See what Brooklyn looked like before the hipsters moved in and gentrification took hold.
Nostalgia for the 1980s has been widespread in recent years. Perhaps those who grew up during that decade are looking back fondly on their childhood, or maybe there really was something magical about that time. Regardless, it’s hard not to think of things like big hair, neon leg warmers, and shoulder pads when the 1980s are brought up.
But for New York City, and especially its most populous borough, those things didn’t paint the full picture. While Wall Street boomed and a new wave of artists colonized downtown Manhattan, Brooklyn was being pulled in two vastly different directions: prospering creativity and urban decay.
To put it simply, 1980s Brooklyn was a place in transition. Though the borough struggled with crime and economic issues, it was also a time of cultural booms and vibrant celebrations. And as the pictures below show, it was one of the most dynamic, challenging, and energetic places to be.
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Two children enjoying Nathan’s Famous hot dogs at Coney Island. 1985.Library of Congress
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A girl playing the Double Dutch jump rope game in a Brooklyn schoolyard. 1981.Ira Berger/Alamy Stock Photo
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A group of friends sitting on a Brooklyn stoop on Labor Day in 1983.Anthony Catalano/Flickr Creative Commons
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Fireworks above the Brooklyn Bridge on the 100th anniversary of its opening in 1983.Library of Congress
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The D train and gate cars at the Avenue H stop in Brooklyn. 1980.Reddit
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Drummer Frisner Augustin playing in Brooklyn during the 1980s.Wikimedia Commons
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A drunk man sleeping next to a trash bin on the Coney Island beach.Homer Sykes/Alamy Stock Photo
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Kids sitting outside the Mom & Pop Deli in Brooklyn.Library of Congress
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A group of older Brooklynites enjoying drinks on the sidewalk.Regional Plan Association/Facebook
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People celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Brooklyn Bridge.See Old NYC
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A view of Manhattan — including the Twin Towers — from Brooklyn. 1986.Library of Congress
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Cheerleaders during a football game at Midwood Field in Brooklyn. 1980.Ira Berger/Alamy
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A band playing at the Gage & Tollner restaurant in Brooklyn. Regional Plan Association/Facebook
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People putting together costumes for the West Indian Day Parade in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.Library of Congress
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A day outside at a Brooklyn beach.Library of Congress
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Dancing the Giglio in Williamsburg, Brooklyn during the Italian American Giglio Feast. The Giglio is a massive, flower-laden steeple of wood, measuring more than 80 feet high. Library of Congress
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Men carrying the Giglio in Williamsburg.Library of Congress
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Visitors to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.Regional Plan Association/Facebook
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The sunset in Brighton Beach.Adelia Meluso
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Boro Park during a snowstorm, which left about 24 inches of snow. 1983-1984.Anthony Catalano/Flickr Creative Commons
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Coney Island in the 1980s.Library of Congress
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The John Jay High School football team celebrating as they walk down the street. Adelia Meluso/Facebook
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The Rev. Al Sharpton leading the first of many protests after a mob of white teenagers murdered a 16-year-old Black teenager named Yusuf Hawkins in the Bensonhurst neighborhood of Brooklyn in 1989.Wikimedia Commons
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A group horseback riding through a park.Regional Plan Association/Facebook
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A foggy Plaza Street in October 1983.Brooklyn Museum
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The Sea Lane Bakery at Brighton Beach in the 1980s.Don Dettmer/Facebook
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Fourth of July fireworks over Brooklyn.Wikimedia Commons
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People walking along the street in Boro Park.Library of Congress
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A man walking by the Brooklyn Academy of Music. 1985.See Old NYC
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People traveling to Coney Island on the subway. 1983.Library of Congress
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A man and his son posing in front of a graffiti-covered wall near the Brooklyn Bridge.Library of Congress
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Brooklyn’s 7th Avenue in the 1980s.Larry Brown/Facebook
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A beach in Brooklyn during the summer of 1988.New York Public Library Digital Collections
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New York City Mayor Ed Koch in Bay Ridge.Anthony Catalano/Flickr Creative Commons
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A woman tending to her flowers.Regional Plan Association/Facebook
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Mt. Zion Holiness Church in Brooklyn.Library of Congress
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Taxi drivers pictured during a protest on Ocean Parkway in 1986. See Old NYC
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Artist Richard Rappaport in Brooklyn in 1981.Wikimedia Commons
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The filming of Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power” video in 1989.See Old NYC
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The Community Supermarket at 119 Pennsylvania Avenue in 1988.Library of Congress
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A man sitting along the East River by the Brooklyn Bridge.See Old NYC
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The Brooklyn Bridge lit up at night. 1982.Wikimedia Commons
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Oceana Cinemas in Brighton Beach. 1988.See Old NYC
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The New Hope Pentecostal Church in Brooklyn.Library of Congress
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People sitting on a bench looking out at Lower Manhattan from Columbia Heights in Brooklyn.See Old NYC
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Public housing in Brooklyn.Library of Congress
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Two women approaching a day care center and senior center in 1988.Library of Congress
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A view of Manhattan from the Brooklyn Bridge as workers chat. 1985.Library of Congress
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The Brooklyn Ferry Landing in 1989.Brooklyn Museum
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A truck driving through Brooklyn, with a toy stuck to its front.Wikimedia Commons
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Men at the Essex Street Market on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, picking up an etrog fruit to celebrate the Jewish Sukkot holiday in Brooklyn.Library of Congress
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An aerial photo of various storefronts in Brooklyn.Library of Congress
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A view of the Brooklyn skyline.Library of Congress
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55 Revealing Photos Of 1980s Brooklyn That Show How The Borough Changed Throughout The Decade
Urban Decay, The Crack Epidemic, And The Fallout From The 1970s
The dawn of a new decade doesn’t erase the years that came before it, and although we might now think of the 1980s as louder, brighter, and more glamorous than the 1970s, the scars of those previous years were still visible.
New York was in crisis in the 1970s. Economic and political troubles caused unprecedented levels of stress. The city nearly went bankrupt, industries were declining, middle-class families fled to the suburbs, social services were cut, and waves of arson and an increase in other crimes left a terrible mark on Brooklyn neighborhoods like Bushwick and Bedford-Stuyvesant.
By the early 1980s, parts of Bushwick almost looked like a war zone. The 1977 blackout riots had accelerated the ongoing decline, leaving behind rubble-strewn lots and hollowed-out buildings in some communities.
As writer Denis Chavez pointed out in a blog post for the NYC Department of Records: “By 1975, Bushwick already had suffered 4,000 fires; 900 most likely from arson by landlords trying to make a fast dollar. The blackout [happened] on July 13, 1977, but the scene for looting and arson had long ago been established. The damage done during the 24 hours of the blackout in Bushwick alone accounted for 88 stores looted and 48 set on fire.”
NYC Municipal Archives1 Bushwick Place in the 1980s, a former brewery that was temporarily abandoned.
In the 1980s, Mayor Ed Koch invested $58 million into new public housing in the Bushwick area, which led to a small amount of recovery, but it wasn’t enough to restore it to how it had been in decades prior.
At the same time, all of New York City was dealing with the widespread crack epidemic. Crack cocaine tore through vulnerable communities with especially terrifying speed, turning some street corners into open-air drug markets. For many people, their daily routines became a lesson in survival, and ordinary citizens were forced to step up to address crime when authorities wouldn’t, leading to organizations like the Guardian Angels.
Oliver Morris/Getty ImagesA Guardian Angel talks to founder Curtis Sliwa’s then-wife Lisa on the subway.
Brooklyn effectively teetered on the edge of becoming an East Coast Detroit.
Additionally, the racial tensions that simmered throughout the decade sometimes exploded into horrific violence. In 1989, for example, a Black teenager named Yusuf Hawkins was shot to death in the then-predominately Italian neighborhood of Bensonhurst, sparking demonstrations led by Hawkins’ parents and activists like the Rev. Al Sharpton. The protesters were often harassed with jeers and racial slurs, and Sharpton was even stabbed in the chest with a steak knife at one point as he prepared to protest.
Brooklyn’s Cultural Richness Amidst The Chaos
Even as Brooklyn struggled with crime and economic problems, the borough’s immigrant communities maintained strong cultural traditions. The early 1980s was an especially fruitful time to witness these celebrations.
The Brooklyn Rediscovery Folklife Study Project, conducted from 1980 to 1983, documented this cultural boom. The project focused on neighborhoods such as Williamsburg, Bedford-Stuyvesant, and Bay Ridge, and documented various traditions from different communities, including celebrations like the Italian American Giglio Feast, the Caribbean American West Indian Day Parade, and the Jewish Sukkot holiday.
Some of these traditions were — and still are — massive events.
The Italian American Giglio Feast in Williamsburg runs for 12 days in July, culminating with the dancing of the Giglio, a flower-laden steeple of wood over 80 feet high, carried through the streets by hundreds of men.
Library of Congress A man crafting a steel drum to celebrate the West Indian Day Parade.
The West Indian Day Parade, meanwhile, occurs over Labor Day weekend and brings elaborate costumes, steel pan ensembles, and countless spectators to Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights.
The project documented African Americans, Greek Americans, Polish Americans, Puerto Ricans, Irish Americans, Chinese Americans, Ukrainian Americans, and many other Brooklynites, capturing uniquely urban folklife practices such as pigeon flying and games like boccie and skelly.
These cultural celebrations represented a profound act of placemaking, transforming Brooklyn’s streets into stages for traditions carried on from distant homelands. However, other factors would cause many of these close-knit neighborhoods to struggle financially — including gentrification.
The Quiet Rise Of Gentrification
While established immigrant communities maintained their cultural traditions, a different demographic was quietly reshaping Brooklyn’s future. Beginning in the 1960s and accelerating throughout the 1980s, educated middle-class professionals who were priced out of Manhattan became drawn to Brooklyn’s tree-lined streets and historic architecture.
These so-called “romantic urbanists” were looking for organic connections to history and hints of rural life, settling in Brooklyn neighborhoods, which they gave rustic names, living uneasily among their less privileged neighbors.
Some writers and artists had already settled in Brooklyn by the time professionals started arriving in neighborhoods like Park Slope, Cobble Hill, and Carroll Gardens. By the 1970s, Brooklyn was undergoing a “brownstone movement,” which involved newcomers renovating brownstones in various neighborhoods, tearing down the aluminum awnings, ripping up the linoleum floors, and, in some cases, completely transforming entire properties.
Wikimedia CommonsBrownstones in Park Slope in 2008.
By 1982, middle-class couples with modest finances had moved into areas where they lived alongside Irish immigrants, Italian immigrants, and Puerto Ricans, who played a key role in giving Brooklyn its working-class identity.
As realtor Austin K. Haldenstein told The New York Times, this new wave of brownstone occupants included “young professionals who either band together in groups and split up a house, or couples who live in one or two floors and rent the rest of the space out. Since prices are high, few single families can afford to buy a brownstone just for themselves.”
That hadn’t always been the case, though. As rents increased in these previously affordable areas, tensions increased between the families who were now being priced out and the white-collar workers moving in.
Many of these same tensions remain in Brooklyn to this day.
How The 1980s Sowed The Seeds Of Change In Brooklyn
Despite the challenges, the 1980s planted seeds that would eventually transform Brooklyn into one of America’s most desirable places to live.
The borough’s rich cultural diversity, festivals, and traditions brought communities together and became a prime example, in a way, of the promise of America. The brownstone movement, meanwhile, proved that Brooklyn’s historic architecture could attract newcomers who were seeking alternatives to Manhattan’s high costs and towering apartments.
Neighborhoods such as Brooklyn Heights, Clinton Hill, and Park Slope slowly transformed as young professionals and families looked to Brooklyn as a more affordable, low-key alternative to living in Manhattan.
This process would accelerate in the 1990s when changes to policing helped bring crime rates down, but the foundations were laid in the 1980s by others who were curious or eager enough for change to settle in the borough.
The 1980s also witnessed Brooklyn’s emergence as a cultural force beyond its ethnic festivals. The decade saw the rise of hip-hop, with Brooklyn artists contributing significantly to the genre’s development and popularity.
The decade was an energetic, challenging, intense, and sometimes utterly strange one for Brooklyn. But in the end, it ultimately helped pave the way for what the borough is today — for better or worse.
After looking through these photos of 1980s Brooklyn, see what life was like in Los Angeles in the 1980s. Then, step into the world of 1980s hair metal.
