Natalie Schuman

Macaulay Honors College: The Peopling of New York City University of New York

Assignment Three: An Immigrant Journey

Williamsburg: From Hasidic to Hipster

I am a fourth generation American and my most recent immigrant ancestors moved to the area around Philadelphia when they arrived from Poland, Lithuania and Hungary. My dad’s side of the family was Jewish and were very religious when they moved to America. Hasidic neighborhoods in different Northeastern cities are often similar so I have chosen to examine the neighborhood of Williamsburg.

This neighborhood is interesting for me to look at it because it embodies my past in that my great, great grandparents were once Hasidic people living in an urban area. But it also embodies my identity in that I have friends who live there, I often shop and eat there, and I can relate to the new people moving in – young, artistic people. I can find my identity represented in both sides of the great struggle of past decade between the Hasidic people who have been living in Williamsburg for years and the incoming “hipsters” who are gentrifying the neighborhood.

I was born and raised in Manhattan but much of my social life existed in Brooklyn and downtown Manhattan. Williamsburg was definitely a frequent stop for my friends and me. We loved the trendy cafés and the thrift stores.

If my Jewish great-great-grandparents had immigrated to New York City and not Philadelphia, they would have likely settled in a neighborhood similar to Williamsburg. They would have known people already living there and perhaps stayed with them until they got on their feet. They would join their synagogue and find jobs in the neighborhood. In a few years they would have been a part of the community and considered Williamsburg home.

However, as a half-Jewish young American woman, I would have little in common with my family members who lived in communities like that. Ironically, I would fit in better with the hipsters of Williamsburg than I would with the Hasidic people, even though they are technically “my people”. 

Walking around Williamsburg, I can feel the pull of both sides of my identity. I get off the L train at Bedford Avenue. I head South on Bedford Avenue towards the Williamsburg Bridge. For the next ten blocks or so, I am confronted by vintage stores, tattoo parlors and lots of hip white people on bikes. As I continue south, I can see the Williamsburg Bridge in the distance. This bridge acts as the dividing line between the two cultures that are primarily represented in this region.

As I continue down Bedford Avenue, I note the lack of a bike lane. For a short time, there was bike lane here that stretched fourteen blocks and garnered much controversy. The hipsters in the neighborhood were very happy about the bike lane. It allowed them to travel via bicycle to work and on trips to health food store. But the Satmar community was very upset as it ran right through their neighborhood. At community board meetings, representatives for the Satmar community spoke out against the bike lane as a disruption to pedestrian traffic and school bus routes.

While this reason was not mentioned in the board meetings, it is likely that the Satmar people were worried about more hipsters taking the route through the Satmar community. Many also claimed that the Satmar were worried that scantily dressed women would be riding through their part of town. In 2009, after Bloomberg won his campaign for reelection, the bike lane was removed. It is generally believed that the bike lane was a reward for the Satmar community’s bloc vote for Bloomberg.

Just before I get to the bridge, I stop in Traif for some lunch. Traif means “unkosher” in Yiddish and carries a critical connotation. Traif specializes in pork and shellfish – go figure. In traditional hipster sarcasm and irony, this restaurant, located right at the border between hipster and Hasidic Williamsburg pokes fun at the Hasidic dietary restrictions while referencing American’s own excessive obsession with pork. Traif’s logo is a drawing of a pig with a heart in the middle. The menu includes strawberry-cinnamon glazed Berkshire baby back ribs and a risotto of Maine lobster, spicy sausage, toasted barley, pistachios and mushrooms.

Walking through Williamsburg along Bedford Avenue, I can feel the sharp change. As I walk under the Williamsburg Bridge, I see no more trendy Thai restaurants or chic cafés. The number of people wearing Doc Martens and flannels sharply decreases. Instead, the streets are filled with people wearing traditional Hasidic outfits and shuls line the streets.

Walking through this part of the neighborhood, I don’t exactly fit in. I am Jewish but I am wearing a flannel and doc martens. I am what the Hasidim would call artisten. This is their Americanized Yiddish word for a hipster. Once in the Hasidic part of Williamsburg, I head west on Broadway and pass 60 Broadway. A huge building filled with condominiums. This building used to be the Gretsch Musical Instrument Factory but is now home to hundreds of apartments. The building was converted in 2003 as the neighborhood was changing to accommodate more affluent young people. The Hasidic people protested but it was eventually converted to the apartment building it is today.

Now we wonder, why couldn’t these two groups get along? Men in both groups are famous for sporting big, bushy beards. Hassidic fashion has been stable for decades and evokes style of the past. Hasidic men wear overcoats, t’fillin and Shtreimel, which is a fur hat worn by married men. The women are usually completely covered and some cover their hair or wear wigs.  Similarly, hipsters are always looking to the past to influence their fashion choices, finding overalls or a 50’s housewife dress hip.

Of course, I am joking. These two groups of people are extremely different. Hipsters are by definition progressive people. They tend to be very politically liberal, independently thinking, etc. These values are very different from the very conservative, traditional Hasidic people living across the border. On top of that, Hasidic people are very insular and would not be happy to share their neighborhood with a whole different group of people.

I think Williamsburg is not only interesting because of the ties it has to my own identity, but because it is changing so rapidly. In a few years, there may be no more Hasidic people left, all forced out by the high rents and lack of strong community. While I still feel connected to both sides of the struggle for Williamsburg, it is a shame that they cannot coexist.