BUSHWICK — It's a tale of two Bushwicks.
The results of New York's chaotic primary Tuesday reveal a rift in the neighborhood along Myrtle Avenue where new Bushwick meets old Bushwick.
Residents on the western edge of the neighborhood voted overwhelmingly for Bernie Sanders and on the eastern edge of the neighborhood with Myrtle Avenue as a cutoff, residents sided with Hillary Clinton, according to a granular breakdown of voting blocks by the New York Times.
Sanders locked in much of the North Brooklyn vote, earning 68 percent of Greenpoint Democrats' support in a liberal stronghold though Williamsburg and western Bushwick until Myrtle Avenue.
From there, east, Hillary Clinton reclaimed her advantage.
Kinda funny that you can trace the #gentrification along the #Ltrain stops by the % of the vote for @BernieSanders pic.twitter.com/m5qPjbY7bt
— StanO (@StanfromSD) April 20, 2016
Residents randomly polled on either side of Myrtle Avenue the dividing saw voting pattern as a sign of younger millennials moving into the neighborhood, as well as a divide between historically black neighborhood on the east of Myrtle that had sided with Clinton and a historically Latino one on the western side.
Blanca Johnson, 50, a lifelong Bushwick resident on the Clinton side of Bushwick, said she'd liked both candidates but ultimately chose Clinton because of her experience. Clinton's husband also had pushed many voters she knew over the edge, she said.
"He was always a big [fixture] in the black community," she said.
Madison Griffin, 27, a resident of Bushwick for four years wasn't surprised by the Myrtle Avenue, she said.
"I don't want to be cliché but it's just young hipsters," on the western side, said Madison Griffin, 27, while the other side of Myrtle is still more multi-cultural and multi-ethnic, she said.
Griffin used to live in Bernie's Bushwick when she first moved there four years ago but had since been priced out to the other side of Myrtle Avenue.
"It's too expensive on the Sanders side now," she said.
Bernie v. Hillary is tearing Bushwick apart! Jk a poll showed that the Dem primary is uniting our party. #ImWithHer pic.twitter.com/9f4J2kwX4Z
— Adam McMahon (@adammc123) April 20, 2016
On the Sanders side, Bethanne Kelleher, 35, thought that his message had appealed to her millennial neighbors, especially because of his platform on free education and student debt.
"Student loans, the status quo, equal pay for women, it's way more socialist...You don't need to be in debt to your 50, " Kelleher said. "Older voters still have some of that engrained thinking."
