No Free Walls: Art and Gentrification Collide In Bushwick

The Bushwick Collective

Uptown you NEED to see No Free Walls. The film is an in-depth look at Brooklyn’s changing landscape, through the eyes of Joseph Ficalora, the founder and inadvertent art curator of The Bushwick Collective. Joe, son of Italian immigrants, grew up in Bushwick, a neighborhood in Brooklyn once ravaged by drugs, neglect and violence. Sound familiar? Of course it does. What is happening in Brooklyn is happening in Washington Heights and all over this country.

Joseph Ficalora lost his mother to cancer as an adult and rather than going into deep depression, he decided to honor his parents and the neighborhood that raised him. He started contacting muralists from all over the world and 5 years later, Bushwick is one of the fastest growing gentrified neighborhoods in New York.

As advertisers and new residents flood Bushwick, longtime residents struggle to keep up with rising rents and changing landscape. Complex News Documentaries asks: Can a community thriving off its native creativity survive all the change? Will the spreading wave of gentrification whitewash the now world-renowned art and who is at fault?

We invite you to subscribe to the weekly Uptown Love newsletter, like our Facebook page and follow us on Twitter & Instagram or e-mail us at [email protected].

You Might Also Like

  • Nancy
    September 16, 2016 at 7:28 pm

    Can’t thank Uptown enough for bringing this film to our attention! As a native of East New York, right next to Bushwick, the artist-gentrification trajectory is inevitable and bittersweet. We’ll see what the Inwood Neighborhood Plan brings.

  • Rafael Moses
    September 25, 2016 at 11:18 pm

    Thank you for the post!!!