It has been nearly three years since Brian Williams' famous rant eviscerating the paper of record's creepy-old-man-lurking-in-the-back-of-the-bar fascination with Brooklyn. ("Artisanal cheeses. For Sale, on the streets of an entire American borough.") Still, the Times trots out a new trend piece about Williamsburg, that most Brooklyn-y of Brooklyn neighborhoods, every month or so. Today's item, titled "The Williamsburg Divide," discusses how the north part of Williamsburg is more gentrified than the south part, yet another fascinating chapter in the neighborhood's long and storied history, the totality of which we present to you now:
May, 2002: "A [...] gasp could be heard two months ago in Williamsburg, home to many gaunt people in tight clothes, when a Bedford Avenue storefront that had long housed the local art supply store reopened as Sam & Seb, the neighborhood's first baby store."
July, 2003: "A smattering of recent statistics, combined with an increasing amount of anecdotal evidence, suggest that [...] hipsters [...] are making the reverse migration from Williamsburg, back to the granddaddy of counterculture and underground chic: downtown Manhattan."
March, 2005: "In the last decade, Williamsburg in Brooklyn has been a first stop for young people new to the city, just out of college. As they have grown up, the neighborhood has too, evolving from dive bars and movie rental joints to chic sushi restaurants and designer furniture emporiums."
December, 2006: "Both neighborhoods [Williamsburg and Long Island City] have French restaurants, upscale pizza shops and pet accessory stores."
February, 2007: "Then came the pseudo-hipsters, with money to spend and attitude to burn. Bedford Avenue became worse than SoHo on the weekend."
June, 2009: "Famed for its concentration of heavily subsidized 20-something residents — also nicknamed trust-funders or trustafarians — Williamsburg is showing signs of trouble. Parents whose money helped fuel one of the city's most radical gentrifications in recent years have stopped buying their children new luxury condos."
July, 2012: "The hipper gals wore Alexander Wang tops and Isabel Marant dresses, while some women showed up in Coach bags and kitten heels, fashion choices more commonly associated with Midtown than Bedford Avenue."
February, 2013: "Lofts in Williamsburg formerly filled with baristas and bass players now sell to Goldman bankers in excess of $1 million."
May, 2013: "I decided to embed myself among the rooftop gardeners and the sustainability consultants and the chickeneers."
June, 2013: "Fueled by the area's creative class and surge of younger professionals, a fistful of movie houses, including a grass roots screening room with anarchist leanings and a hulking multiplex, have opened in recent years."
Today: "Grand Street is more than just the dividing line between streets that are numbered north and those numbered south. The border has become Williamsburg's equivalent of the Mason-Dixon line."
The Williamsburg Civil War can't come fast enough.
· Williamsburg coverage [Curbed]
Photo by Roey Ahram
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