Williamsburg, Brooklyn

Founding

In 1638 the Dutch West India Company first purchased the area's land from the local Native Americans. In 1661, the company chartered the Town of Boswijck, including land that would later become Williamsburg. After the English takeover of New Netherland in 1664, the town's name was anglicized to Bushwick. During colonial times, villagers called the area "Bushwick Shore." This name lasted for about 140 years. Bushwick Shore was cut off from the other villages in Bushwick by Bushwick Creek to the north and by Cripplebush, a region of thick, boggy shrub land which extended from Wallabout Creek to Newtown Creek, to the south and east. Bushwick residents called Bushwick Shore "the Strand."

Farmers and gardeners from the other Bushwick villages sent their goods to Bushwick Shore to be ferried across the East River to New York City for sale via a market at present day Grand Street. Bushwick Shore's favorable location close to New York City led to the creation of several farming developments. In 1802, real estate speculator Richard M. Woodhull acquired 13 acres (53,000 m²) near what would become Metropolitan Avenue, then North 2nd Street. He had Colonel Jonathan Williams, a U.S. Engineer, survey the property, and named it Williamsburgh (with an h at the end) in his honor. Originally a 13-acre (53,000 m²) development within Bushwick Shore, Williamsburg rapidly expanded during the first half of the nineteenth century and eventually seceded from Bushwick and formed its own independent city.

Incorporation of Williamsburgh

Williamsburg was incorporated in as the, Village of Williamsburgh within the Town of Bushwick in 1827. In two years it had a fire company, a post office and a population of over 1,000. The deep drafts along the East River encouraged industrialists, many from Germany, to build shipyards around Williamsburg. Raw material was shipped in, and finished products were sent out of factories straight to the docks. Several sugar barons built processing refineries. Now all are gone except the now-defunct Domino Sugar (formerly Havemeyer & Elder). Other important industries included shipbuilding and brewing.

On April 18, 1835, the Village of Williamsburg annexed a portion of the Town of Bushwick. The Village then consisted of three districts. The first district was commonly called the "South Side"; the second district was called the "North Side", and the third district was called the "New Village". The names "North Side" and "South Side" remain in common usage today, but the name for the Third District has changed often. The New Village became populated by Germans and for a time was known by the sobriquet of "Dutchtown". In 1845 the population of Williamsburgh was 11,500.

Reflecting its increasing urbanization, Williamsburg separated from Bushwick as the Town of Williamsburg in 1840. It became the City of Williamsburg (discarding the "h") in 1852, which was organized into three wards. The old First Ward roughly coincides with the South Side and the Second Ward with the North Side, with the modern boundary at Grand Street. The Third Ward was to the east of these, stretching from Union Avenue east to Bushwick Avenue beyond which is Bushwick (some of which is now called East Williamsburg).

Incorporation into the Eastern District

In 1855, the City of Williamsburg, along with the adjoining Town of Bushwick, were annexed into the City of Brooklyn as the so-called Eastern District. The First Ward of Williamsburg became Brooklyn's 13th Ward, the Second Ward Brooklyn's 14th Ward, and the Third Ward Brooklyn's 15th and 16th Wards.

During its period as part of Brooklyn's Eastern District, the area achieved remarkable industrial, cultural, and economic growth, and local businesses thrived. Wealthy New Yorkers such as Cornelius Vanderbilt and railroad magnate Jubilee Jim Fisk built shore-side mansions. Charles Pratt and his family founded the Pratt Institute, the great school of art & architecture, and the Astral Oil Works, which later became part of Standard Oil. Corning Glass Works was founded here before moving upstate to Corning, New York. German immigrant, chemist Charles Pfizer founded Pfizer Pharmaceutical in Williamsburg, and the company maintained an industrial plant in the neighborhood through 2007, although its headquarters were moved to Manhattan in the 1960s.

Brooklyn's Broadway, ending in the ferry to Manhattan, became the area's lifeline. The area became a popular location for condiment and household product manufacturers. Factories for Domino Sugar, Esquire Shoe Polish, Dutch Mustard and many others were established in the late 19th and early 20th century. Many of these factory buildings are now being (or already have been) converted to non-industrial uses, primarily residential.

The population was at first heavily German but many Jews from the Lower East side of Manhattan came to the area when the Williamsburg Bridge was completed. Williamsburg was a financial hub rivaling Wall Street for a time, with its two major community banks: the Williamsburgh Savings Bank (chartered 1851, since absorbed by HSBC) and its rival the Dime Savings Bank of Williamsburgh (chartered 1864, now known as the DIME, has remained independent). The area around the Peter Luger Steak House, established in 1887, in the predominantly German neighborhood under the Williamsburg Bridge, was a major banking hub until the City of Brooklyn united with New York City. One of the early high schools in Brooklyn, the Eastern District High School, opened here in February 1900.

Incorporation into New York City

In 1898, Brooklyn became one of five boroughs within the City of Greater New York, and the Williamsburg neighborhood was opened to closer connections with the rest of the newly consolidated city. Just five years later, the opening of the Williamsburg Bridge in 1903 further opened up the community to thousands of upwardly mobile immigrants and second-generation Americans fleeing the overcrowded slum tenements of Manhattan's Lower East Side. Williamsburg itself soon became the most densely populated neighborhood in New York City, which in turn was the most densely populated city in the United States. The novel A Tree Grows in Brooklyn addresses a young girl growing up in the tenements of Williamsburg during this era.

Brooklyn Union Gas in the early 20th century consolidated its coal gas production to Williamsburg at 370 Vandervoort Avenue, closing the Gowanus Canal gasworks. The 1970s energy crisis led the company to build a syngas factory. Late in the century, facilities were built to import liquefied natural gas from overseas. The intersection of Broadway, Flushing Avenue, and Graham Avenue was a cross-roads for many "interurbans", prior to World War I. These light rail trolleys ran from Long Island to Williamsburg.

Refugees from war-torn Europe began to stream into Brooklyn during and after World War II, including the Hasidim whose populations had been devastated in the Holocaust. The area south of Division Avenue became home to a large population of adherents to the Satmar Hasidic sect who came to the area from Hungary and Romania. Hispanics from Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic also began to settle in the area. But the population explosion was eventually confronted with a decline of heavy industry, and from the 1960s Williamsburg saw a marked increase in unemployment, crime, gang activity, and illegal drug use. Those who were able to move out often did, and the area became chiefly known for its crime and other social ills.

On February 3, 1971, at 10:42 p.m., police officer Frank Serpico was shot during a drug bust, during a stakeout at 778 Driggs Avenue. Serpico had been one of the driving forces in the creation of the Knapp Commission, which exposed widespread police corruption. His fellow officers failed to call for assistance, and he was rushed to Greenpoint Hospital only when an elderly neighbor called the police. The incident was later dramatized in the opening scene of the 1973 film Serpico, starring Al Pacino in the title role.

Gentrification and 2005 rezoning

Low rents were a major reason artists first started settling in the area, but that situation has drastically changed since the mid-1990s. Average rents in Williamsburg can range from approximately $1400 for a studio apartment to $1,600–2,400 for a one-bedroom and $2,600–4,000 for a two-bedroom. The price of land in Willamsburg has skyrocketed. The North Side, above Grand Street, which separates the North Side from the South Side, is somewhat more expensive due to its proximity to the New York City Subway (specifically, the L train and G train on the BMT Canarsie Line and IND Crosstown Line, respectively). More recent gentrification and the route of the M train (whose route was modified to go from the downtown BMT Nassau Street Line to the midtown IND Sixth Avenue Line in 2010), however, have prompted increases in rents south of Grand Street as well. Higher rents have driven out many bohemians and hipsters to other neighborhoods farther afield such as Bushwick, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, Cobble Hill, and Red Hook.

On May 11, 2005, the New York City Council passed a large-scale rezoning of the North Side and Greenpoint waterfront. Much of the waterfront district was rezoned to accommodate mixed-use high density residential buildings with a set-aside (but no earmarked funding) for public waterfront park space, with strict building guidelines calling for developers to create a continuous two-mile-long string of waterfront esplanades. Local elected officials touted the rezoning as an economically beneficial way to address the decline of manufacturing along the North Brooklyn waterfront, which had resulted in a number of vacant and derelict warehouses in Williamsburg.

The rezoning represented a dramatic shift of scale in the ongoing process of gentrification in the area since the early 1990s. The waterfront neighborhoods, once characterized by active manufacturing and other light industry interspersed with smaller residential buildings, were rezoned primarily for residential use. Alongside the construction of new residential buildings, many warehouses were converted into residential loft buildings. Among the first was the Smith-Gray Building, a turn-of-the-century structure recognizable by its blue cast-iron facade. The conversion of the former Gretsch music instrument factory garnered significant attention and controversy in the New York press primarily because it heralded the arrival in Williamsburg of Tribeca-style lofts and attracted, as residents and investors, a number of celebrities.

Officials championing the rezoning cited its economic benefits, the new waterfront promenades, and its inclusionary housing component – which offered developers large tax breaks in exchange for promises to rent about a third of the new housing units at "affordable" rates. Critics countered that similar set-asides for affordable housing have gone unfulfilled in previous large-scale developments, such as Battery Park City. The New York Times reported this proved to be the case in Williamsburg as well, as developers largely decided to forgo incentives to build affordable housing in inland areas.

Landmarked buildings

The Kings County Savings Institution was chartered on April 10, 1860. It conducted business in a building called Washington Hall until it purchased the lot on the corner of Bedford Avenue and Broadway. There, it erected its permanent home, now known as the Kings County Savings Bank building. It has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1980 and was the seventh building to be landmarked in New York City in 1966. "The Kings County Savings Bank is an outstanding example of French Second Empire architecture, displaying a wealth of ornament and diverse architectural elements. A business building of imposing grandeur, the Kings County Savings Bank "represents a period of conspicuous display in which it was not considered vulgar, at least by the people in power, to boast openly of one's wealth. From its scale and general character there is nothing, on the outside, that would distinguish the Kings County Savings Bank from a millionaires mansion.

The Williamsburg Houses were designated a landmark by the Landmarks Preservation Commission on June 24, 2003. The 23.3-acre (94,000 m²) site was the first large-scale public housing in Brooklyn.

The modern architecture buildings were designed by William Lescaze, whose PSFS Building in Philadelphia was the first successful International Style building in the U.S. The project, first proposed in 1934, was a collaborative between the U.S. Public Works Administration and the newly established New York City Housing Authority. More than 25,000 New Yorkers applied for 1,622 apartments and most units were occupied by 1938. The twenty 4-story buildings are angled 15 degrees to the street grid for optimal sunlight. The structures have tan brick and exposed concrete accented by blue tile and stainless steel. The buildings were restored in the 1990s by the Housing Authority, in consultation with the Landmarks Preservation Commission.

In 2007 three buildings of the Domino Sugar Refinery were also designated New York City Landmarks. The original refinery was built in 1856, and by 1870 it processed more than half of the sugar used in the United States. A fire in 1882 caused the plant to be completely rebuilt in brick and stone, and those buildings remain, albeit with alterations made over the years. The refinery stopped operating in 2004. In 2010, a developer's plan to convert the site to residential use has received support in the New York City Council. A new plan has since been approved for the Domino Sugar Factory, led by Two Trees Management. The plan replaces a city-approved 2010 plan with a new proposal that adds 60% more publicly accessible open space on a new street grid; provides for a 24/7 mix of creative office space, market-rate and affordable housing, neighborhood retail, and community facilities; and is an innovative form of open architecture that connects the existing neighborhood to the new 0.25 mi (400 m) waterfront.

Culture, neighborhoods and lifestyles

The subdivisions within Williamsburg vary widely. "South Williamsburg" refers to the area which today is occupied mainly by the Yiddish-speaking Hasidim (predominantly Satmar Hasidim) and a considerable Puerto Ricans population. North of this area (with Division Street or Broadway serving as a dividing line) is an area known as "Los Sures", occupied by Puerto Ricans and Dominicans. To the north of that is the "North Side," traditionally Polish and Italian. East Williamsburg is home to many industrial spaces and forms the largely Italian American, African American, and Hispanic area between Williamsburg and Bushwick. South Williamsburg, the South Side, the North Side, Greenpoint and East Williamsburg all form Brooklyn Community Board 1. Its proximity to Manhattan has made it popular with recently arrived residents who are often referred to under the blanket term "hipster". Bedford Avenue and its subway station, as the first stop in the neighborhood on the BMT Canarsie Line (on the L train), have become synonymous with this new wave of residents.

Hasidic Jewish community

Williamsburg is inhabited by tens of thousands of Hasidic Jews of various sects, and contains the headquarters of one faction of the Satmar Hasidic group, Williamsburg's Satmar population numbers about 73,000.

Hasidic Jews first moved to the neighborhood in the years prior to World War II, along with many other religious and non-religious Jews who sought to escape the difficult living conditions on Manhattan's Lower East Side. Beginning in the late 1940s and early 1950s, the area received a large concentration of Holocaust survivors, many of whom were Hasidic Jews from rural areas of Hungary and Romania. These people were led by several Hasidic leaders, among them the rebbes of Satmar, Klausenberg, Vien, Pupa, Tzehlem, and Skver. In addition, Williamsburg contained sizable numbers of religious, but non-Hasidic Jews. The rebbe of Satmar, Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum, ultimately exerted the most powerful influence over the community, causing many of the non-Satmars, especially the non-Hasidim, to leave. Teitelbaum was known for his fierce anti-Zionism and for his charismatic but abrasive style of leadership.

In the late 1990s, Jewish developers renovated old warehouses and factories, turning them into housing. More than 500 apartments were approved in the three-year period following 1997; soon afterward, an area near Williamsburg's border with Bedford–Stuyvesant was rezoned for affordable housing. By 1997, there were about 7,000 Hasidic families in Williamsburg, almost a third of whom took public assistance. The Hasidic community of Williamsburg has one of the highest birthrates in the country, with an average of eight children per family. Each year the community celebrates between 800 and 900 weddings for young couples, who typically marry between the ages of 18 and 21. Because Hasidic men receive little secular education, and women tend to be homemakers, college degrees are rare, and economic opportunities lag far behind the rest of the population. In response to the almost 60% poverty rate in Jewish Williamsburg, the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty, a beneficiary agency of the UJA-Federation of New York, partnered with Masbia in the opening of a 50-seat kosher soup kitchen on Lee Avenue in November 2009.

There are many households with Section 8 housing vouchers; in 2000, there were 1,394 voucher recipients in Williamsburg's nine Yiddish-speaking census tracts, but by 2014, Williamsburg had 3,296 voucher recipients within 12 Yiddish-speaking census tracts. In 2014, it was reported that Williamsburg's Jewish community had among the highest rates of applications for Section 8 housing vouchers. However, the newspaper New York Daily News doubted the legality of the applications. In 2016, the Daily News said that New York City census tracts with 30% or more of the population applying for Section 8 were present only in Williamsburg and scattered parts of the Bronx, except that Williamsburg's real estate was among the most rapidly gentrifying in the city.

With the gentrification of North Williamsburg, Hasidim have fought to retain the character of their neighborhood and have characterized the influx of what they call the artisten as a "plague" and “a bitter decree from Heaven.” Tensions have risen over housing costs, loud and boisterous nightlife events, and the introduction of bike lanes along Bedford Avenue.

Italian-American community and Our Lady of Mount Carmel

A significant component of the Italian community on the North Side were immigrants from the city of Nola near Naples. Residents of Nola every summer celebrate the "Festa dei Gigli" (feast of lilies) in honor of St. Paulinus of Nola, who was bishop of Nola in the fifth century, and the immigrants brought this tradition over with them. For two weeks every summer, the streets surrounding Our Lady of Mount Carmel church, located on Havemeyer and North 8th Streets, are dedicated to a celebration of Italian culture.

The highlights of the feast are the "Giglio Sundays" when a 100-foot (30 m) tall statue, complete with band and a singer, is carried around the streets in honor of St. Paulinus and Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Clips of this awe-inspiring sight are often featured on NYC news broadcasts. A significant number of Italian-Americans still reside in the area, although the numbers have decreased over the years. Despite the fact that an increasing number of Italian-Americans have moved away, many return each summer for the feast. The Giglio was the subject of a documentary, Heaven Touches Brooklyn in July, narrated by actors John Turturro and Michael Badalucco.

Puerto Rican and Dominican community

On Williamburg's Southside, also known in Spanish as "Los Sures", which is the area south of Grand Street, there exists a sizable Puerto Ricans and Dominican population. Puerto Ricans have been coming to the area since the 1940s and the 1950s, and Dominicans came in the '70s and '80s. Many Puerto Ricans flocked to the area after World War II due to the proximity to jobs at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The neighborhood continues to have 27% Hispanic or Latino population, and Broadway near Graham Avenue is known as "Avenue of Puerto Rico". Havemeyer Street is lined with Hispanic-owned 'bodegas' and barber shops. However, even though the Southside has the highest concentration of Hispanics in the neighborhood, this population is dispersed throughout all of Williamsburg even as north as the Williamsburg-Greenpoint border.

The culture of Latinos in the neighborhood has been described as a resilient one. The Caribbean Social Club, the last remaining Puerto Rican social club in Williamsburg, preserves the neighborhood's culture; in 2013, the club was subject of a documentary called "Toñita's", named after its owner. The Hispanic sector as a whole was represented in another documentary called Living Los Sures, which aired at MoMA PS1 and at the Metrograph theater; the movie documents the lives of Latino residents living in 1984 Southside before gentrification.

Another such institution is the "El Puente" Community Center, as well as the "San German" record store on Graham Avenue. Graham Avenue was renamed Avenue of Puerto Rico as a symbol of pride, just as the avenue's other alternate name, Via Vespucci, is meant to commemorate the historical Italian-American community. Banco Popular de Puerto Rico has a branch on Graham Avenue. In addition, Southside United HDFC is a charity organization that helps residents with housing needs and other services, including mobilizing housing activists and residents as well as providing affordable housing. In addition to this, in the past Southside United HDFC has held Puerto Rican Heritage as well as Dominican Independence Day celebrations, and currently operates El Museo De Los Sures. The name El Museo De Los Sures roughly translates to "The Museum of the Southside". Williamsburg is also home to not one, but two campuses of Boricua College, the Northside campus on North 6th Street between Bedford Avenue and Driggs Avenue, as well as the East Williamburg/Bushwick campus on Graham Avenue. A place popular among Dominican-American residents is the Fula Lounge, where Merengue and Raggaeton artists from the Dominican Republic often frequent.

Lastly, once a year the Williamsburg/Bushwick community is home to its own Puerto Rican Day parade. The neighborhood has produced many prominent Latinos. Television chef Daisy Martinez, who specializes in Puerto Rican cuisine grew up in the neighborhood. The neighborhood also is home to the office of Congressional Representative Nydia Velazquez, who represents the neighborhood as well as other parts of Brooklyn and Manhattan in congress. In addition to this, Williamsburg was the childhood home of City Councilwoman Rosie Méndez, of Puerto Rican descent, who represents District 2 across the East River in Manhattan. As of 2013, Williamsburg itself is represented in City Council by Dominican American Antonio Reynoso.

Ethnic and intercultural tensions

Prior to gentrification, Williamsburg often saw tension between its Hasidic population and its black and Hispanic groups. In response to decades of rising crime in the area, the Hasidim created a volunteer patrol organization called "Shomrim" ("guardians" in Hebrew) to perform citizens' arrests and to keep an eye out for crime. Over the years, the Shomrim have been accused of racism and brutality against blacks and Hispanics. In 2009, Yakov Horowitz, a member of Shomrim, was charged with assault for striking a Latino adolescent on the nose with his Walkie Talkie. In 2014, five members of the Hasidic community, at least two of whom were Shomrim members, were arrested in connection with the December 2013 "gang assault" of a black gay man.

The mid-century tension between the Hasidic and Modern Orthodox Jewish communities in Williamsburg was depicted in Chaim Potok's novels The Chosen (1967), The Promise and My Name Is Asher Lev. One contemporary female perspective on life in the Satmar community in Williamsburg is offered by Deborah Feldman's autobiographical Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots.

Visual arts

The first artists moved to Williamsburg in the 1970s, drawn by the low rents, large floor area, and convenient transportation. This continued through the 1980s and increased significantly in the 1990s as earlier destinations such as SoHo and the East Village became gentrified. The community was small at first, but by 1996 Williamsburg had accumulated an artist population of about 3,000. Art galleries in the area include the Front Room Gallery. Williamsburg and Greenpoint are served by a monthly galleries listings magazine, wagmag.

In September 2000, 11211 Magazine, created by writer Breuk Iversen, launched a four color glossy circulating 10,000 copies in Brooklyn and Manhattan, intent on promoting the area from a design firm in Manhattan. A year later, the firm moved to Williamsburg. The content was richly focused on the historical and notable properties, arts and culture and real estate development of the 11211 ZIP code. The bi-monthly was funded by advertisements from local businesses and founded by writer and designer, Breuk Iversen. Other publications attributed to 11211 Magazine: Fortnight, The Box Map (2002), Appetite, and 10003 Magazine for the East Village in New York City. The magazine had published 36 issues (548,000 copies) of 11211 over a six-year period, and ceased circulation in 2006.

Musical community

Williamsburg has become a notable home for live music and an incubator for new bands. Beginning in the late 1980s and through the late 1990s a number of unlicensed performance, theater and music venues operated in abandoned industrial buildings and other spaces in the streets. A new culture has evolved in the area surrounding Bedford Avenue subway station. The Bog, Keep Refrigerated, The Lizard's Tail, Quiet Life, Rubulad, Flux Factory, Mighty Robot, free103point9 and others attracted a mix of artists, musicians and urban underground for late night music, dance, and performance events, which were occasionally interrupted and the venues temporarily closed by the fire department. These events eventually diminished in number as the rents rose in the area and regulations were enforced.

There are a number of smaller, fleeting spaces, including Todd P., Dot Dash, Twisted Ones, and Rubulad. Many legitimate commercial music venues opened in the neighborhood including Pete's Candy Store, Union Pool, Music Hall of Williamsburg (formerly Northsix), Public Assembly (formerly Galapagos, now closed), Cameo Gallery, Muchmore's and Grand Victory. Several Manhattan-based venues also opened locations, including Bowery Presents (who bought Northsix and transformed it to Music Hall of Williamsburg), Luna Lounge, Knitting Factory, and Cake Shop. In the summers of 2006, 2007, and 2008, events including concerts, movies, and dance performances were staged at the previously abandoned pool at McCarren Park in Greenpoint. Starting 2009, these pool parties are now held at the Williamsburg waterfront.

The neighborhood has also attracted a respectable funk, soul and worldbeat music scene spearheaded by labels such as Daptone and Truth & Soul Records – and fronted by acts such as the Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra and Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings. Jazz and World Music has found a foothold, with classic jazz full-time at restaurant venues like Zebulon and Moto, and – on the more avant and noise side – at spots like the Lucky Cat, B.P.M., Monkeytown (closed in 2010), and Eat Records. A Latin Jazz community continues amongst the Caribbean community in Southside and East Williamsburg, centered around the many social clubs in the neighborhood. In the early 2000s, the neighborhood also became a center of electroclash. Friday and Saturday parties at Club Luxx (now Trash) introduced electronic musicians like W.I.T., A.R.E. Weapons, Fischerspooner, and Scissor Sisters.

Theatre and cinema

Williamsburg contains indie theater spaces such as the Brick Theater and the Charlie Pineapple Theater. The Williamsburg Independent Film Festival was founded in 2010. Williamsburg also contains the first-run multiplex theater known as Williamsburg Cinemas, which opened on December 19, 2012.

Effects of gentrification

Low rents were a major reason artists first started settling in the area, but that situation has drastically changed since the mid-1990s. Average rents in Williamsburg can range from approximately $1400 for a studio apartment to $1,600–2,400 for a one-bedroom and $2,600–4,000 for a two-bedroom. The price of land in Williamsburg has skyrocketed. The North Side, above Grand Street, which separates the North Side from the South Side, is somewhat more expensive due to its proximity to the New York City Subway (specifically, the L train and G train on the BMT Canarsie Line and IND Crosstown Line, respectively).

More recent gentrification and the route of the M train (whose route was modified to go from the downtown BMT Nassau Street Line to the midtown IND Sixth Avenue Line in 2010), however, have prompted increases in rent prices south of Grand Street as well. Higher rents have driven many priced-out bohemians and hipsters to find new creative communities further afield in areas like Bushwick, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, Cobble Hill, and Red Hook.

On July 1, 2011, the United States Postal Service (USPS) rezoned the 11211 zip code due to a "large increase in population and in the number of companies doing business in our area."

Williamsburg's recent gentrification is the subject of Princeton University film professor Su Friedrich's 2013 documentary Gut Renovation.

Effect on borough's court system

In June 2014 the New York Post reported that northwestern Brooklyn's change to a wealthier, more educated population, especially in Williamsburg, has led to an increasing number of convictions against defendants in the borough's criminal cases, as well as to reductions in plaintiff's awards in civil cases. Brooklyn defense lawyer Julie Clark said that these new jurors are "much more trusting of police." Another lawyer, Arthur Aidala said:

"Now, the grand juries have more law-and-order types in there.... People who can afford to live in Brooklyn now don’t have the experience of police officers throwing them against cars and searching them. A person who just moves here from Wisconsin or Wyoming, they can’t relate to [that]. It doesn’t sound credible to them.”

Transportation

Williamsburg is served by 3 subway lines: the BMT Canarsie Line (L train) on the north, the BMT Jamaica Line (J M Z trains) on the south, and the IND Crosstown Line (G train) on the east. The Williamsburg Bridge crosses the East River to the Lower East Side. Williamsburg is also served by the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. Several bus routes, including the B24, B32, B39, B44, B44 SBS, B46, B60, Q54 terminate at the Williamsburg Bridge/Washington Plaza. Other bus lines that run through the neighborhood are the B43, B48, B62, B67, Q59.

Since June 2011, North Williamsburg is served by the East River Ferry to 34th Street and the Wall Street area, leaving every 20 minutes during rush hour and every hour during the rest of the day. The East River route will become part of the Citywide Ferry Service starting in 2017, with a new stop in South Williamsburg.

Education

The New York City Department of Education operates public noncharter schools. It is covered by District 14. This district includes:

Other schools include:

Environmental concerns

National Grid (formerly KeySpan) is currently remediating contamination at a former Manufactured Gas Plant (MGP) site located at Kent Avenue between North 11th and North 12th Streets in Williamsburg Brooklyn, Kings County, NY. The Remediation is being implemented under an Order on Consent with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) entered into between the NYSDEC and KeySpan in February 2007.

El Puente, a local community development group, called Williamsburg "the most toxic place to live in America" in the documentary Toxic Brooklyn produced by Vice Magazine in 2009. Other rare cancer clusters in Willamsburg have been reported by the New York Post.