Atlantis Attic - 771 Metropolitan Ave.

This is the first of a two part series focusing on 2 businesses that stood on one parcel of land that was ultimately reclaimed for the higher calling of luxury condos.

Part 1 - Atlantis Attic
There's nothing more fitting about a pre-gentrified neighborhood than a thrift store. A thrift store, just like a neighborhood, has evolved with time. I imagine that it was once a place where poor families came to clothe themselves, taking advantage of dress pants for $5, and hoping that a matching jacket was on another rack.

In time, we all know that the thrift store became a temple of irony and Hipsterism that was finally smashed through into the public consciousness via a viral music video for a song appropriately named "Thrift Shop" performed by a white rapper named Macklemore. If you haven't seen the video, or haven't seen it in more than a year, I urge you to play it once fully through. The lyrics rhyme, the hook is catchy and the extras do a good job of bringing a bit of Williamsburg to Seattle.



In real life, a thrift shop didn't have anything for 99 cents unless it was a worn kids basketball jersey from the Westchester County JV league circa 1999. You certainly weren't finding any of these fur coats, cool plaid shirts or fresh white sneakers. I imagine that's partly because the reality of anything always fails to meet the bar set by fiction, but partly because there's a couple of super dedicated thrifters that dutifully scour the racks on a weekly (semi daily?) basis for the best in vintage clothing.

The Atlantic Attic sucked. I'll be honest, I'm not partial to old clothes to begin with but I just didn't see anything that worked. The stuff on the racks either looked bad, dirty, 3 sizes too big or some combination of those factors.

To make things even worse, the Atlantic had a strict policy against photography. In this age of instagram hashtag fuckery, you would think that a business that is the perfect conduit for sharing cool (or weird) finds, that they would be all for it. But no, they were not. Rest in peace Atlantic Attic. I didn't like you much anyway, but you were a landmark of Hipsterism and your demise signals a definitive shift towards Gentrification.

And thus with all relics of Hipsterism that were priced out by agents of Gentrification, the Atlantis Attic moved east to Bushwick.

Bonus : if you want to see some pictures that people sneaked of various items, check out the old Yelp page here : http://www.yelp.com/biz/atlantis-attic-brooklyn

Liberty Department Stores - 780 Grand St.

Liberty Department Stores sounds a lot fancier than what it actually was. Liberty was a budget department store or perhaps more commonly known as a "99 cents" store owing to the idea that many of the items in the store can be had for just 99 cents. The drawback was that the products in these 99 cent stores were of questionable quality or durability. That's not to say that there weren't any brand name household products; they stocked those too. Everything from Palmolive dish detergent to Old Spice deodorant, to Crest toothpaste and etc. These items were usually had at a discount to buying them at say, your supermarket or a big name pharmacy like Duane Reade.

The Liberty's of the world provided working class neighborhoods with a one stop solution for everything short of perishable food. What stood out the most about this Liberty was that it was relatively speaking an absolutely huge space. As you can see in the picture below, Liberty (circled in red, now demolished) occupied the corner of Grand and Humboldt. It stretches roughly 5 storefronts wide on Grand, and is the length of 2 buildings on Humboldt.

Not only did Liberty occupy a huge space selling cheaply priced imported wares and appliances ($10 toaster? Or maybe you need a $20 set of pans?) but it was also a one floor store with a basement underneath.  When I first moved into the neighborhood I stopped by Liberty to pick up some garbage bags, toilet paper and a few hand towels. Walking through the mostly empty (in terms of customers visiting) and sparsely loaded aisles in a space big enough for 2 basketball courts, I thought to myself "no way this place lasts, it's prime real estate to be redeveloped into dozens upon dozens of million dollar condos".

Holy crap that's a huge 99 cent store! (picture courtesy of williamsburgbkblog.com)

Located just one block away from the Grand St. stop on the L and in the heart of East Williamsburg, there was no way Liberty could last. In a world where the neighborhood's citizenry demands vegan joints, upscale Mexican taquierias and products that were in some combination of fair trade, eco-friendly, green, sustainable or organic, a 99 cent store that sold cheap crap that was the complete opposite of those requirements had no chance. Liberty sold appliances made in 3rd world countries which are laughably far from fair trade, and whatever household supplies it did stock the shelves with valued price first and environmental friendliness somewhere close to last.

And alas, in March of 2014 that's how it went. All 12,000 square feet of land located on the edge of event horizon and previously shilling discounted household products (with some furniture in the basement) was demolished to make way for a "mixed-use development" with ground floor retail and 69 rental apartments totaling 63,000 square feet. The land was sold for $14.2 million. The rental apartments will likely go for somewhere in the range of $3,000 to $4,000 a month depending on layout and life will move on.

If we're being honest with ourselves and imagining that we were the owners of this land and were given the choice of operating Liberty/collecting the rent or selling the footprint to a real estate developer, I think we would be hard pressed not to pick the latter.

The future building at the location formerly known as 780 Grand St. 

For some concept renditions of what the future property will look like when finished, visit Meshberg Group's website here. 

Pictures were from 1) Google Earth, 2) Williamsburgbkblog.com and 3)Meshberg Group

The 4th Down - 750 Grand St.

If there's any way to start a photo blog about local businesses being displaced by Gentrification, fittingly we would start with a sports bar called "The 4th Down". It signifies that Gentrification really cannot be escaped. As an average business owner that doesn't serve $8 fruit shakes or kale/quinoa at your establishment, you're really fighting an uphill battle to meet the demands of your average Hipster.

Former Location

The 4th Down was formerly located in the heart of North Williamsburg on North 4th street, roughly 3 blocks away from the Bedford Ave L Train stop, aka the epicenter of Gentrification.


The current establishment situated right next to the former location of the 4th Down is an eatery called "Sweet Green" that serves items like a vegetarian Detox Salad and of course a Hibiscus Lime Iced Tea.

It just looks so fancy. 

"Sweet Green" resembles more of an Apple Store than it does a restaurant which tells you what kind of clientele it's catering towards. The dinky sports bar next door schilling watered down light beer and wings never had a chance.

So it was that the 4th Down was forced out of it's former location in what was once a gritty downtrodden neighborhood where people rooted for the local sports teams and passed the time sipping a cold brew, resting their barking dogs on a bar stool.

And thus the 4th Down sought a temporary reprieve by moving further into Williamsburg, into East Williamsburg to be exact. On a Thursday evening I stopped by the new 4th Down and about a dozen men (and one lady) gathered around to watch the Seahawks beat up the Cardinals. Its move is likely to be a temporary one as Hipsters just don't really watch sports.

Introduction

The most common analogy for gentrification is disease or a virus. On many levels it makes sense: disease has a root origin, perhaps an original location or a patient X. It spreads slowly and overtime overwhelms seemingly healthy areas until nothing is left. A virus likewise seeks to systematically destroy all that is good in a healthy body.

But these analogies are inaccurate. To call gentrification a disease or a virus would imply that there is a cure, that the symptoms of the phenomena are somehow reversible. We all know that to be false. Once an area is gentrified, it cannot be un-gentrified.

A more apt analogy for gentrification is perhaps a black hole. It shares the common root origin of a disease and also moves slowly. However unlike a disease or a virus, a black hole uses the immutable forces of space to slowly and surely consume all within it's sphere of influence.

If we think of gentrification as not a virus that spreads, but instead the inevitable pull of gravity towards a sure demise, then the furthest point at which gentrification has spread in any specific area would be known as the event horizon. The event horizon of a black hole is the demarcation in which once surpassed, nothing (not even gravity itself) can escape.

East Williamsburg was slowly suffering from the mighty pull of gentrification that is firmly rooted in Williamsburg. The event horizon is slowly but surely moving steadily past the neighborhood and in short time will leave in its wake artisanal coffee shops, frozen yogurt eateries, spinning gyms and million dollar condos.

This is a blog that documents the places that were and the places to come in East Williamsburg, a small neighborhood wedged between the black hole of gentrification that is Williamsburg and the temporary hipster enclave that is Bushwick.