Williamsburg’s post-Civil War business boom and transportation improvements, such as widespread trolley service, brought renewed development to the neighborhood. Broadway became “the preferred address for monumental banks, the location of Williamsburg’s premier stores, the center for entertainment, and the nexus for most of Williamsburg’s ferry-going travels.”5 Broadway served as the main thoroughfare with the New York Ferry Co., located at the foot of Broadway and the East River, providing service to Grand and Roosevelt Streets in Manhattan. Significant new commercial buildings arose, including the Kings County Savings Bank (1868, King & Wilcox), 115 Broadway, Smith, Gray & Co. Building (1870), later 103 Broadway; and Williamsburgh Savings Bank (1870-75, George B. Post; Peter B. Wight, interior), 175 Broadway and 195 Broadway (all designated New York City Landmarks).
In the late 19th century, political leaders in Williamsburg began to push for the construction of an additional bridge over the East River to connect Williamsburg to Manhattan. In addition to improving the transportation of goods and people, it was believed that a bridge would also result in further development on Broadway. Construction of the Williamsburg Bridge began in 1896 and resulted in the demolition of many of the buildings in the area. The bridge opened to considerable fanfare in 1903, serving all forms of transportation, including trolley cars and rapid transit. It resulted in the exodus of thousands of individuals from the Lower East Side. The majority of the people were Eastern European Jews that settled in Williamsburg, but enclaves of Italian, Polish, Lithuanian, and Russian Orthodox immigrants also developed. By the late 1930s, Williamsburg, especially the area south of Broadway, was a magnet for Hasidic Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi-occupied Europe. Puerto Ricans, attracted by the neighborhood’s large manufacturing base, settled there in large numbers beginning in the 1950s. Older buildings were demolished for the construction of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and new public housing complexes; the exodus of manufacturing left abandoned industrial and residential buildings in its wake. Starting in the 1970s, musicians and artists began moving to Williamsburg’s Northside. The neighborhood has seen substantial redevelopment in the past two decades. In addition to the large Hasidic community on Williamsburg’s Southside, the neighborhood has a sizeable Latin population, including Dominican immigrants who began settling in the neighborhood in large numbers in the 1980s; substantial African-American, Italian, and Polish communities are also present in Williamsburg today.
Source: NYC Landmarks.