Showing posts with label hipsteria. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hipsteria. Show all posts

Friday, August 15, 2014

Hipsteria and Gentrification in Sunset Park



Hipsteria takes over Industry city at Mister Sunday dance parties.

They used to be known as Yuppies at one time, but how do you name a disease after yuppies? No, hipster is more fitting a word to invent hipsteria. A disease that invades sleepy neighborhoods of the old fashioned Brooklyn type and turn them into high priced rental spaces with restaurants that sell birdfood sized servings on a plate priced accordingly for the well heeled anorexic and bolemic, always on a diet over paid urban professionals whose idea of work is pushing a sheet of paper around the desk a few times. These are the invaders who are the vanguard of a well orchestrated plot by developers to turn or Sunset Park into yet another version of village like downtown Manhattan. At the website Fast Company writer Erica Berger has an excellent essay explaining the tactics being employed with Jamestown developers in the lead to gentrify Sunset Park. It makes for sober reading and reveals a bit of the underlying process that is changing our neighborhood.   Meanwhile, over at Gawker is another article timely in it's appearance, since it names another culprit spreading the disease.. Also, Caesar Zuniga has an open letter against gentrification in the Brooklyn spectator, Mr. Zuniga wants to be our assemblyman. My take on the subject is that opposing these waves of gentrification have always proved fruitless as history has tended to show. It's like trying to drain the ocean with a thimble. 




Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Street Theater comes to Sunset Park August 23



Image Brooklyn Daily photo by Elizabeth Graham

Both the Brooklyn Paper and the Brooklyndaily websites are carrying a piece by Mathew Perlman about a street theater troupe that  is making the rounds in Brooklyn and will arrive at our nabe on August 23. The troupe is giving free performances (or at least we the public aren't paying for it) at various locations and Sunset Park has been picked as one of them. As if we needed more proof of the hipsterization that with gentrification this is one of them. The fact that this event is taking place here is an indication that Sunset Park has arrived as far as hipsterism is concerned. Such performances a mere couple of years ago would have been more likely targeted at our northern neighbor Park Slope or at least the already gentrified section of our neighborhood that real estate marketers have dubbed Greenwood Heights. But, there is no need to go into an emotional state of hipsteria about it. We are bound to see more of this stuff with more art galleries, cafes and art troupes making it into our nabe. We aren't sure yet if hipsteria is an airborne disease or you simply catch it by osmosis or like bed bugs is carried into neighborhoods by new residents who move in. In any case, it appears that hipsteria is here to stay.. Coney Island Brooklynites will catch a preview of what we can expect on August 16.  Catch all the details of where and when by clicking here and scrolling down to the bottom. Tentatively, we've been informed it will occur at 44th street between fifth and sixth Avenues at around 2 PM. Bring sanitizer with you, just in case you don't want to catch any hipsteria...