Bushwick Green

Bushwick Green is a small pocket park on Bushwick Avenue at Seigel Street in the Bushwick neighborhood. The park provides a modest but welcome green space along one of Bushwick's busiest commercial corridors, offering benches and plantings where pedestrians can rest.

Bushwick has experienced one of the most dramatic transformations of any neighborhood in New York City. Once devastated by the arson and abandonment of the 1970s (the neighborhood was hit particularly hard during the 1977 blackout), Bushwick has been substantially rebuilt and has attracted a large influx of artists, young professionals, and immigrants in recent decades.

The park's small footprint reflects the challenges of creating new green space in a neighborhood that was largely built out before the modern parks movement. In Bushwick, where vacant lots were once plentiful but have been rapidly developed, preserving even a fraction of an acre as public green space represents a significant community achievement.

Bushwick's current identity is defined by its thriving arts scene, murals that cover building facades throughout the neighborhood, a diverse population including large Latino and increasingly East Asian communities, and a restaurant and nightlife scene that draws visitors from across the city.

Bushwick Green is one of many small interventions that collectively work to improve the pedestrian experience in a neighborhood defined by wide commercial avenues and heavy traffic. Its benches and trees provide a human-scaled pause in an increasingly energetic streetscape.