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Williamsburg Information
Williamsburg is a neighborhood in northern Brooklyn, New York City. It is
connected to the East Village and Lower East Side in Manhattan by the
Williamsburg Bridge over the East River. Williamsburg is home to many ethnic
groups, a thriving art community, and, increasingly, commuters to Manhattan.
The area originally called Williamsburg is today referred to as "South
Williamsburg" and occupied mainly by the Yiddish-speaking Satmar Hassidim, who
continue to wear the traditional dress of their ancestors of Eastern and Central
Europe and adhere closely to Jewish religious law. North of traditional
Williamsburg is an area known as the "South Side," occupied by Puerto Ricans and
Dominicans. To the north of that is an area known as the "North Side,"
traditionally Polish and Italian, but now hosts increasing numbers of hipsters:
artists and those who wish to associate with artists. So-called East
Williamsburg is home to many industrial spaces and forms the largely black and
Hispanic area between Williamsburg and Bushwick. Williamsburg, South Side, North
Side, Greenpoint and East Williamsburg all form Brooklyn Community Board 1. The
hipster center of Williamsburg radiates from the strip of Bedford Avenue near
the Bedford Avenue Station on the L train, the first stop from Manhattan. The
neighborhood's art scene inspired the book The Hipster Handbook by Robert
Lanham, which initially appeared on Williamsburg's culture website,
FreeWilliamsburg.com.
Low rents were a major reason why artists first started settling in the area, but that situation is changing. Rents in Williamsburg range from approximately $1000 for a studio apartment, $1,300-1,600 for a one-bedroom, and $1,500 -1,900 for a two-bedroom. The North Side (above Grand Street, which separates the North Side from the South Side) and Greenpoint are more expensive, due to their proximity to the L and G train lines. Recent gentrification, however, has prompted an increase in rent prices below Grand street as well. Higher rents - and now the imminent specter of waterfront rezoning and high-rise construction - have driven many priced-out bohemians to find new creative communities further a field in areas like the so-called East Williamsburg Industrial Park, Bushwick, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Fort Greene, Long Island City, Clinton Hill and even Red Hook.
A significant component of the Italian community on the North Side were immigrants from the city of Nola near Naples. Residents of Nola every summer celebrate the "Festa del Giglio" (feast of lillies) in honor of St. Paulinus of Nola, who was bishop of Nola in the Fifth Century. The immigrants brought the traditions of the feast with them. For two weeks every summer, the streets surrounding Our Lady of Mount Carmel church, located on Havemeyer and North 8th Streets, is dedicated to a celebration of Italian culture. The highlights of the feast are the "Giglio Sundays" when a 100 foot tall statute, complete with band and a singer, is carried around the streets in honor of Paulinus and Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Despite the fact that many of the descendants of the early Italian immigrants have moved away, many return each summer for the feast.
On May 11, 2005 the New York City Council passed a large-scale rezoning of the North Side and Greenpoint waterfront. The rezone shifts uses in the neighborhood from manufacturing and low density housing to high density residential and mixed use with a set-aside (but no earmarked funding) for the creation of open waterfront park space, as well as strict building guidelines calling for developers to create a continuous two-mile-long string of waterfront esplanades (with access to be controlled by property owners).
The majority of the land is being rezoned to permit "mixed use", a new zoning designation that will permit dozens of luxury high-rises with commercial retail on ground level. In theory, these luxury developments will sit next to low-rise affordable housing and a 28-acre waterfront park. The plan also calls for the developments to include continuous riverfront promenades - though these will be maintained by, and their access controlled by, the private developments adjacent to them. The plan also "preserves" about 20 blocks off the waterfront near Bushwick Inlet to remain zoned for light manufacturing uses - almost all of which is currently the domain of the Acme Smoked Fish corporation, producer of approximately 90% of the Lox salmon available in the United States.
The rezoning is a new dramatic shift of scale in what has been a continuing process of gentrification in the area over the past fifteen years. The neighborhoods were once characterized by active manufacturing and other light industry interspersed with smaller residential buildings, but are now dominated by over a hundred residentially converted loft buildings and new residential buildings. The rezoning is projected to result in the creation of about 10,000 new - mostly high end - condominiums and apartments in about 10 years.
Critics of the rezoning have contended that the rezoning will irrecoverably distort the existing community's character ("Manhattanization") and force out existing residents, and that the plan lacks adequate provisions for public transportation or public safety infrastructure to accommodate the expected new residents. Other detractors cite that the plan is vulnerable to any downturn in the luxury market and could leave the Williamsburg and Greenpoint waterfronts with vast swaths of cleared vacant lots if investors do not see expected returns on their initial construction projects - reducing historic existing warehouses and factories to permanently rubble filled lots with no new construction.
Officials championing the rezoning cite its supposed economic benefits, the new private waterfront promenades improvements, and its much touted Inclusionary Housing component - which offers developers large tax breaks in exchange for promises to rent about 1/3 of the newly created housing units at "affordable" rates (which amount to upper-middle class pricing). Critics counter that similarly modest set-asides for "affordable" housing have gone unfulfilled in previous large-scale developments, such as Battery Park City.
As of May 2006, lawsuits were pending from the proponents and opponents of a proposed 1,100 megawatt power plant curiously on the books in the middle of land that had appeared on plan maps as the set aside for the new waterfront park. Other lawsuits are pending from a coalition of industrial property owners forced out by the rezoning. Williamsburg is a neighborhood visibly in transition.