Civil War In Bushwick: New Hipsters Feuding With Old Hipsters

NY Post – It’s the Battle of Bushwick. The hipsters who settled the Brooklyn neighborhood 10 years ago have declared war on rich kids flocking to new luxury digs on their parents’ dime. CastleBraid, an upscale rental complex marketed for artists, was adorned last month with crime-scene tape reading “Occupy.” The “perps’’ were first-generation hipsters calling themselves “Occupy Bushwick.” They say they are “in solidarity” with the Occupy Wall Street movement. “It’s like Neverland over there,” fumed Angelina Dreem, 27, a yoga teacher who’s lived in Bushwick for four years and owns Body Actualized yoga studio across the street from the complex. “It’s an adult children playground,” Dreem said.  “They’re all, like, subsidized.” CastleBraid is stacked with amenities designed to appeal to the aspiring hipsters — including a recording studio, a wood shop, a screening room, a gym, a game room and even a digital-media lab. Locals complain that the rent is so steep — $2,200 for a one-bedroom and up to $3,400 for a three-bedroom — that the complex is actually causing rates to go up throughout the neighborhood. An online opposition group, on Twitter as @AntiCastleBraid, describes the haven as “Where you would live if the only thing you knew about Bushwick you saw on the TV show ‘Girls.’?” But the same hipsters who are waging war against their privileged neighbors actually want to live in the luxury high-rise building — and are demanding that management set aside 20 percent of the units in return for a tax abatement it received. CastleBraid partner Mayer Schwartz confirmed that the building got the abatement, but says owners are not required to offer low-income housing because ground was broken on the building before the rules were changed. Gregory Tyler Hill, 27, a chef who lives in the building, suggested that his neighbors are just jealous of his sweet digs. “The resentment is just haters,” Hill said. “Hate what you don’t know, hate what you don’t see.” He and his three friends cram into a three-bedroom unit to make the luxury pad work for them. Meanwhile, “true” Bushwick natives are laughing at both sides. “It’s funny that the people who complain about it made this area gentrified in the first place,” said Carlos Juarez, 22, a waiter who remembers when his cousins were forced out of Bushwick by the first wave of hipsters in 2000. “There was no name for them then — now it’s ‘hipster.’ “It was all working-class minorities like me. And then people like those people came in from other parts of the country and then people with more money came. The money washed the people away.” But when asked if he would move into CastleBraid if there were lower-income options, he didn’t hesitate: “Absolutely!” he said.

Old Hipsters vs New Hipsters. We got a real Sophie’s Choice on our hands here. On the one hand, Old Hipsters acknowledge how this newest brand of Hipsters are absolutely the biggest assholes in the world. So, I tend to agree with them there. You almost hope its one of those situations where they look back at how they were idiot hipsters and are ashamed the same way you see pictures of yourself from the 90s and you realized you dressed like an asshole. Maybe Old Hipsters realize they were dickheads.

But then you hear them complaining about how they were there first and it just reinforces their whole hipster mantra. Claiming that Bushwick is their fucking broke ass yoga and live music capital of the world and nobody else can live their if they aren’t poor and annoying just like them. Really thats just all the Old Hipsters are complaining about. They want to be poor and annoying and don’t want anyone living in nice apartments. If there’s one thing I hate more than Hipsters its the Poors. So in that case, I’d side wth New Hipsters. It may be daddy’s money but at least they’re not living all homeless and ironic and shit like the original Bushwick idiots.

So I’m just gonna have to go for option C and say that we 5 Pointz this whole neighborhood. Remember how the NYPD just wiped out the 5 Pointz Graffiti Park? Overnight just ruined the home of loser graffiti artists everywhere? Thats what should happen to Bushwick. Just level the whole place. Knock down the buildings and the studios and the art galleries and run all these assholes out of town. Scorched earth. Sherman’s March on these dicks and let normal people move in.