If you only read Vogue magazine, you’d think Bushwick is a nightmarish hellscape, where packs of feral beards roam the streets preying on unsuspecting tourists. (And maybe some of us in more southern Brooklyn feel that way too when trying to get home at 3 am THE BUS DOESN’T EXIST ANY MORE). But it turns out, hey, it’s not so bad in reality, and is presently full of smarty pants people who read books and like to talk about them.
DNAinfo today goes so far as to call Bushwick a “literary Mecca,” thanks to the five (five!!) independent book shops and libraries that have opened there in the past year. And what goes well with books? Coffee! Our friends at Bushwick Daily point out that four (four!!!) new coffee shops have opened in ol Boswijck in the past five months. Nobody tell Vogue.
The five bookstores include our dear friends at Mellow Pages (where Brokelyn’s own Dave Colon moonlights as the Shirtless Librarian); along with Molasses Books, where, in the greatest form of an economy ever created, you can barter books for booze.
Add on to that that Bushwick was home to the absolutely nuts (yuk yuk) Smallest Penis in Brooklyn Contest last weekend, and contains lots of these still-operational iconic music venues and it doesn’t seem like such a boring place to be right now.
You know what all this means: T-minus four years until New York Times Bushwick trend piece.
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I lived directly across from Molasses Books for the last 4 months, and although I agree that the place itself is nifty, I HATED the rest of the neighborhood. Bushwick might be on its way up, but it’s still one of the more unpleasant parts of Brooklyn–aside from a few cute coffee shops on Wyckoff, it’s all run-down “discount” stores, and the whole place stinks of garbage all the time. Plus rent is already preposterous because people are talking about how it’ll be the next Williamsburg. Maybe it will, who knows, but it’s not worth it to stay and wait IMO.