page_title: Bushwick, Brooklyn
section_title: Early industry
hierarchical_section_title: Bushwick, Brooklyn / History / Early industry
caption_attribution_description: English: Looking north across Belvidere St at office of William Ulmer Brewery on a cloudy late afternoon.
context_page_description: Bushwick is a working-class neighborhood in the northern part of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. It is bounded by the neighborhood of Ridgewood, Queens, to the northeast; Williamsburg to the northwest; East New York and the cemeteries of Highland Park to the southeast; Brownsville to the south; and Bedford–Stuyvesant to the southwest.
  The town was first founded by the Dutch during the Dutch colonization of the Americas in the 17th century. In the 19th century, the neighborhood became a community of German immigrants and their descendants; by the late 20th century, it became predominantly Hispanic as another wave of immigrants arrived. Formerly Brooklyn's 18th Ward, the neighborhood was once an independent town and has undergone various territorial changes throughout its history.
  Bushwick is part of Brooklyn Community District 4, and its primary ZIP Codes are 11206, 11207, 11221, and 11237. It is patrolled by the 83rd Precinct of the New York City Police Department. Politically it is represented by the New York City Council's 34th and 37th Districts.
context_section_description: When Bushwick was founded, it was primarily an area for farming food and tobacco. As Brooklyn and New York City grew, factories that manufactured sugar, oil, and chemicals were built. The inventor Peter Cooper built a glue manufacturing plant, his first factory, in Bushwick. Immigrants from western Europe joined the original Dutch settlers. The Bushwick Chemical Works, at Metropolitan Avenue and Grand Street on the English Kills channel, was another early industry among the lime, plaster, and brickworks, coal yards, and other factories that developed along English Kills, which was dredged and made an important commercial waterway. In October 1867, the American Institute awarded Bushwick Chemical Works the first premium for commercial acids of the greatest purity and strength. The Bushwick Glass Company, later known as Brookfield Glass Company, established itself in 1869, when a local brewer sold it to James Brookfield. It made a variety of bottles and jars, as well as large numbers of glass electrical insulators for telegraph, telephone and power lines.
  In the 1840s and 1850s, a majority of the immigrants were German, which became the dominant population. Bushwick established a considerable brewery industry, including "Brewer's Row"—14 breweries operating in a 14-block area—by 1890. Thus, Bushwick was dubbed the "beer capital of the Northeast". The last Bushwick breweries, the Schaefer's and Rheingold Breweries, closed its doors in 1976. As late as the 1980s, there were unsuccessful efforts to revive the Rheingold Brewery. The William Ulmer Brewery at Beaver and Belvidere Streets was given landmark status by the city in 2010, becoming the first brewery with such a status.
  As late as 1883, Bushwick maintained open farming land east of Flushing Avenue. A synergy developed between the brewers and the farmers during this period, as the dairy farmers collected spent grain and hops for cow feed. The dairy farmers sold milk and other dairy products to consumers in Brooklyn. Both industries supported blacksmiths, wheelwrights, and feed stores along Flushing Avenue.
caption: Ulmer Brewery
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "", "Image Make": "NIKON", "Image Model": "COOLPIX P6000", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Microsoft Windows Photo Gallery 6.0.6001.18000", "Image DateTime": "2011:04:15 00:34:54", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "282", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[2, 2, 0, 0]", "GPS GPSLatitudeRef": "N", "GPS GPSLatitude": "[40, 41, 3167254738/56597431]", "GPS GPSLongitudeRef": "W", "GPS GPSLongitude": "[73, 56, 2430271131/202440206]", "GPS GPSAltitudeRef": "0", "GPS GPSTimeStamp": "[22, 11, 151/10]", "GPS GPSSatellites": "05", "GPS GPSImgDirectionRef": "", "GPS GPSImgDirection": "0/0", "GPS GPSMapDatum": "WGS-84", "GPS GPSDate": "2011:03:08", "Image GPSInfo": "976", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1376", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6922", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/57", "EXIF FNumber": "29/10", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "64", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2011:03:08 17:10:15", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2011:03:08 17:10:15", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "1", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "3/10", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "29/10", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "6", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "361", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "365", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "640", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "480", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "1228", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "28", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0", "EXIF ImageUniqueID": "98fe0c33c51a678b159176644ea47e00", "EXIF OffsetSchema": "-502"}