Bring back the gangs of the 70's, 80's, & pre-Giuliani 90's. This wouldnt' even be an issue. We'd be reading an article titled, "33 Shot Dead and Robbed of Power Tools on the Way to An Abandoned Building." LMAO

Ha ha, the stupid bitch removed her Facebook page probably because she couldn't handle people calling her out on her obnoxious shit.

Dear Santa,

All I want for Christmas is a Special Hipster Task force dedicated to reclaiming our streets and abandoned buildings in this manner.

That is all.

Also, while squatting there, the guy appears to be continuing to run his welding business out of the building:

http://newyork.craigslist.org/brk/sks/2012312436.html

"the hungry crusty hipsters"

You're probably closer to accuracy with 'crusty' than with 'hipster'.

That is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusties

Or even: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutter_punk

But not likely what are normally referred to as hipsters.

Last I checked hipsters had less than perfect hygiene.

Crusty Hipster works just great for me. So does Douchebag.

Calling these people hipsters is frankly an insult to hipsters. I live on this block, and let me give you the reverse perspective:

For years, the people living in this building have thrown completely unreasonable parties that make miserable literally every single other resident on the block. Friday afternoon they'd leave wooden pallets in the street to save a parking space for an enormous diesel truck full of professional sound equipment that would pull up; they'd wire the house and backyard like a club, and BLAST music all weekend. With no exaggeration or hyperbole: it would start Friday night, continue all night Friday, all day Saturday, all night Saturday, all Sunday morning and wrap up some time Sunday night. How bad was it? With all the windows closed and the air conditioner turned all the way up, we could not hear our own television. All we could hear was the party music. More insultingly, when you would reasonably ask them to turn it down, they'd just say, "Come to the party!" as if this was a rational, reasonable response. Once the party promoter told one of the neighbors who asked them to turn it down, "No. Respectfully? This is my livelihood."

Bear in mind: I do not even live in an adjacent build, but down the block. I am not a crazy old neighbor who bangs on the ceiling every time you walk across your floor or overreacts when neighbors make a completely reasonable amount of noise at reasonable hours of the night. City living is cramped; we have to do our best to get along. There's a family on the other side of us, them, their teenage kids, they party in the back yard all the time, blast their radios into the night, barbeque, whatever. These people both have their fun and are respectful of the fact that they live among other human beings. I've lived in New York my whole life, and I've never, never even heard of neighbors more hatefully indifferent and inconsiderate than these "hipster" partiers.

Over the summer a bunch of the people on the block found out these people were sometimes charging money and selling liquor, advertising on places like Facebook for "secret location" parties--so, essentially running an illegal club. What is being talked about is absolutely NOT what is called to the imagination when you say "Me and a couple friends celebrating a birthday".

Also, saying "party-pooping neighbors called cops to complain" is equivocating and inaccurate, as the NYPD will corroborate. "Party-pooping" neighbors have been calling to complain for YEARS. Heads up? Police don't do anything about noise complaints, of which I'm sure there were hundreds made. What made this time different was this: this brownstone is attached to a condemned, abandoned one, and these partiers had taken power tools and knocked down the walls between their building and the abandoned one (the building owner is an absentee landlord no one seems to be able to contact ever), and the backyard fence between their building's yard and the adjacent one, and had extended the size of their "venue".

Turns out, trespassing in other buildings is a thing the NYPD will actually show up for. The police showed up Sunday morning, at around hour 40 of the party as far as we could tell.

Since the building has been "vacated", the previous tenants continue to squat there and threaten and intimidate the married couple unlucky enough to have bought a house next to these monsters.

Being a hipster is an insult in itself.

Hipsters are douchebags. End of story. No exceptions.

Thanks for putting this out there. Hopefully less young people will feel sympathetic for these guys.

My impression was that most of the people there weren't that young, ranging from late twenties to mid/late thirties.

And also, perhaps, fewer of those who are more young!

whoa. i mean, if that's the case it sounds like the arrests were justified.

HOWEVA, you still can't sexually harass the female prisoners and steal their money.

Unless, by some chance, they are lying about the harassment in an effort to get their own asses off the hook. I mean, obviously they're disrespectful jerks anyway, so they'd probably be willing to slander a few cops in an effort to go free. It's possible.

What, no clearly that's horrible. Just because I want my neighbors to behave like reasonable people doesn't mean I believe they (or anyone) deserves mistreatment at the hands of the police. I want my police to behave as civilly and respectfully as I want my neighbors to behave (the NYPD are, after all, just more of my neighbors).

That being said, having watched all this go down that Sunday morning (the whole block was standing on the sidewalk watching, sitting in lawn chairs, beaming, drinking coffee and chatting--it was like Armistice Day), I did not see the police engaging in inappropriate behavior, although this sounds like if it did happen it was mostly at central booking. The partiers, to the outside observer, seemed belligerent, defiant and uncooperative. It was like watching teachers try to herd unruly stoned kindergarteners.

Also, guys? When you are being arrested, don't be the people who are like "Show me the section of the criminal code where it says you can arrest us for this! Show it to me right now!" (as several partiers were insisting). It's really not going to end well. Cops aren't going to debate legalisms with you, nor should they.

"Cops aren't going to debate legalisms with you, nor should they."

Nope. In fact, anything like that will happen at the precinct prior to booking. Once a cop tells you that you are being arrested, you almost certainly will be.

At the precinct there are procedures for determining if the arrest was valid. If it's determined that it was not, the patrol supervisor can authorize its invalidation and you're released. Otherwise, you'll either get a desk appearance ticket or be transferred to the borough booking facility. Before either of those, you may be held in lockup at the precinct for some time.

"although this sounds like if it did happen it was mostly at central booking."

It actually sounds like the allegation is that it happened at the precinct, before being transferred to a booking facility. It isn't clear from the article whether any of them actually were transferred; they may have been released directly from the precinct.

What about the male prisoners? Is it OK to sexually harass them though?

RIght, a party behind an empty building really calls for arresting 31 people, most of whom had no notion of the legality of the host's residency. And calling them hipsters means they're automatically in the wrong. Come on - the cops are the ones wasting everyone's time and money here - not to mention sexually harassing the prisoners. Couldn't they just have broken up the party and arrested the one illegal resident, like ina sane world?

"Oh, I'm sorry officer. I'm a tourist from New Orleans or Las Vegas. I had no idea it was illegal to drink outside. Let me just get a pass on this..."

Um, no. That doesn't work and neither does not knowing that it was an illegal fiesta. That's why when a party is raided people runnn!!!

But sure, let 'em go since they didn't know. Ignorance is bliss, right?

PS Don't give money to cops while booked and expect it back and don't expect to be treated nicely while in holding, especially central bookings. Stupid tourists...grow a pair or grow up, kids.

"cops responded to a 911 call of a large group breaking into the building with tools"

So a little more than simply being at a party.

Yeah, ANYBODY could have boarded up those windows & doors! & the partitions could have been torn down on ACCIDENT, you don't know! I mean, that guy who brought the tools to break in might have forgotten their keys! Just because they were criminally trespassing & creating a public disturbance in the middle of a residential neighborhood, BAH!

Yeah, if there are a bunch of people illegally occupying an abandoned building you SHOULD arrest them. I don't know what they may or may not be charged with, nor do I know what the police conduct was like-- but I don't have any pity for this, least of all an "ignorance" defense that doesn't make any sense.