Greenpoint - When Irish and Polish cultures meet in New York City

Living in a Polish neighborhood after leaving Ireland behind

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Looking southeast at Polish stores on Java Street and en:Manhattan Avenue in Greenpoint, Brooklyn

Photo by Kgwo1972

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“I didn't anticipate loving New York as much as I did. It sucks you in. This neighborhood is one of the reasons for that I suppose. Being close to a big park is great and I love being able to see the city lights from here. I feel safe; everyone is friendly. It's all I really need.”

Nearby, just a ten minute walk down through McCarren Park, lies Williamsburg, inhabited by Brooklyn's ultra-hip and art-centric young people. Due to the proximity, more and more artists, photographers, designers and other creative types are overspilling into Greenpoint, attracted by its charms, lack of crime, and location, creating an interesting mix in the old Polish ghetto.

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Cafés are filled with aspiring writers typing on high-end laptops. Local bars are selling cheap beers for the student population. As you might expect, the rent prices are rising.

I moved over from Dublin only a month ago. I'm 'fresh off the boat', as the saying goes over here, or one of the 'lost generation' as we are called back home (though I do intend on being 'found' again before the wrinkles fully descend on my lingering youth). I recently spoke to a Polish woman who expressed great optimism with the change afoot. Greenpoint is 'up-and-coming', she said. 

Admittedly, I am sceptical on hearing the phrase 'up-and-coming'. Perhaps I'm being more cynical than sceptical, but I am now most certainly a product of the recession rather than the boom. My brain has become hard-wired to translate 'up-and-coming', 'regenerated' and 'gentrified' into the words 'property bubble'. Aside from the cost of the rent though, there are other possible outcomes from such changes.

Smithfield in Dublin's inner-city is an often-cited failure in terms of regeneration - the lame little brother of the larger and more successful Docklands project. The aims were to change the central market area into a grand public venue, utilising it for concerts and festivals of all-sorts, moving the traditional horse fair elsewhere. Then regeneration of Smithfield was a failure before the crash, for the project was never really for the benefit of the residents as they were then.

Boom-time regeneration projects in Dublin usually meant offices and new apartments, usually at high prices, and amenities, such as the Lighthouse Cinema in Smithfield, catering for everyone except the people who were already living there. 

Last year, Smithfield’s regeneration was all but declared a failure, with the cinema forced to close for several months before being taken over by Element Pictures. We were assured it would undergo a ‘reinvigoration’. 

Greenpoint, similar to pre-boom inner-city Dublin, is littered with old factories, warehouse buildings and loft-spaces primed to be re-envisioned by architects and city-planners – I just hope such visions include the community as it stands now, and that the right balance is reached. Moreover, I hope the Polish community remains in Greenpoint.

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