Occupy Wall Street isn’t dead. Its spirit lives on in Bushwick where angry liberal hipsters are occupying other angry liberal hipsters.
Craft beers are being thrown through windows and copies of Pitchfork Magazine are being used as clubs. There’s even talk of constructing some artisinal Fair Trade IEDs.
“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.”
Considering that Occupy Wall Street consisted of rich liberal hipsters protesting against their daddies… that sounds about right.
““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.”
As opposed to the hard-working yoga teacher whose parents no longer pay her bills.
“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.”
That’s not as bad as it could be these days. And it is quasi luxury housing. Try finding anything in Manhattan for $2,200. Or even Williamsburg.
“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 Girls exists because hipsters moved to working class neighborhoods and built an entire obnoxious lifestyle around that.
“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.”
If they’re going to set aside low income units. They aren’t going to go to white hipsters but to whatever minority tenants have connections to local minority pols.
Meanwhile there’s a set of complaints from Castle Braid residents including…
Library; inaccessible and unusable due to internet speed
Day and night front desk secretarial: only night staff remains
High speed internet; unusable due to speed
Digital Media Lab; software programs inaccessible
Rentable Video Equipment; no longer exists
Yoga Studio: Instructors have moved
Oh the horror. The humanity!
The Anti-Castle Braid Twitter feed is exactly as stupid as you expect it to be.
staging at razor's for anyone nervous about #CastleRaid
— AntiCastleBraid (@AntiCastleBraid) November 16, 2013
real people
real things
— AntiCastleBraid (@AntiCastleBraid) November 16, 2013
#cHangeCastlebRAID
or
#CloseCastLEBraid
— AntiCastleBraid (@AntiCastleBraid) November 16, 2013
KARMA
IS
REAL
— AntiCastleBraid (@AntiCastleBraid) November 16, 2013
CALLING ALL #NYC STREET ARTISTS
#CastleRaid
now
cars waiting at the end of the block to get you to safety
— AntiCastleBraid (@AntiCastleBraid) November 16, 2013
fair warning #Bushwick – - – we aren't stopping with Castle Braid – -
— AntiCastleBraid (@AntiCastleBraid) November 16, 2013
housing is a human right
— AntiCastleBraid (@AntiCastleBraid) November 16, 2013
.@AntiCastleBraid wasn't kidding
#CastleRaid
#Bushwick
— #OccupyBushwick (@OccupyBushwick) November 16, 2013
@WellStockdLardr @CastleBraid people dont OWN anything its not about theory > do squirrels own trees they jump from ? U R anthropocentric
— cari machet (@carimachet) November 13, 2013
RT @OccupyBushwick CstleBraid was just covered in #occupy tape – #CastleRaid
— OccupyBot (@occupybot) November 16, 2013
The notions confluent in your tweets, @CastleBraid belie the depth of your own convienent epistemology. @CyMadD0x @AntiCastleBraid
— iam (@nuthinNnoone) November 14, 2013
we will be back every single night until Castle Braid honors their affordable housing obligations #Bushwick
— AntiCastleBraid (@AntiCastleBraid) November 16, 2013
Spoiler alert. They weren’t back.
@chestersoria @AntiCastleBraid I don't think its amusing so much as it is clarifying. Some failed ideas just dont seem to die. #marxism
— Castle Braid (@CastleBraid) November 12, 2013