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Williamsburg: Not Just for Wealthy Hipsters

hipsters0609.jpg Did anyone really think that it was only trust fund kids living in Williamsburg? NYMag is on a myth-busting mission in this piece that looks beyond the hipster population in the neighborhood. And it turns out there's even more than just hipsters and those who want to slash them with machetes, there's also "a community of people mostly struggling to get by." The piece contains some informative stats for those who look at Williamsburg as solely a trustafarian paradise—did you know in the last 12 months the median income for the area was $39,663 (the city median is $48,631). Of course, talkin' about food stamps, Trinitarios, and Drano Bombs doesn't exactly move luxury condos (or grab headlines, as the site points out).

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Comments [rss]

  • KiljoyWasHere

    I think that any article with "Williamsburg" or "Hipster" in the title has completely interchangeable comments.

  • janelle

    some of the debates and generalizations mentioned in the comments are beyond played out. everyone knows this, but everyone also keeps taking the bait!

    what is not played out, however is this photo! let's see that on gothamist more often!

  • Jerky

    The only people who use the word "trust fund hipsters" are those who wish they had one for themselves.

  • HymietownHero

    Not that I ever use the term "trust fund hipsters", but hells bells I'd love me one of them trust funds. It's like the ticket to endless leisure and pussy, and work just sucks.

  • ribaldry

    Brooklyn is like one of those girls you fuck every now but would never be seen in public with.

  • robingee

    "Brooklyn is like one of those girls you fuck every now but would never be seen in public with."

    Yeah! One of THOSE girls! Everyone knows what you're talking about, brother! We've all been THERE. HOO-boy! Every dude here is a shallow asshole. Man, oh man.

  • jenNYork

    actually, brooklyn wouldn't call you back so you two being in public isn't in the cards

  • ribaldry

    Im in a band from Brooklyn called The Future CPA's.

  • ribaldry

    Theres more irony in Brooklyn per capita than anywhere else in the world.

  • dirty hipster

    Seriously - this Williamsburg crap is getting old.

    Everyone in Williamsburg is living off their parents? Trying going to Murray Hill - somehow I think a 22 year old girl from Missouri working as an ad assist isn't making enough $$$ to afford a 3,300 dollar a month 1 bedroom in a doorman building and run around with Marc Jacobs bags and go out 5 nights a week. But her parents back home are scared she will be raped if she doesn't live in a building with a guy who sits at a desk and reads a newspaper 24 hours a day. Please, you're all delusional.

    Sure, people in Williamsburg might get some financial assistance from their parents - but it pales in comparison to the young kids living in Manhattan.

    Really - cool it with Williamsburg. Yeah, the "hipsters" dress funny, listen to crappy music and carry tote bags. They live in crappy, dangerous neighborhoods far away from Manhattan, drink crappy beer and have insipid pseudo-intellectual conversations about art and politics. So what??

    Any post about hipsters you could substitute hipster for any young person living in NYC at the moment. Housing is expensive, wages are stagnant and everyone STILL wants to be here thanks to Sex and the City.

    Ok - tirade finished.

  • REALITY CHECK

    The Williamsburg vs Manhattan thing is getting old, too. There's a myth that Manhattan below 96th is all more expensive than Williamsburg.

    The Lower East Side, notably below East Broadway, is cheaper and is within a reasonable walking distance to a lot more things than Williamsburg.

  • dwayno

    finally. i'm sick and tired of people using the word "hipster" as some sort of punchline to a joke. it's tired. we've all heard the word 6 times a day for the past year. it's not funny anymore. and while many of the people living around williamsburg are the pretentious judgmental and trendy art types, most of us around the area and in greenpoint are down to earth working class people that bust our asses and work 3 jobs to pay rent, so stop generalizing.

  • ribaldry

    Brooklyn is like Manhattan's retarded sister who gives all your friends handjobs.

  • Rocknrope

    Christ man, get a new line. It wasn't funny when you posted it last year or on Brownstoner. If anything, you sound like the mildly retarded one, repeating the same line while giggling in your underoos.

  • ribaldry

    Beckham and Posh named their child Brooklyn... need I say more?

  • Dead Himmler

    That was awesome.

  • bktv

    You have to report trust fund $ as income. It's not off the books.

  • Gay Röhm

    You have to report any INCREASE in the trust fund's value as income, not any WITHDRAWALS (which is what you're actually living off of as a trustafarian).

    Also, some people are taking the "trustafarian" thing too literally. The point is that there are tons of people in Williamsburg who lead the lifestyles they do only because of parental support, trust fund or not. And in most cases this parental support is not recorded as income (again, unless the trust fund is gaining value, which was unlikely last year).

    Even some kids I know with real, paying jobs who live in Williamsburg are able to live beyond their means and rent $1600/month apartments only because they have the security of their parents' $$$ behind them.

  • bktv

    No. Most people who have trusts live off the interest, which you must report as income.

    Young people getting parental handouts has been part of NYC forever. It was more high profile in Williamsburg for various reasons, but still there aren't that many new people, relative to the general population, and the new ones aren't as wealthy as popular mythology has made them out to be. And another thing the old-timers miss is that if their friends and neighbors hadn't sold their houses to developers or rented to the newcomers, a lot of what has happened wouldn't have.

  • YELLOWFOOT

    People actually think that williamsburg is mostly trust funds? I have lived in this neighborhood for 10 yrs and i have yet to meet someone with a trust fund. I always thought people were kidding when they said that

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