Bushwick is a working-class neighborhood in northern Brooklyn, New York City. The town was founded in 1661 as Boswijck, meaning "little town in the woods" in Dutch. The farmland was exploited for the production of tobacco and food, and it became an industrial area as NYC expanded. Starting in the 1840s and 1850s, German immigrants became the largest ethnic group in the neighborhood, establishing breweries. After World War I, an Italian population began to develop in Bushwick, and the Sicilian community surpassed the German community as the largest ethnic group in Bushwick. By 1960, 90% of Bushwick residents were white, a combination of Germans and Italians.
However, urbanization and "white flight" during the 1960s led to working-class African-American and Puerto Rican families moving into the area, and Republican Party mayor John Lindsay's policy of raising rent on welfare recipients led to the population becoming poor and Bushwick becoming a deprived neighborhood. By 1975, half of Bushwick's residents were on public assistance, and it became a no man's land of abandoned buildings, empty lots, drugs, and arson during the 1970s. During the citywide arson attacks during the 1977 blackout, almost all suburban stores in the neighborhood were destroyed, and 43% of businesses in Bushwick were left vacant. Those who could afford to leave Bushwick did so, leaving room for immigrants from the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and Central America to move into abandoned homes. During the 1980s, Knickerbocker Avenue was nicknamed "the Well" for its large supply of drugs, and the neighborhood experienced 77 murders, 80 rapes, and 2,242 robberies in 1990 alone. Starting in the mid-2000s, the city began a program of revitalization in Bushwick, building a dog park, increasing economic development, and enhancing the quality of life for many residents. In 2010, Bushwick had a population of 129,239 people, with 69.9% being Hispanic, 16.8% African-American/black, 8% white, 3.4% other/multiracial, and 1.8% Asian.