I am a resident of New York City - the borough of Brooklyn, "East Williamsburg", to be finite and exacting. East Williamsburg isn't really a geographical place, it's more of a real-estate term. Formerly, the border of Williamsburg was the Brooklyn Queens Expressway, commonly known as the "BQE". Eager brokers and realtors coined the further reaches of the BMT L line to be"Williamsburg" as they hock their jacked-up postings on the internet. Perhaps East Williamsburg is more of an internet term. It serves as a place that many strive to call home and be known as a long-standing resident of.
With what's been referred to as the "L-ification" of Brooklyn, bright-eyed kids began to be pushed further and further out onto the reaches of the L train from the original Bedford Avenue enclave right upon the banks of the East River. We have David Byrne's sympathies though, he mentioned in a Filter article how he felt bad for us having to head out to Bushwick in order to have cheap rents and "create art". In his day, everybody lived in SoHo lofts for next to nothing. If you trace the migration of "hipsters", they have travelled from West-to-East over the past fifty years. Back in "The Village", Bob Dylan lived on West Fourth and Jones Street in a one-room apartment for $80/month (adjusted for inflation and he would be paying the rough equivalent $500). From Greenwich Village, they bounced from SoHo to the East Village until finally landing upon the Plymouth rock of Bedford Avenue. I'm sure there was a ferry that took over the émigrés in droves, sometime around 1998. The elder hipsters scoff at "East Williamsburg" and "Bushwick", because they were here first. They knew something was happening. They consider you a fool for waiting to move to New York. "What were you afraid of?" they might say. Don't be afraid of these people or what they say to you. What do they know? They are 35. They are consider opening a restaurant because everybody tells them that they can cook. It will be a French-American fusion with a catchy one syllable name. It will be featured on blogs and all of their friends will eat there until it closes down and is forgotten. That is progress, baby. The name will always be in the place.
My own Apartment is a turn-of-the-century building on Humboldt Street. There are three stories and the exterior is brick red with green trim and a sloped french-style roof. Across the street is La Gallina, a live poultry market, which is next door to the New Jason Market, a bodega. Directly in front of the door is an active (since now semi-active) crack cocaine spot, which serves as a lingering reminder of the ghost town neighborhood which existed in the zone of the Montrose stop of the L. According to a former officer from the 90 Precinct (the "Nine-Oh"), there were an average 60 rapes and 100 murders in the span of one year. I find this to be alarming, even if it is something of an exaggeration. Even so, the Williamsburg Houses will ever remain a block away and the occasional hipster will continue to be robbed of his iPod in the late-night hours. The area is rapidly gentrifying with new "loft-style" apartments going up; the air is constantly filled by the sounds of a dozen or so construction sites. On our block, we are the last original building standing, sure to be torn down eventually. Our black and white tiled entranceway will be replaced by slate grey concrete, our buzzers will all be electronic with security cameras and the locals will continue to curse the onslaught of the privileged, the gentry, as they arrive from California. I personally try not to stand in the way of progress or catch myself becoming too nostalgic for the Brooklyn of the past. It's better to affect an attitude akin to the Futurists - destroy all sentimental nostalgia, museums are graveyards - but not quite as extreme. It is true though, mediocrity need not be preserved for very long. All of the worthy old buildings will be preserved and what is not deemed worthy will be razed. It is necessary to remember that New York is a place greater than any building that composes it's skyline, if we were in search of just living in old buildings, we'd be better off just moving to Pittsburgh, PA.
My own Apartment is a turn-of-the-century building on Humboldt Street. There are three stories and the exterior is brick red with green trim and a sloped french-style roof. Across the street is La Gallina, a live poultry market, which is next door to the New Jason Market, a bodega. Directly in front of the door is an active (since now semi-active) crack cocaine spot, which serves as a lingering reminder of the ghost town neighborhood which existed in the zone of the Montrose stop of the L. According to a former officer from the 90 Precinct (the "Nine-Oh"), there were an average 60 rapes and 100 murders in the span of one year. I find this to be alarming, even if it is something of an exaggeration. Even so, the Williamsburg Houses will ever remain a block away and the occasional hipster will continue to be robbed of his iPod in the late-night hours. The area is rapidly gentrifying with new "loft-style" apartments going up; the air is constantly filled by the sounds of a dozen or so construction sites. On our block, we are the last original building standing, sure to be torn down eventually. Our black and white tiled entranceway will be replaced by slate grey concrete, our buzzers will all be electronic with security cameras and the locals will continue to curse the onslaught of the privileged, the gentry, as they arrive from California. I personally try not to stand in the way of progress or catch myself becoming too nostalgic for the Brooklyn of the past. It's better to affect an attitude akin to the Futurists - destroy all sentimental nostalgia, museums are graveyards - but not quite as extreme. It is true though, mediocrity need not be preserved for very long. All of the worthy old buildings will be preserved and what is not deemed worthy will be razed. It is necessary to remember that New York is a place greater than any building that composes it's skyline, if we were in search of just living in old buildings, we'd be better off just moving to Pittsburgh, PA.
Since it is New York still, the "community" is actually measured by the people who reside there. The locals are largely Dominican and Puerto Rican. Close to my apartment, Graham Avenue turns from Via Vespucci to Avenue of Puerto Rico once passing Grand Street. The taunts and jokes are fairly harmless. It's not a big deal for someone to poke fun at someone else for dressing strangely. On Humboldt Street close to Metropolitan Ave, I was walking to get brunch once Saturday afternoon and saw an elderly Italian man wearing a shirt that with bold lettering that read: "Welcome to Brooklyn, Now Go Home!" He muttered something about "California" when he passed Emily and myself. Yes, I am a hipster, what of it? The style I affect is relatively plain, compared to most people who don the flavor of the month, neon t-shirts and hack-chopped lopsided haircuts. Sometimes I do wear a beard and longhair like Jesus Christ, but for the most part I am conservatively dressed. I wanted to explain to this guy how my Mom's family were hardworking, blue-collar Italians who lived on the Southside of Philadelphia and how they probably came from the same part of Italy as he did. If it were possible, I would like to feel more akin to my Italian brethren, maybe join the Little Giglio Boys Social Club on Lorimer Street. I'm certain I could shoot the shit with them at their summer barbecues and whip up a helluva mean red sauce, it's in my blood. I could easily reminisce about the old days when the Profaci family had an outpost in Williamsburg and how they actually kept up the neighborhood. I don't have any mob ties myself but I do have a temper when provoked.
However, none of this is of any consequence. I will forever be branded as an invader. An invader who is turning the neighborhood to shit. An invader who is hated by the locals for driving up the costs of living. An invader who brings haute corner bistros where the bargain store used to be. An invader who is scorned viciously and anonymously by fast typists on the blogs. They wish for pain and suffering for the vapid hipster. Of course, everybody loves to hate hipsters. Most of these nameless shit-talkers are nothing more than self-loathing hipsters themselves or even better. Admit it, we all would love to be living in a cold water flat with shirtless lunatics banging on bongo drums, if we could. We would all love to smoke joints with Ginsberg and secretly piss off of the roof at the party in clear view of the bridge, whatever bridge. For now, we bide our time with our corporate junior jobs, make rent more often than we make art and plain and simply, live in New York. We put foot in front of foot each and every day, trudging to the entrance of the train. We are not sheathed by glass windshields and protected by the moving enclosure that is an automobile. Nobody ever said it was going to be easy.
