East Williamsburg is getting $20 million from the state to remake its downtown, after Governor Kathy Hochul handed a Downtown Revitalization Initiative check to the neighborhood’s two business improvement districts in early June. The award was first reported by North Brooklyn Community News, whose journalist Lori Ann Doyon photographed the presentation.
Here is why the number is bigger than usual. The Downtown Revitalization Initiative normally hands winning communities $10 million each. New York State set aside $100 million for 2026, split among ten communities. But Hochul combined DRI money with the state’s NY Forward program to double each grant, so East Williamsburg, the one New York City community picked this round, walked away with $20 million instead of $10 million.
“There’s a little bit of a qualifier here. Normally, when I go around and announce these grants, and I believe in them to my core because I’ve seen the effects of how this money all at once can transform a community, normally they’re $10 million. But, Brooklyn’s a little expensive. New York City’s not the cheapest place. How does $20 million sound instead?” Hochul said. She called East Williamsburg “a neighborhood that embodies the ideals that make New York great, from family-owned restaurants to small businesses that light up the community.”
The money is meant to reach more than 60,000 residents. Hochul said the $20 million “will help to build more affordable housing in the neighborhood and bolster the community’s local economy for generations to come.” The state describes the DRI as a program that turns downtowns into “vibrant centers” for redevelopment, business, and housing diversity, part of its post-pandemic economic rebuild.
The grant went to the East Williamsburg Collaborative, a group the Graham Avenue and Grand Street business improvement districts formed specifically to compete for the funding. The two BIDs partnered with Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso’s office to submit the application.
In his introduction letter on the application, Reynoso framed the neighborhood as one that got skipped over while the rest of North Brooklyn boomed. “Over the past twenty years, North Brooklyn has been redefined by economic momentum, but when you zero in on East Williamsburg, and you will find a dynamic working-class community that hasn’t seen the same investment and attention,” he wrote. “The 2026 DRI is an opportunity to answer for this inequity, catalyze investment into the neighborhood, and build on the work done every day by the community’s extensive network of close-knit local organizations.”
Nothing is built yet. The next step is a local planning committee of community leaders and stakeholders, backed by private sector experts and state planners, that will decide how the $20 million actually gets spent. More than 20 organizations are slated to sit on it, including St. Nicks Alliance, El Puente, RiseBoro, Southside United HDFC-Los Sures, Evergreen Exchange, the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, the Van Alen Institute, Big Reuse, the North Brooklyn Parks Alliance, North Brooklyn Angels, the Brooklyn Public Library’s Leonard Branch, Boricua College, NYC Health + Hospitals/Woodhull Hospital, and the Williamsburg Houses Residents’ Association.
The application already carries a strong signal about what residents want. To build it, the BIDs ran a community survey that drew 350 responses and held more than 35 meetings with local partners and elected officials. An “overwhelming majority of respondents called for more green amenities, particularly for children,” the application said. It flagged specific underused spots to turn into green space and plazas: the sidewalk plaza where Graham Avenue, Flushing Avenue, and Broadway meet, the vacant lot at Manhattan Avenue and Powers Street, and the large setback sidewalk across from Memorial Gore.
The application’s vision statement leans on the neighborhood’s manufacturing history and its commercial corridors, describing a downtown “where local businesses flourish, families put down deep roots, and all residents, workers, and visitors experience a true sense of opportunity.”
Alberto Valentin, executive director of the Graham Avenue BID, called the award “a huge win for Williamsburg, as well as a win for the power of NYS government’s sustained partnership with local communities, a win for the positive potential of collaboration and capacity building, and a win for the promise of community partners working together in support of our downtown commercial corridors.”
Francesca Fernandez Bruce, executive director of the Grand Street BID, put it in terms of the people who stuck around. “Our neighbors in East Williamsburg have been showing up for decades, through the hard times and underinvestment, advocating at local meetings, caring for their blocks, and building community,” she said. “Now it’s our turn to honor that commitment, and help our neighbors not just survive, but thrive. We can’t wait to see what we can all accomplish together.”
Featured image: Courtesy northbrooklynnews.com
