Tag: Williamsburg

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Petition to prevent a bar cafe from being created inside WNYC Transmitter Park

I was scrolling through Reddit when I came across this post and I immediately related it to our class. This post is a petition to prevent a cafe from being built in WNYC Transmitter Park, which is the same location where Smorgasburg pops up once a week. Smorgasburg is obviously a very creative class targeted market, selling burgers with buns made out of ramen noodles, overpriced mangoes in the shape of flowers, and whole coconuts to drink out of. A cafe in this location is perfectly suited for this population, as well as the population of the rest of the neighborhood around it (that being Williamsburg). It is so interesting to me that the community is in fact, AGAINST building this kind of establishment. The end of the petition reads, “A COMMERCIAL BUSINESS AT THE HEART OF THIS PARK WOULD RUIN THE TRANQUILITY OF THIS SMALL, SPECIAL SPACE.” Just like that, bolded and in all caps. This petition shows that although developers might think it’s a great idea to further provide for the targeted population, sometimes enough is enough. Hipsters like to have a place of peace and quiet too, just like the rest of us.

https://www.change.org/p/friends-of-wnyc-transmitter-park-prevent-a-bar-cafe-from-being-created-inside-transmitter-park?recruiter=9094127&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink

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Gentrification in Williamsburg

Since some of this week’s readings talk about Williamsburg, I decided to choose an article about that neighborhood as well.

AM New York published an article last May discussing a report from NYU’s Furman Center that shows Williamsburg leads NYC in gentrification. The report showed that Williamsburg had a 78.7 percent surge in average rents between 1990 and 2014, while citywide, average rents had only increased by 22.1 percent in the same timeframe. Ivan Pereira also points out that “this isn’t new news,” but just looking at the numbers is astounding. Similarly in sports writing, you can gauge change by consistently watching game after game, but statistics can back up your claims of how and why a certain team or player has improved or regressed.

I’m really not all too familiar with Williamsburg, aside from the fact that the neighborhood is used as a running joke for “hipster town,” or just as the most heavily gentrified neighborhood in general. For the most part, I think of Williamsburg as an odd food haven, simply because I see Facebook videos and Instagram photos all the time of delicious-looking food at restaurants in Williamsburg. Of course, the fact they’re in Williamsburg already means I won’t be going, but it makes me wonder if I’d get more of an “Eeeeats” vibe from Williamsburg (similar to Greenwich Village), or if I’d get more of a “foreign land” kind of vibe (like where am I even?).

If Williamsburg is anything like Bushwick, I’d probably get more of a “foreign land” vibe. For some reason, I pair neighborhoods like Williamsburg and Bushwick together. I suppose it’s because they’re both on the L line and I would hate if I had to go to either one, plus they’re two common neighborhoods people refer to as gentrified ones.

I have actually been to Bushwick once. Never. Again. I had the absolutely worst hipster macchiato (or cappuccino or something, I can’t recall) for $3 or $4, and it wasn’t even lukewarm. Well, I can already tell things in Williamsburg are overpriced, so on top of hipsters and commute time, these are the reasons you’ll never find me there.