Frederick Victor
In the 1920s, Wyckoff Avenue served as a bustling dividing line, with one side of the street in Bushwick, Brooklyn, and the other in Ridgewood, Queens. This unique position made it a shared main street for two densely populated, working-class neighborhoods. The avenue was a lively corridor of commerce and daily life, set against a backdrop of brick tenement buildings and industrial factories.
The elevated train was a dominant feature of the landscape. The BMT Canarsie Line, which would later be known as the L train, rumbled on steel tracks above the street for part of its length. The Myrtle Avenue El also crossed nearby, making the area a hub of transit. These train lines were the primary way residents traveled to jobs in other parts of Brooklyn and Manhattan. The constant noise of the trains was an accepted part of the neighborhood’s daily rhythm.
Wyckoff Avenue’s sidewalks were lined with a wide variety of businesses. Ground floors of the residential buildings were occupied by family-owned shops, including butcher shops, bakeries selling German and Italian pastries, and saloons that had recently converted to selling other goods due to Prohibition. Pushcart vendors were a common sight, selling fresh produce, fish, and other household necessities directly on the street.
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The architecture of the area consisted mainly of three- to six-story tenement buildings and long rows of attached houses. These buildings housed thousands of families, many of them first- and second-generation immigrants, primarily from Germany and Italy. The close quarters meant that much of life spilled out onto the stoops and streets of the neighborhood.
Industry was a major source of employment. The area surrounding Wyckoff Avenue was known as a hub for breweries and knitting mills. Although Prohibition had officially closed the breweries in 1920, some continued to operate illegally while others were converted for different uses, such as cold storage or soda manufacturing. Textile factories and knitting mills in large brick industrial buildings provided jobs for many local residents, particularly women. The avenue was a place of both work and home for the thousands who lived in its immediate vicinity.
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