It has been said that the one constant in life is change. This is especially true in New York City. And so it goes for for the people who live in the art enclave of Williamsburg, Brooklyn which is currently undergoing a transformation from a Bohemian creative nexus into a seemingly upscale, yuppie neighborhood. Williamsburg has had many previous incarnations: farmland, a home for German immigrants, a region for breweries, an industrial center, and a wasteland. In its latest transformation, four artists who live in the area and are witnessing the changes talk about it.

When, from where and why did you move to Williamsburg?

Jaclyn Moynahan: I moved to Williamsburg in 2002. I grew up on Long Island, went to school in Brockport NY, (just outside of Rochester) to get my BFA in dance. Originally I moved to Williamsburg to move out of my parents' home, and friends from college needed an extra roommate. Although I have moved 3 times I have managed to stay in Williamsburg. South side to East Williamsburg (really not Bushwick: corner of Morgan & Grand St.) then to the north side.

Stephanie Griffin: I never officially moved to Williamsburg. One day I just woke up and realized that I lived here.

My involvement with Williamsburg started in the summer of 1998, in the early days of Galapagos Art and Performance Space on North 6th Street. I had a friend who had recently moved to Williamsburg from Midtown and was coordinating performances of improvised music at Galapagos on Sunday nights before and between the film screenings presented by Ocularis. Galapagos had only just recently opened, and although they did not even have a liquor license yet, crowds of Williamsburgers turned up to drink ginger ale and watch art house cinema.

I joined my friend on several of his music evenings that summer, and eventually he and I came up with the idea of starting a monthly new music series, which we did for the next 4 years. I coordinated the musicians and he recorded all of the concerts. I got to know the neighborhood inside-out by going in and out of all of the shops and cafes to put up posters advertising the concerts. Every month at Galapagos I met more and more interesting artists and musicians who came out to the concerts. Perhaps the most important person I met this way was my future partner.

Even after our marriage, I did not move full-time to Williamsburg. I have always loved this neighborhood, but as a Canadian I was at least equally concerned about my security. (Canada’s constitution puts the right to “social welfare” in the place of the American’s oft-quoted “pursuit-of-happiness.”) My rent-stabilized Manhattan apartment offers the social welfare that the volatile real estate market in Williamsburg cannot guarantee. Most of my personal effects have since migrated here, but I still live in both places. I call Manhattan my town house and Williamsburg my country house. Since many of my Williamsburg friends have been essentially driven out by astronomical rents, I feel like I have made the right decision.

Millar Kelley: I moved NYC from the nation of Colombia where I had been living, painting, and learning Spanish. It seemed like a good place for a painter to be, even though I thought I would hate it. I ended up in Williamsburg because I couldn’t find anything affordable in the East Village, and Williamsburg was only a 3-minute train ride away from the city. That was in 1996. I have changed apartments a number of times, but always stayed in this neighborhood.

John Gurrin: I moved to Williamsburg in about 1991. I had been in Manhattan for several years, in many different places.

What do you creatively do in Williamsburg? What does Williamsburg mean to you?

Jaclyn Moynahan: Creatively, I am a dancer/choreographer/arts administration and producer. Now, pursuing an M.S. in Urban Policy. Williamsburg to me is a place that has seen a lot of change. It is a place where artists try to live and work, maybe less of them live here as in prior years. I like to think the area still has character. The mix of old commercial, vacant industrial, with new residential, gallery/artist grit.

Stephanie Griffin: I am a musician and I play in a number of ensembles. Several have done performances at our loft. The fact that we can do this is absolutely amazing—who else in New York City can present a 20-piece string orchestra in their home? Although we make our living playing at larger venues, I personally enjoy the loft concerts more than anything, because of the intimate setting and the deeply interested and attentive audience that we attract.

Beyond the performance opportunities it provides, our loft provides invaluable rehearsal space. All of my groups are welcome to rehearse here—which is a huge resource, since rehearsal space in Manhattan is getting prohibitively expensive and funding for music ensembles is harder and harder to come by.

Beyond my artistic activities at home, I do not personally do much else in Williamsburg, although I do enjoy shows and various local galleries and performance venues, such as Sideshow, Galapagos and Zebulon. So, I guess what Williamsburg means most to me is our own space—particularly its potential for music rehearsal and performance and the way in which it functions as a gathering place for an always expanding community of artists who are in some way connected to all of our loft mates, past and present.

Artist Millar Kelley

Millar Kelley: I am a painter and work with wood cuts too. Williamsburg has offered a life that is extremely pleasant, convenient and conducive to quality low-income living. It is important for creative people to belong to a community. It inspires and supports the creative process. In our space we have 2 dancers, a musician, costume designer, a painter, lighting engineer and filmmaker. We collaborate all the time, and we have enough space to have performances and shows of every kind.

John Gurrin: I record music, make videos, take photographs, draw and paint, cook, read, write, sleep and dream.

What do you think will happen to Williamsburg?

Jaclyn Moynahan: Like many other neighborhoods that started out this way like Soho and the Lower East Side, gentrification is in full effect. I think as the years go by and the condos go higher & higher, the area will become homogenized, and loss its flavor if steps are not taken to try and hold onto the creative folks and all of the amenities that people know and want to come here for. For me it will become a boring, overpriced place that I can no longer afford to live or work in.

I also believe that the infrastructure in this neighborhood is not conducive to an influx of residents. I cringe now when I have to ride the L train at rush hour, because I know I will watch a few trains go by before I can even squeeze myself into the sardine can.

Stephanie Griffin: I do not know what will happen to Williamsburg, but every day I see what is currently happening. When I was walking around putting up posters for my concert series in 1998, I used to see little hand-made signs advertising ridiculously cheap lofts and apartments. People told me I was crazy for not jumping on the bandwagon, but I saw that there was no protection for these people against their landlords. Now the handmade signs are for sublets in the multiple thousands of dollars per month, and there are at least 3 big real estate offices right on Bedford Avenue selling luxury condominiums. How much profit are they making on these condos if they can afford to rent storefront property on Bedford?

Looking out our own window, we could see (and hear) the old factories going down. Who’s next? I worry about what could potentially happen to us, and about what has already happened to other artists that used to enjoy similar circumstances. But at the same time I realize that people like us are just another wave of immigrants to Williamsburg. Every day I admire the tenacity of the Polish and Hispanic communities that have managed to keep a toehold here. Despite the pressures of rising rents they still manage to maintain successful businesses on Bedford. I worry that once their leases are up for renewal, they may be forced to close down. The real tragedy will be the loss of places like La Villita on Bedford and Grand, that provide good food and the best cappuccino around to communities that cannot afford hipster prices; the cheap homemade cabbage rolls and poppy seed cakes at the Polish Butcher shops; the tamales and tacos at the back of Matamoros; S and B Deli; Metroline Car service—the list goes on.

Refreshingly, these businesses do not seem to feel the pressure and have managed to remain unchanged for what must be decades. (I can think of one long-standing Polish shop that has made serious changes to accommodate the transformation of the local demographic. Trojanowski Wines and Spirits has taken down its bullet-proof glass, and its owner has taken wine classes, started a “wine club”, has wine tastings, and actively advises customers on their wine choices.)

There is a part of me that worries that the Polish, Hispanic and recent waves of artist immigrants to Williamsburg will be completely supplanted by people that can afford luxury condominiums, and that all of the local businesses will slowly be replaced by chain stores (probably the only stores that will be able to afford the rent.) However, there is a part of me that remains optimistic as I observe that many of the new condominium developments are very slow to be completed. Every day they remain unfinished and empty represents millions of dollars of losses to the investors. Maybe I think that the developers will all go bankrupt and eventually they will just be giving these places away to people like us! Sure, these new buildings are obnoxiously ugly—but I would not complain!

Millar Kelley: Obviously, it is changing drastically. Skyrocketing property values is pushing out artists, businesses and the previous population. Artists are relocating further out near Bushwick, or Bedsty, or out of the city entirely. There are some people left who still have reasonable leases, but they will become more and more rare, and I think already no new artists are moving in.

John Gurrin: Williamsburg is going through an extraordinary change. Buildings that have been dormant for many years are being sold and developed. It seems that so much land has changed hands and so many places have been built and are proposed to be built that there is now a question about what the neighborhood can handle. This is not Soho or Tribeca where there are beautiful mid-sized industrial buildings that have been re-purposed without wholesale destruction. In Williamsburg there are a bunch of beautiful buildings, but there any number of more squat, wide, utilitarian buildings that deserve to be razed. But what is being built? It is like some bad science fiction fantasy of squalid proto-modernist architecture rising from the slums that teem at their feet. It is a devastating missed opportunity. How often does an industrial area of this size that is spread across a waterfront, gazing on one of the modern metropolises, become ripe for development? Architects and urban planners should be engaged in international design competitions to propose solutions to this fantastic landscape. Instead, cynical and ignorant developers are simply doing whatever will bring them a quick return on their investments, without any thought to the cultural and human implications of their actions.

What will you do if these changes take place?

Jaclyn in performance

Jaclyn Moynahan: Just like other people have done, I will be forced to find a new place to inhabit. Some place where the energy is still bubbling with creativity and life is still emerging. Personally I don’t want to have to look out my window and no longer be able to see Manhattan, because a luxury condo is now blocking my view.

Stephanie Griffin: If the first (and most dismal) scenario takes place, I will go elsewhere, and this time I will try to buy a space so that I do not have to go through this in the future. I have some ideas, but I will not tell you where since I do not want the New York Times to find out about our ideas, advertise them as the next big thing, attract more developers to these areas and destroy our chances! (I blame the New York Times' coverage for some of the changes that happened in Williamsburg—as soon as they write about your neighborhood, it is over.)

If the second scenario takes place and we manage to hold on here until that point, I would have no issues buying one of these new places from a bankrupt developer at a very low cost and set up something a bit like our loft in a new space in Williamsburg.

Millar Kelley: I am just biding my time until I am kicked out. When that happens I will be happy to leave. I miss the old flavor of the neighborhood—the cultural diversity, the run down yards with chickens, the historical buildings they are being knocked down every day, the cheap amenities. Everything that made this place good is disappearing. The new “luxury lofts” hurt my eyes, I don’t need the nice boutiques that will sell me one outfit for the price my monthly income.

Williamsburg is still a thriving arts culture, with all of the new galleries and music and dance venues. It’s just that a lot of people who built it in their back yards now have to commute to get here.

John Gurrin: Live and learn.

 

Building photographs by John Gurrin. Artists shots by CyberGallery 66.