Who Are We?

While in Williamsburg this weekend, I found this pr display put on by a real estate development company on Bedford Avenue. Developers aren't looked on favorably anywhere in NYC but they are especially scorned in Williamburg, an area poised to go from hipster central to condoburg if the developers have their way. The purpose of this display is to build neighborly good feelings, starting with the question, "Who are we?"

The adjacent window responds with answers that try too hard:

We are your neighbor
We bring our kids to play at the playground
We wait an hour for really good mac n cheese
We know all the drink specials in town
We stroll around Bedford on a Sunday afternoon
We are standing next to you on the L-train

Really, who waits an hour for mac 'n' cheese, except for a yuppy ready to spend $12 on a plate of food that costs pennies to make? Those little white rectangles are stickers that a local added to answer the question:

We pretend to be like you
We are a nightmare
We are rapacious developers
We are boutique shoppers
We don't have day jobs
We own designer dogs
We trade hedge funds
We are Eurotrash
We care about fancy bathrooms
We care about doormen


Not that any of this will prevent the spread of fancy bathrooms and doormen through Williamsburg. Like I wrote in the Defend Brooklyn post, real estate development is part of NYC. So is moving.

Do You Love The L Train?

When I was reading the story behind Love Bound Train, it reminded me of a flyer from deep in my archives, one that I had collected but not posted. This is the flyer that launched the project. From the "hello" page on the site:

We put up 1,000 flyers along the L train line in NYC with the direct phone number to the love train suggestion hotline. We recieved over 700 calls ranging from love poems to death threats directed towards the train.