There Goes The Neighborhood
September 27th, 2009 | Published in Creative Essays
tales of and from brooklyn’s current gentrifying class*
by lorelei a. ignas
we might not really be the first artists to move across the bridge…
but don’t tell us that.
we’re young, smart, well-read, and thin.
we all just paid a quarter million dollars for a degree that’s made us unemployable.
we walk your dogs, mix your drinks, and make your coffee.
and dammit, they opened an ikea in Red Hook for us.
this just isn’t our fault.
Who knew that one day hipsters would have their…oops, i mean, our…own wikipedia?
I’m usually pretty desperate to save myself from being called a hipster. To me, meeting the “hipster” team requires very specific characteristics: ironic t-shirts, an apartment off the first 5 stops of the L or J trains, at least 20 different pairs of chuck taylors, sleeping in a “sleep loft” (read: hole carved in the ceiling), having a fixed-gear bike, wearing anything by American Apparel, worshipping Thom Yorke, and being able to paint or otherwise make art in your apartment building which is also occupied exclusively by other hipsters. I prefer moccasins to chuck taylors of late (only after a doctor told me after four straight years of wearing them that I can’t actually tell anybody I don’t know why my feet hurt), i have never and hopefully will never live off the L train, my current landlord does not have earlocks, i do not own a high-waisted skirt OR red lipstick, and I have never been to barcade (that I can remember, anyway). I am terrible at riding a bike, and I still don’t get what the big deal is with Radiohead after having seen them in concert back in 1996; furthermore, I refuse to wear American Apparel because I believe sweatshop labor is way more American than kiddie-porn advertising, and anyway American Apparel doesn’t make Lacoste. Done and done. But (appallingly, I know), nobody asked me what a hipster is, and according to several somewhat official websites I probably am one.
The Brooklyn Public Library’s website refers to hipsters as “the latest ‘immigrants” of Williamsburg, among many other parts of Brooklyn.” “Immigrants” is actually in quotes on their website. Time magazine has a more hilarious (I’ll call it “suburban”) perspective on hipsters. In a July 29 article, they say “Hipsters are the friends who sneer when you cop to liking Coldplay. They’re the people who wear T-shirts silk-screened with quotes from movies you’ve never heard of and the only ones in America who still think Pabst Blue Ribbon is a good beer. They sport cowboy hats and berets and think Kanye West stole their sunglasses. Everything about them is exactingly constructed to give off the vibe that they just don’t care.” Cowboy hats? Let’s consult today’s official geyser of instant misinformation.
Wikipedia says:
“In the 1990s and 2000s [the term “hipster”] was used in various, sometimes contradictory ways, often to describe types of young, recently-settled urban middle class adults and older teenagers with interests in non-mainstream fashion and culture, particularly alternative music, independent rock, independent film, magazines such as Vice, and Clash, and websites like Pitchfork Media…Hipsters are considered apathetic, pretentious, and self-entitled by other, often marginalized sectors of society they live amongst, including previous generations of bohemian and/or “counter-culture” artists and thinkers as well as poor neighborhoods of color.”
It seems to me there are two types of hipsters: hipsters by choice and hipsters by necessity. The hipsters by choice are the ones who scramble to join the booming counterculture (a move which I’ve always found vaguely amusing); they race to find L or J-train apartments, move towards Chuck Taylors and Vans like moths to a fake-retro flame, only admit to listening to music on vinyl (but they have music on their iPhones), and pretend to be only casually aware of their lifestyle, i.e. “Yeah, I guess, cool, whatever, yeah living here is whatever, it’s a pretty cool scene I guess, there are cool peeps and a chill vibe.” (This is confusing primarily because I thought “peeps” was something that tried to happen like several years ago). Those who have somehow become aware that in their hastiness to be part of a countercultural moment, they’ve made themselves look like trendy suckers sometimes try and save their faces with stammerings about how really they moved here because rent’s cheap and it will give them more time to make art, which is what they’re so busy doing it’s completely distracted them from the fact that they’re edging closer and closer to getting their picture posted on “Look at this Fucking Hipster” or being mistaken for an extra in a Bright Eyes video. The people that have usually said this to me a) always have pot, which is pretty expensive in the city, b) always have cigarettes, which are now ten dollars a pack, c) never cook for themselves, but constantly have to tame their trash cans overflowing with takeout containers, and d) live in a neighborhood where a place to sleep cost $1000 a month. So they must forgive me for believing that they actually enjoy being hipsters because cheap apartments have always existed all over the city limits, and Goya rice and beans are still like $1.29 and not hard to cook.
I was fortunate enough to be exposed to a moment of such hipsterdom that was almost its own screenplay. One sunny, unseasonably warm spring morning I set off on a jaunt to Williamsburg to visit my friend, whom we’ll call T., to borrow a book, catch up, and probably smoke a little pot. T. lives in the center of it all; off the Bedford L in an apartment that is also a Noodle Factory.
“Not Ramen noodles,” T. says to me the first time I visit him there, nearly a year ago, “Some other kind. I dunno what kind. I’ve never had them.”
“Who eats them?” I asked. He shrugs.
“I really don’t know,” he laughs.
T., unlike most of my friends and I, majored in something somewhat useful in college, and is a bit of an entrepreneur. He and some friends have a bike messenging service. There is a hole in T’s bedroom that looks into the factory. We spy on a room full of men shouting at each other, red-faced, in Chinese. I wonder where the noodles end up if the “poor” kids living in the back of the factory have never even bought them. I wonder if they go out to neighborhoods like Brownsville or Jamaica where there has to be a cheap alternative to Ramen, and that’s how the red-faced shouting Chinese men make their living. I realize that I myself only buy Ramen noodles. I’ve never had another kind. Which is silly of me, because ultimately cardboard noodles probably taste the same in a different color wrapper.
“Let’s go watch T.V.” T. says. I agree. Their living room is hipster perfection; just the right combination of furniture found on the street, furniture left behind by the previous tenants, and Ikea’s finest balsa wood and paper lantern adornments, completed by an obscenely old-looking record player/turntable/boom box right next to an obnoxiously large flat-screen LCD TV. As T. rolls a joint, one of his roommates, whom we’ll call G. purely for ironic purposes, stumbles out into the living room. Notorious B.I.G.’s “Who Shot Ya” blares from his iTunes.
“Maaaaaaaannnnn,” he says to T. and the room in particular, “I partied so crazy last night man…shit was off da hoooookkkk! And then these bitches showed up…”
To be clear, this kid looks like he graduated from Dalton Prep or Friends Seminary. Sort of. He’s wearing madras pants that have been splattered, I’m sure purely by accident, with some paint and another tar-like substance, a mismatched-on-purpose T-shirt from some midwestern Phys Ed program, and large silver skull, dollar sign, or crown rings on practically every finger. T. listens patiently to his friends’ tales of bitches and coke, apparently following a rap gig (??) of his at a local cafe “you know, underground type of spot, no big deal, it’s whatever.” T. seems almost embarrassed to be amused in front of me. G. presents himself on the couch. He’s now in the joint rotation. Goody. “Yeah man,” G. muses, “I know I gotta work late but this girl last night gave me her digits and said she be at dis club tonight…and you know how a playa gotta do…”
“Where are you from again?” I ask him.
“Jersey Shore,” he says.
It’s all I can do at this point to keep both eyebrows level. My left one tends to shoot skyward in the presence of either a) bullshit or b) a really easy joke that’s just set itself up. I’m from Philadelphia. My hometown is responsible for (most recently) The Roots, Jedi Mind Tricks, Freeway, Eve, Jill Scott,Will Smith and Boyz II Men (you’re welcome). Someone using a thickly urban accent to tell me how the hip-hop game is whilst repping the Jersey Shore is about as effective as someone from Chattanooga saying they know how it “be” to come up hard in Baltimore. T. gets a whiff of this and tries to shut G. up.
“Yo G., man,” he says. “Shut your stoned mouth. I’m trying to watch this interesting documentary here.” G. is quiet for a bit. We learn about Corey Booker, the mayor of Newark, who’s a pretty interesting guy. The topic of moving comes up. The boys have two other roommates, or maybe three, we’re not sure, and the door revolves a lot. The lease is up in the summer, and T. is leaving the city.
“Psssssh,” G. says, shaking his life-weary head in exasperation, “I dunno if I can afford to keep livin in dis hood, man.”
T. nods. “Bushwick would be cool” he says, “Like someplace deeper in off the J maybe…”
“Yeah,” G. gets excited now, “That’s close to the studio!” They nod. Momentarily, it’s settled. “Yo,” G. says, “Dis girl told me at the gig last night that that hater–remember–the kid I was telling you about?”
“Oh yeah!” T. says. G. pauses. He explains that someone at his last show shouted offensive remarks about his music and suggested he was a poser of sorts. Astonishing.
“Anyway,” G. says, “He wrote about it on Myspace! He, like, put out a myspace thing that was like, this kid’s a fag, his music sucks.” He smiles.
“That’s rough…” I offer. I really don’t know what to say and am still involved in Corey Booker, who at this point is having some tough times in Newark. He insists on living in public housing during his entire mayoral campaign.
“Pssssh,” G. says, “It’s whateva…I dunno…I figure if he’s gonna waste energy hatin’ on me–even if he’s sayin’, like, I dunno, hatin’–at least he’s spending energy on me. At least people are like talking about my music. It’s kinda–whatever.”
Are you kidding me?
T., almost as if he can read my thoughts, takes this opportunity to give G. something else to look at or talk about as quickly as possible. “Oh dude,” he says to G., picking up an envenlope on the table, “This came for you. It looks like it’s from your parents.” G. jumps up and holds the envelope high up towards the overhead light. He grins and starts to cackle victoriously.
“More money from Mooooooooommmm!” he squeals with delight and runs into the other room.
That is one type of hipster.
Then, there are the hipsters by necessity. These are the hipsters who are living in Brooklyn because if they could afford it, they’d still live in Manhattan, and would literally rather live in Connecticut than Queens. These hipsters used to live in the East Village “but then it got, like, completely gentrified” and they chose an apartment that, on purpose, was NOT off the L train. These are the people who will tell anyone from outside the city limits that “Brooklyn is the new Manhattan.” These are also the Brooklynites who actually think it’s ok to say things like “I’m going to BoCoCa” instead of “I’m going to Boerum Hill/Cobble Hill/Carrol Gardens.” Most importantly, these hipsters by neccessity are the ones who whine about how “the gentrification’s polluting Brooklyn.” Although their pasty asses live in neighborhoods where five years ago they wouldn’t leave with their wallets or all their teeth, hipsters by necessity believe that they aren’t the problem.
I’m definitely one of these people. A hipster by neccessity. I don’t think that “BoCoCa” is ok, but you know what I mean: if I have to categorize, which I do, because language is full of pesky fucking binaries, I’d be a hipster by necessity. Although I’m grateful that my beautiful neighborhood close to Bed-Stuy is gentrified enough to be a safe place for me to come home to at midnight, I’m heartbroken by the nasty beige condo buildings I’m seeing go up around the corner and up the block. I’d love to stay in my current apartment for three or so more years, but I’ve already vowed to myself that the second a Whole Foods or Starbucks pops up on my street, I’m out. This is not to say I don’t shop at Whole Foods occasionally. I just don’t want one in my neighborhood. Too much riff-raff, if you ask me.
One night I go out with my gay boyfriend, H. We’ve both lived in various parts of Brooklyn for about a year and a half but have yet to really sample the gay boy bars the borough had to offer us–we’d lived two subway stops from Caddyshack before the health club closed/re-opened it, and since he smoked menthols, I smoked lights, and they had a smoking deck where you could take your beer, we got lazy. Our very favorite spot used to be Rush, in Chelsea. We went there before it got rave reviews from everybody, we knew a few of the club queens by real name. We grew accustomed to the lifestyle that revolved around hearing the new Beyonce track while we pulled $5 Hypnotiq shots in test tubes out of the Ed Hardy briefs of 19-year-old shot boys. But sadly, Rush got popular, we got too old and rickety to put up with crowds, we both got boyfriends and therefore a curfew before last call, and simply put we couldn’t afford to club in Manhattan anymore. H. called me after work to report back on some very careful research he had done about all the hip gay spots in Williamsburg. “They better not be ‘hip’ like you said Metropolitan is,” I warn him, “‘cause that place sucks.”
“True story,” H. replies, “true story.”
We always wind up at Metropolitan when we’re not quite drunk enough to be ok with heading home, but have just about given up on trying to find a good bar. H. says it’s a gay bar but I think I’ve maybe seen 2 gay people there that weren’t in my crew. And in that neighborhood, it’s impossible to tell gay apart from awesomely androgynous anyway.
“We’re going to a place called Sugarland,” H. gushes, “I read all about it in Time Out New York. They say that’s where all the hottest kids are partying right now, and I read about the deejay–L., I think you’ll love it, it’s like real hip-hop they say.” I’m sold. It’s tough for me to find a good hip-hop club in the city where I feel ok taking myself and my friends. Reason number one, I don’t consider anything over $5 a decent cover. I don’t drink much, so I’m willing to pay cover at all because I’ll only have a beer or two, but that automatically eliminates many possibilities. Reason number two: part of the byproduct of being young, white, not broke, and living in Brooklyn, is that we live in neighborhoods, but we don’t have neighbors. Not like the people who lived there before we moved in do. A club in Williamsburg with good hip-hop has the potential to be like a glorified version of my favorite type of party, the trashy fundraiser party.
“I’m in,” I say, “I’m sold.” Ironically enough, Sugarland will be featured in a later story in this series.
We roll up at Sugarland at around 11:00. It’s a Friday night so we don’t expect it to be crazy for another hour, hour and a half or so. At this point Rush would be pleasantly crowded but not quite smell like a jock strap. The perfect time to arrive at a gay bar. We hem and haw over the $5 cover in hopes of being let in on a discount. H. sends me to flirt with the soft butch (or again, just awesomely androgynous, I really can’t say) who was collecting cover money, but it wasn’t working out. We share a cigarette before going inside. I hear a version of that song “Right Round” from the Wedding Singer blaring out of the club.
“This doesn’t sound like hip-hop to me” I say to H.
“Maybe it’s a sample!” he says, flicks the butt off of the curb, and leads me towards Butchy McDoorGirl. We shove her $5 each and go inside, waiting to see Sugarland in all its wonder.
It’s dead. I mean completely, absolutely empty.
I’m not exaggerating. We’re literally the only two people in the entire establishment except for two bartenders and a DJ. And maybe his girl or boy is up in the booth with him, I really can’t see. We survey the scene. It’s actually an awesome space.
“What do you wanna do?” H. asks me.
“I don’t know…” I said. “Maybe get a drink?” H. concurs.
“I’m sure more people will show up in like half an hour,” he says.
“We can visit!” I say. “We never get a chance to visit.” We end up staying for an hour. We have two beers. Five more people come and then leave. The bartender only charges us for one beer our second round, not both. After awhile we give up and awkwardly stumble around Williamsburg with a two-beer buzz. We end up at Metropolitan. We spend about forty-five minutes there and conclude that we need to go to Manhattan next time. H. and I do this dance on Fridays once a month. Always we end up back at Metropolitan, wishing for Rush in the old days.
One fact that’s become very, very clear to me in my travels through Brooklyn and beyond in the past four years is this: for us, Time magazine, and the rest of the world, hipsters aren’t going away. In fact, thirty or forty years from now, your children might be asking you about hipsters with the same curiosity and slight traces of admiration that you had in your voice when you asked your parents if they ever knew any hippies. Honestly, I think that some people living outside the city mistake twentysomethings for hipsters, as though they are the new yuppies. And an important difference to distinguish is that hipsters and twentysomethings are not the same thing. The essence of twentysomethings is probably nothing new or incredibly provocative unless you’re talking about the ones in New York today. By night, of course, we may indeed be little more than a pretentious, pot-smoking, pilsner-drinking, trucker-hat wearing sloppy mess. But by day we control the city. Most of us have jobs like Personal Assistant, coat check girl, caterer, bartender, Intern. We handle the food, clothing, coffee, money, mail, and sometimes children of all the real grownups who write articles for large, syndicated publications about hipsters without really knowing how they exist—or really what a hipster is. Hipsterdom is a lifestyle choice that people my age in my geographic location are faced with making; kind of like hard drugs or saving yourself until marriage. Part of living where I live right now and doing what I do is being pretty acutely aware of one’s own hipster quotient at any given time, regardless of whether you’re trying to make it bigger or smaller. Consider these stories a bit of a hipster safari, if you will: glimpses of hipster behavior in various habitats. The first stop on the safari is the most natural and populated of hipster cloisters, Williamsburg. Here, hipsters flock and mate like humpbacks in Mexico at Christmas, making it easiest and safest for outsiders to observe hipsters in their most natural of habitats.
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