The Williamsburg Taliban strikes again

Theo–I agree, except I'd like to point out one thing. I moved to Williamsburg in 1979 so I think I qualify as part of the first group of artists to arrive. I don't take any particular pride in this...it was purely accidental. Hell, I was looking at places in Staten Island at the same time. That said, since I was there at the time I can tell you the artists who moved in early on didn't displace anyone. The building I moved into (which is very distinctive and now is considered one of the more desirable buildings in Williamsburg) was mostly vacant–and in very funky shape. The landlord was desperate to get tenants. It may be hard for people to realize this, but back then Williamsburg was NOTHING like it is now. If I took the L back from Manhattan on a weekend after 10pm there might be one or two other people getting off the train at the Bedford station. There were no restaurants and not even any bodegas to speak of. If I wanted to really shop for groceriesin a store with some selection I had to walk to Greenpoint. As far as being a member of the proletariat. By definition a member of the proletariat is "a worker". I don't want to romanticize things, but I drove a 12 hour taxi shift and tried to paint as much as I could. My building had "commercial heat" which meant NO heat after 6 pm and on weekends, year round. Some weekends I would go to the movie theater and watch several shows just to be someplace warm. I'm not sure how that made me "priveleged". But I get your point and for the most part agree...I moved out of Williamsburg several years ago.

This thing reminds me of something I should have seen on the south park episode where cartman has to get rid of all of the hippies from south park.. I like the #1 reason to boycoy subway: "Subway is a massive corporation".

Excellent points Smitty, and you're right. That being said, there is a consistent problem with "hipster gentrification"(for lack of a better term), which is that it tends to consist of highly mobile and privileged populations pushing out much less mobile and underprivileged populations(note to starving artists: living in a slum because you just want to paint doesnt make you proletarian). In other words, hipsters can come and go, and in the end it doesnt much matter to them if they're in Wburg or Red Hook, whereas the families they push out with the high rents that they bring in are generally less able to easily pick up and move when their landlord decides he wants to loft up the joint.

"Williamsburg is a unique neighborhood that embraces artisianship, diversity, and individuality. Your new store adds nothing positive to our neighborhood and instead represents homogeny and banality...."

My irony-graph is going absolutely nuts right here. Watch out.

Actually, this is not true: "Williamsburg was first not a community of bourgeois art kids on daddy's credit card, but a lower middle class area made up of Poles, Puerto Ricans, and Chassidic Jews".

Williamsburg was originally part of Boswijk (Bushwick) and was started by the Dutch, who bought the land from the Native Americans. The English took over from the Dutch in 1664, and Williamsburgh was created as a part of Bushwick in 1802.

The "Poles, Puerto Ricans, and Chassidic Jews" didn't really move in great numbers to Williamsburg until after World War II, and their migration there certainly didn't begin until the Williamsburg Bridge was built in 1903. Prior to that time it was mostly people of Western European descent. The hipsters began moving to Williamsburg in the 1980's, so really only starting coming 40 years after the majority of the "Poles, Puerto Ricans, and Chassidic Jews" who you claim were there first.

Basically, my point is that neighborhoods change a great deal in terms of ethnicity and socio-economic backgrounds. No one really has any more claim to a a neighborhood than anyone else. No one was "there first", really, if you think about it, besides the Native Americans, or the Dutch if you want to consider the actual neighborhood itself.

Exactly, the poor hipsters have brought it upon themselves....I guess things like this implode on those most deserving...

kevin - man, i didn't know that about Niederstein's, i used to go there occasionally when i lived in queens. an arby's? bleh.

my in-laws, who are otherwise useless, had some great stories about that place, back when it was a destination for german families in east new york for major occasions and a tiny taste of home.

Awww, how adorable! The cute little hipsters, undoubtedly white and from well off families, are trying to fight the gentrification that they themselves brought into Wburg! Its just so precious...

To sum up the prevailing opinion here -- ideas are dangerous and deserve all the vitriol you can muster.

The only thing chain stores are good for are their bathrooms.

THERE IS A MC DONALDS IN WILIAMSBURG ON BROADWAY. AND GUESS WHAT IT IS FULL OF FATTIES.

THE POINT OF THIS SUBWAY MESS IS THAT PEOPLE DON'T ALWAYS CARE OR KNOW WHAT TO CHOOSE FOR THEIR LIVES AND HEALTH, SO THEY RELY ON THE GOVERNMENT. IT SEEMS SOMETIMES WE ARE WITHOUT ONE WHO CARES FOR ITS HUMAN CITIZENS. WE ARE NOT MACHINES, WE LIKE TO EAT FOOD MADE WITH LOVE, THAT IS THE DIFFERNCE BETWEEN EATING AT A LOCAL PLACE, THERE IS ACTUALLY A HUMAN WHO TAKES CARE OF YOUR FOOD! AMAZING! IT IS NOT JUST A PIECE OF WHATEVER INDUSTRALIZED FOOD TO PROFIT FROM.

WHY IS MAMA'S FOOD ALWAYS MAMA'S FOOD?

AS SOON AS MAMA SOLD HER RECEPIE, AND PAPA INDUSTRALIZED IT THE TASTE WENT AWAY.

WHO WANTS TO EAT LIKE THAT? ROBOTS MAYBE, BUT NOT ME I AM HUMAN MAN! I NEED HAPPY FOOD.

SO GOVERNMENT SHOULD CLOSE SUBWAY AND MACDONALDS.

Maybe if more people had actually patronized the restaurant instead of admiring it for its aesthetic qualities, it would still be opened and we wouldn't be having this conversation.

Wrath should be redirected at Arby's, which tore down a historic restaurant in Middle Village (just 2 miles NE of Willieburg), Niederstein's, which had been in the same location since the mid-1850s.

http://208.198.20.182/ny1/content/index.jsp?stid=10&aid=51402

www.forgotten-ny.com

This is free of cant, so forgive me if it's boring; but I was in a Subway (5th Ave. and 9th St. in Park Slope) this July when somehow we all got locked in--employees and customers. It was one of the most bizarre things I've ever experienced. The teenagers seemed to be getting a kick out of things, but after a half hour of the workers trying to pry the door open I called the cops since the manager didn't seem too concerned with getting there in a hurry. ESU was on the verge of knocking the door off the hinges when one of the employees managed to slip a key under a pried-up sidewalk grate. No harm no foul, but did I get a free crappy sandwich out of it? No. Was I corporate prisoner of Subway for an hour? Yes.

It's funny that people like Boots are so anti-chain, claiming it's something new that's anathema to New York. NY has a history of chain restaurants stretching back a century. This is the city that popularized the H&H Automat. Let's not forget Schrafft's, Wetson's, Orange Julius and the recently closed Howard Johnsons.

I know very little about how the economy works, and I don't doubt that the people who created that sign don't know all the facts, and may ultimately be doing (or may have done) more harm to the neighborhood than good. That being said, I grew up in an area overrun with chain stores, and when you live within five or ten minutes of several strip malls, each which contains a Subway, Starbucks, and McDonald's, it's disheartening. My hometown now has another coffee chain moving in to compete with Starbucks. I eat at Subway and Starbucks, but it's getting out of hand. People have said this for years, but it's a shame that every town in the country has the same stores and restaurants.

Exactly, Boots. What especially baffles me is how a chain like Dominos can stay in business here. Chain pizza...WHY??? What is WRONG with people?

The only good point this poster makes is that Subway has bad food. Their sandwiches are pretty expensive and don't taste very good. In New York, of all places, I don't understand why people eat at fast food restaurants. There are almost always so many better, cheaper options. It shouldn't be an ideological thing. It should be a (pricy and yucky) VS (cheap and tasty) thing. That is all.

Mexicans living in New York, Ethan Allen stores in New York, and the groceries you buy at the A&P support New York more than groceries bought at Kroger in Tennessee would.

You misunderstand me. I'm not saying that all small-business owners exclusively support small businesses. I'm saying that small-business owners primarily support LOCAL businesses. It would be very difficult for you to buy your beer and cigarettes in Hong Kong or Idaho.

It's not like I eat at Subway or anything, and one reason I love NYC is that it has neighborhoods with interesting local businesses. But Motherless Brooklyn has the gall to claim they represent Williamsburg, and I their letter actually hurts their cause. Who could take this seriously? MB should hire an MBA for this task! Thanks for the laugh, Gothamist!