South Eighth, between Berry and Wythe

APR 9, 2008

It's often said that New York City is a city of neighborhoods. We're taking it down another level — it's a city of blocks. Each week, Metro will toss a dart at a map of the city, then provide you a snapshot of what we've found.

 

WILLIAMSBURG. At 8 a.m., South Eighth Street is full of people. Office workers on their way to Manhattan rush past a stream of Hasidic men walking busily the other way. Children wait for yellow yeshiva buses with Yiddish lettering.

But by 9 a.m., this block of former factories east of Berry is practically empty.

''It's quiet,'' said Daniel Mercado, 40, a medical records analyst who was born and raised here.

Mercado's family was in the first wave of Puerto Ricans who arrived after World War II. They owned their house and the apartment building next door. A motorcycle gang protected the block from crime in the 1970s, he said.

''The Jewish community came in about 10 years ago, and now everybody's moving from Manhattan,'' said Mercado, who sold his family's apartment building to Satmar sect members. ''When my parents passed, they were very, very nice.''
 
http://ny.metro.us/metro/local/article/City_Blocks/12201.html

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