In the 244 years since our country was founded, a lot has changed; we have endured wars, revolutions, protests, and pandemics that have helped shape our country and how we live today. The United States has become one of the world’s leaders, paving the way in advanced technology and higher education among a number of different things. Above all, the United States has seen a significant amount of growth and prosperity, especially in New York City. Since being taken over from the Native Americans in 1638, Williamsburg has transformed from an industry-booming neighborhood to an aesthetically pleasing section of Brooklyn, known for its trendy restaurants, shops, and apartments. 

 

      Throughout the competitive race to acquire land through colonies, the Dutch West India Company took land from Native Americans, forming the Town of Boswijck which included what are now known as Williamsburg, Greenpoint, and Bushwick (“History of Bushwick”). Following an English takeover of the area, the name changed to Bushwick, rapidly growing in wealth and prosperity thanks to its prime location on the East River, allowing for Bushwick to become a major shipping hub. Williamsburg – then known as Williamsburgh – separated from the Town of Bushwick in 1840 and soon became a part of Brooklyn in 1855, the start of the Williamsburg we know today (“History of Williamsburg”). The convenient location as well as the increase in demand of goods permitted the waterfront industry to thrive, prompting the influx of people looking for work from the Lower East Side following the construction of the Williamsburg Bridge in 1903. Within a few years, Williamsburg became the most densely populated area in New York City, home to a Hasidic community as well as a growing Hispanic community to service the rising demand in manufacturing jobs. 

 

      Taking advantage of its convenient location, industries flocked to Williamsburg, constructing factories and contributing to the region’s prosperity in the 1900s. Industries such as Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, Standard Oil, D. Appleton & Company, as well as Havemeyer & Elder (later Domino Sugar) built colossal factories and complexes along the waterfront(Macaulay - CUNY). At the height of Williamsburg’s industrial age in 1961, over 93,000 manufacturing jobs were filled, thanks to the influx of Puerto Ricans in the area throughout the 1960s (“History of Williamsburg”). Unfortunately, as soon as the industrial boom came to Williamsburg, it left; updated technology and cheaper alternatives to the products being produced took over markets, provoking a decline in industry and a rapid increase in unemployment, sparking years of poverty, crime, illegal drugs, and police corruption. 

 

      Depending on who you are speaking to, the decline of the manufacturing industry could be referred to as the best or worst thing that has ever happened to Williamsburg. In the wake of the industrial downfall and widespread unemployment, poverty, racism, poor health care, and inadequate education overtook the area, digging the thousands of workers left stranded even deeper as they struggled to find work again. When the Domino Sugar Refinery was at its best, employees never thought for more than a second about the possibility of losing their jobs. After years of fighting for better conditions, having built trust and confidence in the company, thousands of workers “with so much specialized knowledge and no plans in place to be retained, were abandoned like the factor itself” (Diamond). With thousands out of work and dozens of factories abandoned without use, artists and real estate moguls saw an opportunity and took it. Artists migrated from Manhattan to Williamsburg to jump at the offers of low rents and huge lofts in the repurposed factories, joining the already established Polish and Italian immigrants, former factory workers, and the Hasidic community. Williamsburg experienced a real estate “boom,” transforming from an industrial neighborhood to an “influential hub for fashion, music, art, [and] food” (“History of Williamsburg”). The neighborhood underwent rapid gentrification, when the renovation of an area by middle-class and wealthy people “result[ed] in an increase in property values and the displacement of earlier, usually poorer residents” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary, 2020), as corporate chains overtook small businesses, renovating old buildings and adding new spots such as the Sweatshop, an Australian coffee shop (Foursquare), Schimanski, a nightclub that took the place of mega club Verboten (“Nightlife Williamsburg New York”), and Traif, a new restaurant serving everything from modern tapas to bacon doughnuts and coffee ice cream (Weiss). Williamsburg has been nicknamed “Little Berlin,” accompanying Brooklyn’s nickname as the “Borough That Never Sleeps,” becoming known for its vibrant night life, trendy parks and restaurants, as well as new residential areas boasting high ceilings and amazing views of East River (“Nightlife Williamsburg New York”). Pushing out the old and making way for the new, Williamsburg real estate “saw the highest increase in rent average from 1990 to 2014 in all of New York,” further proving the area’s quick gentrification. According to the M.N.S. Real Estate NYC year-end report from 2018, the mean rental prices in Williamsburg were $2,567 for a studio, $2,937 for one bedroom, and $3,490 for two bedrooms. These prices significantly increased within a year, the mean rental prices being $2,828 for a studio, $3,192 for one bedroom, and $3,848 for two bedrooms, according to the M.N.S. Real Estate NYC 2019 year-end report. With new developments breaking ground and plans for the future are being proposed for the waterfront-clad neighborhood, property values will only increase, further distancing Williamsburg from its past.

 

      Built in 1855 by the Havemeyer family, the Domino Sugar Refinery grew to be the largest sugar refinery complex in the world, refining more than half of the nation’s sugar only 25 years after opening. After reaching its peak in the 1920s, the refinery began to slowly decline as food producers turned to cheaper corn sweeteners over sugar (Diamond). Closing in 2004 and achieving landmark status in 2007, the complex had no plans for the future until the 2012 acquirement of the 138-year-old property by Two Trees, a real estate development firm (Plitt). Developers created an extensive plan to transform the old sugar refinery into a multi-building “megaproject” with four new buildings and a park. Hiring a different architect for each project, Two Trees planned on introducing new aesthetics and perspectives to the Domino complex, adding Domino Park, a six-acre park designed by James Corner Field Operations along the East River waterfront, One South First, a 45-story residential building with retail space designed by COOKFOX, Ten Grand, a 23-story office building, and 325 Kent, a 16-story residential building designed by SHoP Architects. The construction of the four new buildings involved the destruction of all segments of the sugar refinery except for the main building with a tower, raising the building up acknowledging the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s flood projections, under construction by the Practice for Architecture and Urbanism to create 425,000 square feet of office space (Ricciulli). The megaproject’s plans for the complex has opened many doors and opportunities, creating 2,800 rental units, 700 of which are affordable, 200,000 square feet of retail space in addition to 600,000 feet of commercial space. According to SHoP’s website for the project, the new developments hope to “bring a new 24/7 vitality to the area,” especially with added attractions such as Tacocina, created by Danny Meyer, as well as an innovative playground designed by Mark Reigelman, both of which are located in Domino Park.

 

            Williamsburg’s rapid urbanization into a trendy neighborhood in Brooklyn has come with many costs, including gentrification, the loss of history, as well as a significant clash between cultures. The waterfront neighborhood bears a rich past that has been threatened and destroyed with the development of the Williamsburg we know today, full of all the latest fads. Similar to the Renaissance movement’s symbolization of ruins as “the conquest of Christianity over paganism,” the inspiration Neoclassicists found in Rome, as well as the fascination Romanticists have with the clash between nature and architecture, artists have used the ruins of the Domino Sugar Refinery for art, “aestheticizing suffering, while keeping aloof from the ruin’s history and the people directly affected,” according to Paul Raphaelson. Domino Park was built around the ruins of the sugar refinery, sustainably utilizing screws and old cranes as decoration - even Mark Reigelman used scraps of the factory in the playground. In an attempt to celebrate the old and collaborate with the new, the use of the refinery and its contents has been described “like bones picked from a decaying carcass and turned into a macabre sculpture” (Kensinger). While using old parts and incorporating old parts in new attractions, the park “represents a significant erasure of the city’s historic industrial waterfront,” avoiding the harsh realities of the unemployment and gentrification workers faced and replacing it with an entirely new atmosphere that fails to recognize its history with anything more than a small plaque located in the park. Architecture is not the only thing driving Williamsburg’s past out of the area, as the clash between “artistens” and the Hasidic community has only heightened. Since their migration from Nazi Germany in the 1930s, the Hasidim have grown to a population of 57,000 in south Williamsburg, donning black pants, white shirts, and fur streimel (Weiss). Turf wars, or “shtetl feuds,” are examples of the distance between the old and the new, as bike lanes and real estate such as the Gretsch cause conflicts among the communities. Fliers and billboards, such as one that reads “please remove from upon us the plague of artists, so that we shall not drown in evil waters, and so that they shall not come to our residence to ruin it,” display the disruption of culture and fears Hasidic Jews have as they receive offers for their property and walk by Traif, a new restaurant meaning unkosher that serves biblically forbidden foods on the line between Satmar territory and the rest of Williamsburg on Broadway (Weiss). While the rapid urbanization and development of Williamsburg has been productive in bringing prosperity and opportunity to the neighborhood, it has also come with a number of costs and threats to the old Williamsburg. 

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            Across the 180 years that Williamsburg has been around, separate of the Town of Bushwick, one of Brooklyn’s finest neighborhoods has undergone significant change. Overturning the leading industrial period on the waterfront, Williamsburg has transformed into a thriving area for people to enjoy the latest trends, from playing volleyball on the court in Domino Park to eating at Traif and living on Kent Ave. Williamsburg is only one example of the change from industrial areas to urban spaces as a result of the decline in the operation of traditional factories all over the United States following the advancement of technology and growth of international trade. Careful to preserve its history and be mindful of the harsh impacts of gentrification, Williamsburg is a great section of Brooklyn, rich in art, culture, and a unique history. 

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

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Bahrampour, Tara. “'Plague of Artists' a Battle Cry for Brooklyn Hasidim.” The New York Times, The New York Times Company, 17 Feb. 2004, https://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/17/nyregion/plague-of-artists-a-battle-cry-for-brooklyn-hasidim.html.  

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Curran, Winifred. “‘From the Frying Pan to the Oven’: Gentrification and the Experience of Industrial Displacement in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.” Urban Studies (Routledge), vol. 44, no. 8, July 2007, pp. 1427–1440. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/00420980701373438.

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Plitt, Amy. “See the Transformation of Williamsburg's Domino Park.” Curbed New York, Vox Media, 6 June 2018, https://ny.curbed.com/2018/6/6/17431462/williamsburg-brooklyn-domino-park-james-corner-field-operations-photos.  

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Weiss, Bari. "Cross Country: Hasids Vs. Hipsters: A Williamsburg Story." Wall Street Journal, Apr 17, 2010. ProQuest, https://search.proquest.com/docview/399133780?accountid=14068.

 

Werner, Kathrin. “The Rest of the USA Is Sleeping, the Big Party Is Going on in ‘Little Berlin.’” Süddeutsche Zeitung, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 12 Feb. 2015, https://www.sueddeutsche.de/reise/nachtleben-williamsburg-in-new-york-brooklyn-schlaeft-wirklich-nicht-1.2204944-2.

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