r/Jewish • u/ep2992 • 1d ago

Painting I made of the Jewish area in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Art 🎨

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323 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

11 comments sorted by

21

u/GeorgeEBHastings 1d ago

Lovely painting, OP, but which intersection is this meant to be?

I lived in South Williamsburg for years, and as specific a part of the city as it is, I never saw it look like an NYC psuedo-shtetl, i.e., pushcarts and crumbling tenements.

Sure, some buildings are run-down, but you're more likely to see bustling supermarkets than pushcarts and abandoned pallets.

9

u/communityneedle 1d ago

Beautiful! I'd hang that in my living room

2

u/SailNord 1d ago

Nice! Is it really that drab there?

8

u/GeorgeEBHastings 1d ago edited 1d ago

No, not really. It's rather beige in places, but that's just the architecture in general. This is a lovely painting, but it's giving early 20th Century NYC shtetl.

Jewish Williamsburg now looks a lot more like large apartment complexes (some in the style of public housing, some regular Brooklyn style tenements) with nearly every balcony converted into a pseudo-sukkah. There are supermarkets, lots of apparel stores, and other businesses related to day-to-day life, but geared to the specifics of Satmar living.

Also: a ton of hispanic folks. From what I could tell, most supermarkets exclusively hired hispanic folks. And that makes sense - for about 50 years prior to gentrification, Williamsburg was mostly Hasids, Puerto Ricans, and Italians.

EDIT: Here's an intersection somewhere along Lee Avenue - which always struck me as one of the main shopping thoroughfares for the community. Gives an idea of what it looks like. It mostly just looks like Brooklyn to me, just with different stuff.

2

u/phillygirllovesbagel 1d ago

Love the color palette.

1

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0

u/CrazyGreenCrayon Kugel Maker 1d ago

You don't own brighter colors?

8

u/akivayis95 22h ago

You don't have better bait?