Those who have read Betty Smith’s classic novel A Tree Grows in Brooklyn know just where Johnny and Katie Nolan once lived. Why, it was on Bogart Street in Bushwick! Johnny had chosen this little side street because of its “thrilling dark sound.” And though the Nolans eventually moved from their original family home on Bogart Street to different parts of Williamsburg, including flats on Lorimer and Grand Streets, A Tree Grows In Brooklyn takes root here in Bushwick…

These very streets have been roamed for decades before us, back when the factories were first constructed and the little neighborhood enclaves first inhabited. So many places from the 1901-1918 setting (including libraries, public schools, and storefronts) remain and remind us of a treasured past along the streets of Bushwick and Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Katie herself was from Bushwick. And Johnny, a second generation Irish boy, had been living with his family in nearby Williamsburg. They were a young teen couple (ages 17 and 19 respectively) who had two children just before the turn of the century. One so inquisitive and mystified by the world around her (Francie), and one somewhat indifferent to the thrill and mystery of that same world (Neeley).