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While Williamsburg sits stagnant in a confused state of purgatory, the abandoned and stalled luxury condos have become a haven for one group: the gutter punks. The Daily News gives the group a two-story treatment today, saying the "heroin-addict hobos from around the country are overrunning" the area. And as with every other newcomer to the Brooklyn neighborhood, they're hated by those who came before them.
Not too long ago we pointed to the Williamsboard community, where there's a massive thread on the punks. Some say they're friendly, some say they're smelly, some are sick of their panhandling and fighting. One local told the paper, "It's like St. Marks in the '70s. It's the bad old days all over again. There's crack and heroin all over the neighborhood." Indeed, the punks shoot up at the same cafes you pay 4 bucks for an iced latte.
Reportedly they escape their middle-class upbringing by hopping a freight train to the city, where they make up to $150 a day panhandling before returning to their chosen neighborhood to catch some shut eye (or shoot up). Many squat at 510 Driggs Avenue, an alleged hot spot for heroin and the stalled site of a 50-unit luxury rental complex. One such 22-year-old told the News, "I've got to sleep somewhere, and I might as well do it in Williamsburg. The girls here like it that I'm dirty and I ride trains." It's like the heroin hipster version of batting ones eyelashes, he makes $15/hour in Union Square by simply holding a sign that reads: "Traveling Broke and Sexy."
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Is this a serious article? I haven't seen any gutter punks and I live an work here (Williamsburg).
I live there and I have noticed more degenerate white kids panhandling these days. When they ask me for money on my way home from, you know, WORK, I'd rather burn it in front of them than hand it over. Pathetic.
You know what I do remember that guy on N7 and Bedford ranting religious thoughts. So annoying.
This article is the equivalent of catnip for the pro/anti hipster debaters of Gothamist's comment section.
Anything with "Williamsburg" in the title will do.
Yep... the whole advertising department is running its collective hands in glee. It'll be a pageview bonanza!
Too easy, I won't bother.
haha
Ewwwww. Thank god I don't have to ride the L train anymore!
these posts are fucking cynical jaded stupid and transparent.
Does the guy in the article offer girls fingering with his tongue?
Leave these kids alone, they aren't hurting anyone. If you deconstruct the economics of how the developers got the money to build the luxury condos in the first place, this turn of events is poetic justice. And typically the squatters are nicer and more interesting than the mild-mannered midwestern Williamsburgers that scoff at them.
They borrowed it from China. I fail to see the connection.
Your limited view of how things really work is outside the scope of this thread.
Addicts, by definition, put their addition over everything and everybody. To meet their needs they will beg, borrow and steal. I don't want to be near a bunch of people like that. Why would anyone?
This is why I don't give money to anyone who isn't disabled.
This is why I only give money to buskers (a/k/a street musicians/performers).
Those people are working for a living. I busked for a summer in front of Lincoln Center around 1992. It's hard work, but I made at least $10 per hour CASH (min wage was around $5 at the time).
Buskers (usually) improve the general environment with passive demands for payment, unlike panhandlers (can we please go back to calling them Bums?) who just get in your face and implicitly threaten to mug you (whether or not you give).
I stopped giving to Bums 25 years ago, but I give $2 (per person) to street performers, because they improve, rather than destroy, our great city.
That I agree with.
Also there a few guys who tell jokes.
If you can put a smile on my face I have a buck for you.
As long as you're doing something productive.
And making me smile in spite of the current economic BS and office politics is very productive and definitely worth my money.
Remember the horsey-man who performed on the L and JMZ? He would produce these bizarre sounds while dancing (somewhat dirtily), dressed in an old sheet and mop top for a horse tail. Kids were always excited, and parents were mortified. I usually gave him a buck...how could you NOT?
I haven't thought about that horse guy for years! Indeed, he was one of the few buskers I used to give money to. That guy really went all the way and cracked me up whenever he galloped into the subway car.
ahh memories. i too remember him. one of the only street guys i have ever given money to. i gave him a fiver. also, i live in wb and haven't seen many of the gutters, but that daily news article is f-ing hilarious. very dramatic. retards.
I've been seeking a donations policy. Thanks to your comment I will now prioritize those with disabilities and disfigurements. White kids needing junk are definitely on the pennies only list.
I am glad to provide this service to you.
I can now go have my beer with the knowledge I have contributed tot he common good today.
White kids (or anyone) needing junk need a good smack in the face, not money.
They need good smack in their veins...but we already knew that.
And a perfect reason for the guard dogs in the previous Gothamist story.
Keep these assholes from further leading us into a depression.
I've seen it before- when the empty buildings become overrun by crime there's a long and shitty path out.
Stop the hate! Any one of these gutter punks could be the next Dash Snow.
Who?
i don't support the drug use but I hope the squatters over throw the hipsters for dominance on Bedford Ave. Their annoying reign has lasted long enough, hasn't it?
There is enough heroin in williamsburg or even nyc that these guys are kind of irrelevant. This article is just bait...
I saw a gutter punk today at Nassau and Kingsland in Greenpoint. Can we get out the fire hose and spray them back down into Williamsburg?
Hipsters have their charms, I guess. I like a cute skinny boy now and again. But seriously, WORK. Get a job and be a human. Too many losers are arriving. I'm tired of dodging panhandlers on my way to my job.
I have a novel idea, why don't they leave and take the hipsters who have destroyed the community with them. The natives can take back the community, and turn the converted factory lofts back into the thriving industrial economic center it once was.
And make what? Sewing needles?
Hypodermic needles, perhaps?
I hate gentrification! This city is like Disneyland! I liked it better in the old days!
Gutter punks? I hate those guys! It's like the 70's around here! Why can't the city be clean and pleasant?
Starbucks? I hate Starbucks! etc etc etc
BEST NEWS IN YEARS
So I understand that this pressing issue has already been debated ad nauseum by the bored cubicle set, but I couldn't refrain from throwing in my essentially worthless two cents. Ok. First off, how about I call you a bum? (And a racist, homophobic, sexist bum, too.) Second, what natives? Third, heroin addiction is not sexy, despite any photoshop efforts to make it seem so. (You are not a real photographer!) Fourth, have you ever tried talking to these gutter punks? They have serious issues. (I'm guessing sexual molestation figures into the picture somewhere.) It's not a vacation, or t least not one I'd want to be on. In fact, I think I'd rather go on vacation to that religious theme park in florida where they pretend to crucify jesus everyday. Fifth, what the hell do you do at your precious precious job anyway? Convince people they need a bunch of crap they don't need? Are you a medical doctor? Are you a waste water treatment plant engineer? Are you a visionary? (I don't think so!) Sixth, you do realize that any outrage over addicts crashing in the trash-ridden nooks of abandoned luxury housing is absurd, right? Hey! Those empty towers are for rich people! Where are the rich people gonna live!? We were thinking about living there sometime! How are we ever gonna get the stink out!? I bet it sunk into the rebar! Boo-hoo-hoo. Seventh, I bet 60% of people expressing outrage over heroin addict spangers are on drugs right now. (Can I have the rest of your Wellbutrin?) Eighth, what about all the elderly alcoholic central european men that pass out in the park? Ninth, oh yeah, sure, yeah, let's get more cops out there to lock up the drug users. Yeah, that sounds like a way better idea than, you know, arresting the millionaires who process and distribute heroin. Tenth, some of these crusties actually do engage in busking. So the few addict transients who know how to play C-G-A-F chord on guitar get drug money? Weird. Also, did some one say something about burgers? I'm hungry.