Williamsburg Hipsters Invade Upstate

[Fido]

An article in the NY Times this weekend, entitled "Leaving Behind the Trucker Hat," tells the story of a couple of Brooklynites who left Williamburg behind to farm upstate in the Hudson Valley.  It begins:  "Their Carhartts are no longer ironic.  Now they have real dirt on them.  Until three years ago, Benjamin Shute was living in Williamsburg, where he kept Brooklyn Lager in his refrigerator and played darts in a league." 

You can read the article here:  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/16/fashion/16farmer.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

So darts have taken their place alongside kickball leagues.  Or by "darts league," do they mean "cocaine ring"?

[Shaggy 2 Grote]

As for former Williamsburger who headed to Fort Greene in 2002, I can say that this has been going on for almost a decade now (usually the case for anything the NYT declares a new trend).  But also - without having read the article, and having no idea of the Shutes' time-frame - I think there is a distinctions to be made between early-, mid- and late-Williamburg settlers.  I'm not one of those jerks who thinks that anyone who moved in 5 minutes after him is uncool (I definitely got that vibe from some people when I moved there in 1997), but the simple fact of rents going through the roof changes the personality of the place.  Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that, even though the boundaries are blurry, I think that the cocaine-trust-fund kickball hipsters who everybody hates are a relatively late arrival.  When I moved there, it was because it was cheap, and it was cheap because the neighborhood sucks.  It's dirty, loud, and polluted.  The early-settlers had it even worse, because on top of all that, it was incredibly dangerous.  The stories of the parties they had sounded pretty awesome, though, like mini Burning-Mans on the East River.

Again, these are gross generalizations - like everywhere else in NY, all three waves coexist simultaneously, plus there were people who lived there before all the hipsters.  But I do think that there was a post 9/11 exodus, probably because a lot of first- and second-wavers were having kids, and who wants to raise kids in a party neighborhood that also happens to be a brownzone?

The fourth wave of people who move into all of those terrible condos are really going to be the death knell, though.  Kickball is going to be privatized or something.

[Spoony]

Not privatized so much as you have to let their 3 year old kid play. Otherwise they'll put a gate around McKerrin park like Grammercy.

Williamsburg is not that safe a place to live. Most of my friends who were part of that first push out to Williamsburg developed respiratory problems and had to leave. That was a heavily industrial area for decades, and all of the pollutants didn't pack up and leave with the business. Throw in the oil spill in Greenpoint and you have a groady little real estate trap.

I agree with Jaosngrote, the trust fund kids are new and really irritating, and they'll be someplace else in a few years. (Look out Bed-Sty!) I don't blame kids for having fun, but this place has already developed a reputation in the surrounding areas as a flock that's easy to sheer, and it's making a few walks home tricky for people.

By "sheer", I mean "mug".

C

[Shaggy 2 Grote]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I developed respiratory problems in the 5 years I lived there, too.  And the kids are already well into Bed-Stuy, and Crown Heights.  I'm a white guy from Jersey myself, and I've had plenty of fun in my time, so I don't want to by too hypocritical about it - but I think it's less about who people are than about what they do.  That is, do people try give a shit about where they live, or just see it as a transitory playground?

Though, if anyone wants to see what W'burg will look like in 10 years (assuming the whole thing doesn't come crashing down), all you have to do is take a stroll around Lafayette Street - chain-stores, high-end boutiques, real estate offices, graphic design firms, billboards for Vans sneakers, the insanely wealthy, a handful of cranky bewildered people who have been there for four decades, and tourists.

[yesno]

There are neighborhoods in places like Amsterdam that have been at the same socioeconomic level for 500 years.  No gentrifying, no slum-er-izing.  I wonder if our population and living preferences will ever settle down enough that this cycle of hip neighborhoods can slow down.

There's always college towns, if you want to live where there is likely to always be available and somewhat affordable rental housing, cheap places to eat, and a decent music scene.  The downside is college students.

[Beth]

Good for them for getting out. I think that's speaks to their character. If they want to live in a place where there's better air, cheaper living, less pressure to be cool, and good green farmland, I say right on. I wouldn't necessarily say that people are doing it because it's "hip" either. That's a serious load of work and lots of sacrifice just for cool status.  As a suburban New Jersian (?) who has lived in NYC and now resides in upstate NY on a farm, I may be a bit biased, but I also know how hard it can get living so far off that beaten path, although it has many benefits.

[todd]

Good for them for getting out. I think that's speaks to their character. If they want to live in a place where there's better air, cheaper living, less pressure to be cool, and good green farmland, I say right on. I wouldn't necessarily say that people are doing it because it's "hip" either. That's a serious load of work and lots of sacrifice just for cool status.  As a suburban New Jersian (?) who has lived in NYC and now resides in upstate NY on a farm, I may be a bit biased, but I also know how hard it can get living so far off that beaten path, although it has many benefits.

Let's see how long they actually stay at the farm. I get a feeling most of them will move back to the city once the novelty wears off and they don't have anyone stroking their ego about how TOTALLY CRAZY they are for "ironically farming." It's hard to get a radish field to compliment your handlebar moustache or neon trucker hat.

[Emily]

Who cares if they stay on the farm. Who cares where they live. Jeez.

[senorcorazon]

Ugh. That article hurt. Mostly for the absolutely lackluster journalism. Seriously, there's been two wars going on for 5 years.

[Shaggy 2 Grote]

Yeah, the NYT Style section especially makes me want to go on an idiot-strangling spree.  And the theater reviews.  And sometimes the front page.  And the op-ed.

[Fido]

Yeah, the NYT Style section especially makes me want to go on an idiot-strangling spree.  And the theater reviews.  And sometimes the front page.  And the op-ed.

That leaves only the middle of the front section, the business and sports sections, by my count. 

But seriously folks, farming isn't easy and isn't usually glamorous or lucrative, from what I gather from my relatives who farm.  So I kinda have to give them props for making this move, whatever their motivations. 

When a neighborhood's main appeal is who else lives there (e.g. kickball leagues, McCarron Park, other hipster kids), that seems like a pretty limited reason to stay there if other forces are strongly pulling you away, like a desire for a major career change, change of scenery, or a better place to raise kids affordably. 

[Shaggy 2 Grote]

Yeah, actually I'm not even a sports fan, though I like it when I go to live events.  So really that leaves the crossword, the Magazine, and The Book Review.  The NYT is generally in my hate pit.

[ericluxury]

Cometbus #48 was the Back to the Land issue that pretty thoroughly dissected this topic with interviews from young people who had done this for varying lengths of time and people from farm communities with their reactions to the new people.

I don't know how people feel about Cometbus (I love it, but I don't know others reactions), but this issue was a pretty good journalistic operation about this trend though it mostly focused on people from the Bay Area moving to Northern California to farm.

I don't mind this kind of journalism (not all coverage can/should be war news), but it'd be nice to find out about the non-white people that are leaving the cities. You never hear about where they are going (the suburbs I guess?) and how that those areas are changing. Just an endless loop about the cycles of gentrification of various neighborhoods in Brooklyn.

[Shaggy 2 Grote]

Are non-white people leaving the cities?  I mean, people have been talking about this spatial deconcentration thing for years - This American Life did a segment on the "black conspiracy theory" called "The Plan," in which the government sought to have white people move back into the inner cities and send all the people of color out onto the suburbs where they'd be spread out.  The piece took this sort of patronizing angle - "it sounds like a crazy black person thing, but hey, look at what's happening in the cities!"

Except that politicians and developers have been talking about this openly since at least the 70s.  Some Republican jerk in Louisiana said that Katrina was "God cleaning up the public housing," and NY Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote many policy briefs on it that aren't difficult to find.  And that's basically how Europe is - immigrants and the poor in the suburbs, the wealthy in the cities.

But anyway, has there been any actual reportage on this?  What's actually going on?

[John Junk 2.0]

This American Life did a segment on the "black conspiracy theory" called "The Plan," in which the government sought to have white people move back into the inner cities and send all the people of color out onto the suburbs where they'd be spread out. 

Ian Svenonius calls this Seinfeld Syndrome.

Just look at Los Angeles, the city is the suburbs and vice versa. That's where I think America is going.  The signifiers of safety, affluence, etc. eventually become emptied out.  The suburbs that really are the suburbs have their own gangs that are usually like satellite projects of the larger gangs. In L.A., the only way to gauge whether or not you're in a good neighborhood is by altitude, and seeing how many gang tags are on the street.  Generally speaking, the higher above everyone else you are, the more money you have.

It wouldn't be hard to imagine the tri-state area becoming one gigantic seemingly endless semi-suburban sprawl, with subtle variations of destitution everywhere, with a gradual increase in money and sophistication as one travels eastward toward the crowning jewel of opulence and metropolitan perfection: New York City!  In fact, is that necessary to imagine?  Isn't that basically already the case?