and that cool vintage style has made its way back. My mother was so mesmerized by the fashion she saw that she missed creating designs for us like when we were kids.
As a young couple walked by wearing bell bottoms, my mother’s memory activated, telling me how she used to make bell bottoms from buying fabrics on Myrtle Avenue. “The fabrics on sale were always the best ones,” she said smiling.
The more photos I took, the more the people emerged. You can hear over 130 languages spoken amid these cemented stoops.
St. Nick
As we got ready to go home, there was one last stop we had to make. I knew that taking them back to St. Nicholas Avenue, to their first apartment building, was going to be emotional.
“St. Nicholas Ave!” My father said as walked by their old apartment building. “The door is still the same.” I can see the nostalgia in his eyes as he looked past the aged wood on the door. It was a moment I will never forget. My dad stood there, hands crossed in front of him trying hard not to show any emotion. I thought back to the anxiety my parents had when we first got here hours ago. It was worth every moment to finally show them the oasis that is now Bushwick.
Even though many things have changed, Bushwick still retains that unique sense of belonging and community. It’s a comforting feeling that reminds me not only of my
childhood but of the future.
Images: Angela Ambrosini
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This is so gross and racist. Below are two quotes just to point out this false white nostalgia for a bushwick that was once so “dangerous.” As if the evictions poor black and brown low income BIpoc immigrant working class families aren’t modern day hardships.
This white colonized point of of view shown by the author completely glosses over and romanticizes how gentrification has impacted the neighborhood.
“She roamed around Wyckoff Avenue in astonishment, remembering the hardships these streets endured during the ‘70s and ‘80s. “This is where your friend got shot,” my parents recalled. These were the same streets I was once forbidden to walk through alone.”
UHHHH okay. There are still streets were people get hurt. Did you forget about the women that were assaulted along Morgan last fall.
“The streets back then were raw, full of drugs, murder and everything in between. “We didn’t want to give up,” my dad said.
HMMMMMMMM way to NOT point out that black and brown families were suffering from the lack of city investment, the 1977 fires, and the fiscal crisis of the 70s.
#DecolonizeYourLens #MiBushwickNoEsTuBushwick #GoBackToLongIsland
The only Italians that are comrades are the communist ones that stand along working class biPOC families.
I grew up in Bushwick in 1946 on 44 Morgan Ave between Grattan and Thames lived there till I was 18 I know Bushwick well sal marinos
Sadly, Bushwick like the rest of Brooklyn, is turning into a miniature Manhattan (so many high rises now it’s quite sad to see almost all of the past torn down, to make way for very high priced apartments that most folks can’t really afford, but that won’t stop those making all the rules to close out the poor), and NOT in a good way either. Broadway is adding more stores, in certain areas that is, but ‘the Broadway/Myrtle Ave crowd’ (J and M line trains) seems to be returning to their old roots on that same corner (drunks sleeping on the ground, causing all kinds of disturbing things to happen, etc. A new housing building went up on Jefferson Street, near the J and M train, and already you see folks sleeping in the front of the building, leaving garbage all over the place, while the new tenants clean up someone else’s mess).
Can you imagine paying $2,000-$5,000 a month for rent living in situations like this?
Funny, but my name is also Sal Marino and I noticed another person here has the same name. I lived on Wilson Ave. & Troutman Street, where my father operated a corner grocery store from 1960 on. What they say is true, “you can take the boy out of Brooklyn, but you can’t take Brooklyn out of the boy.” Over the years I’ve made several references to my Brooklyn roots in amusing books I’ve written. My recent book. “Why I Hate Dogs-Confessions of a Grump” on Amazon books which has quite a few Brooklyn mentions and if you were or are a Brooklyn resident you’ll identify with the amusing stories.
I live in Stamford, CT now, but I often travel back in my memories to those golden days of my youth in Brooklyn.