Regarding the industrial-to-residential development underway on the waterfront in Williamsburg at 184 Kent Street (spiffy sketch above), a Curbed reader emails:
I'm a resident of 184 Kent and the hypocrisy and half-truths coming from both sides are pretty astounding. First, most of the tenants at 184 Kent (excluding, perhaps, some of the artists who rent studios on the 5th floor) are not at all "middle income" but monied hipsters. My downstairs neighbor, who looks something like well-groomed graffiti artist, has a nanny ferrying his little tots in and out the building all day in expensive strollers. Rents in the building are astronomical; apartments with the "striking views" of Manhattan that the Daily News referenced go for up to $3,500 per month. But Kestenbaum (the owner) isn't at all faultless in this scenario; he's known about the re-zoning for a while now but has only recently sprung the news on tenants. And, as I hear from other tenants, Kestenbaum made people sign month-to-month leases knowing that he could easily evict them once the moment of truth came. So, really, in this battle it's hard to judge who's more dislikable: the greedy landlord or the pouty, rich kid hipsters who really should be living on the Upper East Side. Perhaps your readers can make the call.Man, we're almost tempted to set up one of those online voting things to resolve this.
· Williamsburg Gentrification Wars, Waterfront Edition [Curbed]