Summer in Bushwick while working full-time and studying for the NY Bar Exam may have been the Worst.Summer.Ever. Yet I knew what I was getting into when I found a cheap apartment above a grocery store far out in the middle of nowhere, where I planned to hole up and study for 3 months. I picked Bushwick because I knew that if I lived in the city, the temptation would get to me. After a day-long housing search, I opted for the place in Bushwick over a tiny apartment in the middle of Soho.
Whenever studying wills and trusts or property law from 15th century England threatened a complete shut down of all brain functions, potentially rendering me a drooling mess, I would leave my apartment and wander the neighborhood in search of food. My neighborhood was filled with Dominican and Puerto Rican cuchifrito joints serving everything from mofongo to mondongo (I'm not being sarcastic). While many people think of the neighborhood as foreboding, it seemed as if every weekend families living on the block would grill out, drink and listen to music (while I tried to study, stewing at my fate).
However, I quickly learned that one can only eat so much mofongo a week, so the relatively new pizzeria/restaurant Roberta's became my comfort food whenever I sought a completely different atmosphere from the spartan and drab mass of cuchifrito joints. The pizzas were blistered and perfect, and their calzones were unparalleled.
People say the ambiance at Roberta's is a microcosm of the Bushwick scene, but it's really just the epicenter of the "Bushwick White People Scene. Walk into any cuchifritos joint on any corner... that's the Real Bushwick Scene. I lived in that scene, although it was advertised as the amorphous neighborhood in Brooklyn known as "East Williamsburg" (but no one would mistake Flushing and Broadway for Williamsburg). It was a mix of adventurous hipsters and other people on the coattails of the Williamsburg scene; a bohemian collection of beards and skinny jeans in the industrial wilds of Brooklyn.
Cash Only
When I first moved in, my parents joined me on a trip to Roberta's. I suggested we walk. Four of us wandered through the neighborhood as the sun set, with my parents constantly wondering aloud about the possibility of us all getting murdered, as the crowds on Broadway gave way to factories, junk car lots and Chinese food manufacturers. They weren't looking hard enough, though. Enormous lofts filled with young outcasts lined the streets, they were blind to what was happening all around them.
