The Bushwick Collective
An open-air street art district across a few blocks of industrial Bushwick, curated since 2012, free to walk, and repainted often enough that it's different every year.
- What it costs
- Free. Guided tours are available and are not necessary.
- Best in
- Spring, Summer, Fall
- Where
- Troutman Street & St. Nicholas Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11237
- Official site
- nycgo.com
What it is
Started in 2012 by a Bushwick native who began asking warehouse owners to let artists paint their walls. It grew into a curated open-air gallery spread across the warehouse blocks around Troutman Street, with artists invited from around the world.
The work is repainted regularly — often annually around the summer block party — so what you see is genuinely not what someone photographed two years ago. That's the appeal.
How to see it
There is no map you need and no ticket. Get off at Jefferson Street and walk the blocks bounded roughly by Troutman, Jefferson, St. Nicholas and Wyckoff, then widen out as you go — the murals extend well beyond the core.
Allow an hour to ninety minutes. Good light is mid-morning or late afternoon; midday sun flattens everything and puts hard shadows across the walls.
Paid walking tours exist and are fine, but this is a self-guided thing by nature.
The rest of Bushwick
Around the murals sits a neighborhood with a very good and much cheaper food and bar scene than Williamsburg, a lot of it Latin American, and a serious warehouse-venue nightlife.
It is a working industrial and residential neighborhood, not an attraction with opening hours. Be normal about photographing people's homes and businesses.
Getting there
The L to Jefferson Street puts you in the middle of it — about 25 minutes from Union Square. Walk south on St. Nicholas Avenue and the murals start immediately.
The M to Central Avenue also works.
Start at Troutman Street and wander. There is no route and no entrance.
Getting around once you're there
Flat streets with sidewalks throughout. This is a working industrial area, so sidewalks are sometimes obstructed by loading and parked trucks. Jefferson Street station has stairs only.