The year-end issue of the Brooklyn Rail offers some interesting verbiage on the "spasm of demolition and construction" Williamsburg this year and some of the accompanying marketing campaigns (see above). Check it out:
Sometimes it seems like the ghost of Robert Moses donned some hipster sunglasses and started tearing up the neighborhood, leaving any Jane Jacobsian ideal of preserving the unique traits of a community in the rearview mirror of a Hummer...Will that really be a hotel overlooking the BQE at Meeker and Withers? Are they really building a tall luxury condo building with a sweeping view of McGuinness Boulevard and pretty far from even the G Train? Do people really respond to sales lines like “Williamsburg. All grown up” and “It’s just different in Williamsburg” when they are looking to drop half a million on a new studio? It also begs the question: why are they breaking ground to build new condos at all?So many questions and so many spasms.
· Construction/Deconstruction of Williamsburg Continues at Frantic Pace [Brooklyn Rail]
· Decamped Hipster Says Williamsburg is Embarassed [Curbed]