NEW YORK, NY.- A car is moving down Kent Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. A passenger captures the scene on video — abandoned factory buildings, vacant lots and a crumbling warehouse beneath grim skies. Twenty-five years later, that same stretch is lined with glassy apartment towers, boutique hotels and a Trader Joe’s.
For those who remember the Williamsburg of long ago, or even a decade ago, walking its streets can be disorienting, like running into an old friend who has had extensive plastic surgery. In a dramatic transformation, more than 500 condominium buildings have sprung up there since 2005, and much of the north side has become an upscale shopping district.
The neighborhood seemed to cross a Rubicon in 2023, when Hermès opened a pop-up shop on North Sixth Street and announced plans for a permanent outpost nearby. Then Chanel — Chanel! — opened a boutique on the same street.
There have been many Williamsburgs over time. It was a place of tenements in Betty Smith’s “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn”; a haven for Jews escaping persecution in Europe; a stronghold for Puerto Rican, Dominican, Polish and Ukrainian immigrants.
This story concerns more recent history, when a neighborhood of mills, foundries and meatpacking plants became a cheap-rent paradise for artists and, finally, a prime destination for developers and international luxury brands. This timeline charts that remarkable evolution, year by year.
‘PURE BOHEMIA’
— 1988
The Lizard’s Tail hosts poets, rock bands and one-act plays in a makeshift space under the Williamsburg Bridge, in a neighborhood of mainly Hispanic and Hasidic residents. The New York Times calls the club “pure bohemia, reminiscent of the Lower East Side in the early 1980s.”
— 1989
Kerry Smith, a former firefighter, opens the Right Bank Cafe on Kent Avenue. An early customer, writer Ando Arike, describes it as a place for “the lost, the confused, the drunks, the drug-addled, the drinkers, the poets,” as well as “the old-timers, the Latinos, the Russians, the Poles, the Hasidic Jews, the bridge workers, the bikers,” and other types. Local bands play on its modest courtyard stage.
Artist Phyllis Yampolsky founds Independent Friends of McCarren Park with the aim of restoring McCarren Park Pool, a lake-size pool built on the Willamsburg-Greenpoint border in the 1930s. It has fallen into disrepair since it closed in 1983.
— 1990
It’s an art show. It’s a concert. It’s a party. It’s Cat’s Head, an all-night event featuring local artists and musicians. It takes place on Bastille Day at the vacant Old Dutch Mustard factory on Metropolitan Avenue, drawing 750 revelers.
— 1991
Waterfront Week, a zine for the neighborhood’s growing community of writers, artists and musicians, starts regular publication.
In a former auto repair shop on North First Street, Annie Herron opens Herron Test-Site, one of the neighborhood’s first commercial art galleries.
Keep Refrigerated, a club that hosts wee-hours raves, punk shows and art installations, opens in a former meatpacking plant on North Sixth Street. Roughly 300 people squeeze into its three floors.
— 1992
Williamsburg makes the cover of New York magazine. The story reports that an estimated 2,000 artists are living in this “working-class neighborhood.” Medea de Vyse, a performance artist, provides the money quote: “In the ’70s, it was Soho. In the ’80s, the East Village. In the ’90s, it will be Williamsburg.”
Mugs Ale House, on Bedford Avenue, becomes a saloon of choice for artists and musicians priced out of lower Manhattan. The old-school barroom is “dark and dingy,” the Daily News reports. Newcomers smoke cigarettes, drink craft beers, and eat burgers and chops alongside Polish and Ukrainian locals.
‘WHERE IT’S AT’
— 1993
Oznot’s Dish, a Mediterranean-style bistro, opens on Berry Street. It becomes a first-date spot and a place where recent arrivals take visiting family members.
— 1994
A former Polish luncheonette on Bedford Avenue is revamped as Planet Thailand. A Times critic notes that Williamsburg, as a dining destination, “is slowly becoming visible against the Milky Way of Manhattan restaurants.”
— 1995
Located in a former mayonnaise factory, and famous for its sunken reflecting pool, Galapagos Art Space attracts crowds who might encounter a poetry slam or a musician blowing into a didgeridoo. The aroma of nearby meat-processing plants lends a certain ambience.
— 1996
Two decades after the closing of the Schaefer and Rheingold breweries in Brooklyn, beer-making returns to the borough with the opening of Brooklyn Brewery in a former matzo factory on North 11th Street. Its signature brand is Brooklyn Lager. Mayor Rudy Giuliani serves as brewmaster on opening day.
— 1997
Utne Reader names Williamsburg the third hippest place in the nation, behind the Lower Garden District in New Orleans and the Inner Mission in San Francisco.
— 1998
Andrew Tarlow and Mark Firth open Diner, a restaurant in a dining-carlike structure beneath the Williamsburg Bridge. With its focus on local ingredients, casual-hip service and a considered take on familiar dishes, Diner embodies the artisanal Brooklyn aesthetic that will soon be everywhere.
— 1999
New York City’s Board of Standards and Appeals grants a variance in zoning laws that have long favored manufacturing along the waterfront, allowing for the construction of some 220 apartments in the Austin, Nichols Warehouse, a grand structure on Kent Avenue. Designed in Egyptian Revival style by Cass Gilbert, the architect of the Woolworth Building, it has sat vacant for decades.
The site of Pete’s Candy Store, on Lorimer Avenue, was once a general store, a luncheonette and a gambling den. Now it opens as a bar and music venue. British singer-songwriter Beth Orton plays the first show.
It was once the Real Form Girdle Factory. Now the Bedford Avenue building is a mini mall, with an internet cafe, a cheese shop and a record store. For those in search of art books or Jonathan Lethem’s latest, there’s Spoonbill & Sugartown Booksellers.
— 2000
Kokie’s Place, on the corner of Berry and North Third, is in a transitional phase. Once an after-hours haunt for some of the area’s longtime Puerto Rican residents, it begins to draw a different crowd. Author Robert Anasi describes the regulars as a mix of factory workers, immigrants and “a couple of artist types with their sideburns and thick-framed glasses.” It will soon attract a new creature on the scene: the Williamsburg hipster, who is identified by a trucker hat, tattoos and a fondness for indie rock. Reports suggest the establishment’s name was literal: Patrons could buy cocaine in the back.
An old-school stainless steel diner — formerly the Wythe Diner, on Wythe Avenue — is sold by the Ukrainian family who owned it to the proprietor of a West Village burrito joint. After a renovation, it will open as Relish and become a symbol of the new Williamsburg (and a popular film-shoot location).
The neighborhood is changing fast, but Peter Luger Steak House stays the same, serving porterhouse steaks, fried potatoes and spinach to city officials and other meat lovers in the shadow of the Williamsburg Bridge. This year, it is one of only two Brooklyn establishments to make the annual Zagat Survey’s list of the 50 most popular New York City restaurants.
— 2001
Northsix, a rock club, opens in the same former factory building as Galapagos. The club presents Moldy Peaches, the Walkmen and Calla, among other acts. Luxx opens the same year on Grand Street and hosts DJ Larry Tee’s weekly “Berliniamsburg” electroclash party. “It’s official,” The New York Post declares. “Brooklyn is where it’s at.”
Well past its days as an alternative paper in Montreal, Vice Media moves its headquarters from a building in Manhattan to a Williamsburg warehouse. Its writers, editors and videographers will help turn the neighborhood into a media phenomenon.
‘NEW LIFE’
— 2002
In his inaugural address, Mayor Michael Bloomberg pledges: “We will bring new life to our waterfront and stimulate new investment in housing.”
The Gen Xers who arrived in the ’90s are having babies. Sam & Seb begins serving them from a former arts supply store on Bedford Avenue. Its stock will include tiny Levi’s, tiny Dries Van Noten tops and tiny Che Guevara T-shirts. Sean Kennerly, a local writer, grumbles to the Times: “You always figure there are places for people who want to have kids. Like over in Park Slope.”
— 2003
The Gretsch building, a former guitar factory erected in 1916, undergoes a $75 million renovation and becomes luxury lofts. A studio is priced at $500,000; a two-bedroom with river views asks a then-staggering $999,000. Busta Rhymes buys three units; Josh Hartnett nabs the penthouse.
You can’t furnish your luxury condo from secondhand shops. Thus opens Future Perfect, which sells contemporary design by Piet Hein Eek, a Dutch designer, and Lindsey Adelman, whose chandeliers become hanging status symbols.
The Bloomberg administration announces a plan to rezone a 1.6-mile stretch along the East River in Williamsburg and Greenpoint. The change would open the area to residential buildings as high as 350 feet.
Robert Lanham, who arrived in the neighborhood from Virginia about five years earlier, publishes “The Hipster Handbook,” a cheeky guide to Williamsburg’s signature creature. The hipster, he writes, “shuns or reduces to kitsch anything held dear by the mainstream” and “ideally possesses no more than 2 percent body fat.”
— 2004
After more than a century, the Domino Sugar Refinery all but ceases operations. “I learned this past week that I’m a dinosaur,” says Richard Rednour, a foreman who is laid off. Six months later, developer Community Preservation Corporation Resources buys the facility and wins city approval to build glassy apartment towers on the 11-acre site.
— 2005
Clothes-shopping in the area once meant a trip to thrift stores like Domsey’s Warehouse Outlet, Beacon’s Closet or Buffalo Exchange. The arrival of Wendy Mullin of Built by Wendy — known for outfitting Beastie Boys and Parker Posey — brings designer fashion to the neighborhood.
In a May 12 dispatch, the Times reports on a victory for the Bloomberg administration: “The City Council overwhelmingly approved plans yesterday to rezone 175 waterfront blocks in the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Williamsburg and Greenpoint, removing the last major hurdle to the city’s most ambitious redevelopment effort in decades.”
Concert promoter Ron Delsener Presents donates money to clean up McCarren Park Pool, the long-neglected, 55,400-square-foot swimming pool, so that an experimental dance performance can be staged there, with plans for 10 more events the next summer.
The City Council revokes the landmark status of the Austin, Nichols Warehouse. The decision, which comes amid protests from preservationists, allows the developer to alter the exterior while adding six floors for condo units.
— 2006
Toll Brothers, a homebuilding company known for suburban McMansions, announces North8, a 6-story residential complex. An ad conveys the vibe: “Williamsburg. All grown up.”
A music scene coalesces around illegal or semi-legal performance spaces, including Glasslands, which leases a warehouse on Kent Avenue to host Vampire Weekend, MGMT, Dirty Projectors and other indie acts.
Developer Steiner Equities buys the Old Dutch Mustard Factory, where condiments were produced from 1941 until roughly 1980 and underground parties took place in the years after that. Demolition soon clears the way for town houses and more than 100 apartments.
— 2007
McCarren Park Pool is reborn as a concert venue, with an indie-rock-heavy roster of performers this summer and next. Acts include Band of Horses, Beastie Boys, Blonde Redhead, Cat Power, Deerhoof, Deerhunter, Deer Tick, Feist, Grizzly Bear, MGMT, M.I.A., Modest Mouse, TV on the Radio and Wilco.
Amid rent hikes, rock club Northsix is sold to Bowery Presents, the company behind Manhattan’s Bowery Ballroom. After a multimillion-dollar renovation, it reopens as Music Hall of Williamsburg. Fiery Furnaces and Patti Smith take the stage.
— 2008
In an interview with The Brooklyn Paper, Lanham, the hipster chronicler, notes a change in the local scene: “What gets on my nerves, though, are the Wall Streeters who have come into the area to ‘get dirty with the artists’ and have brought their condominiums with them.”
Rick and Michael Mast, bearded brothers from Iowa City, Iowa, “are giving Willy Wonka a run for his money,” Time magazine reports, by selling their own “bean-to-bar” artisanal chocolate out of their Williamsburg apartment. They will soon open a shop on North Third Street and a factory nearby.
‘YUPPIFICATION TRAIN’
— 2009
A desolate waterfront stretch, long the site of low-budget music videos and illegal parties, is now The Edge: two residential towers, with underground parking, fitness centers, an indoor pool, spa treatment rooms, virtual golf and a full-time support staff.
A Duane Reade pharmacy opens on Kent Avenue, heralding the arrival of chain stores.
A popular Tumblr account hints at a sense of hipster overload. Created by writer and comedian Joe Mande, “Look at This —ing Hipster” presents snapshots of the neighborhood’s more stylized residents, often with stinging commentary.
The saga of the Austin, Nichols Warehouse comes to an end when the developer agrees to preserve the building’s exterior. The 460,000-square-foot interior, however, will be converted into apartments.
— 2010
CVS opens a branch at The Edge, down the street from the Duane Reade. Shari Lind, a Manhattan transplant, tells the Times she wants more chain retail: “Please, can you bring in Dunkin’ Donuts, too? I also want a Bank of America.” She soon gets her wish, when the bank opens a Bedford Avenue branch.
A parking lot on Kent Avenue becomes Jungle, an outdoor plant bazaar and event space. It offers rare houseplants and hori hori digging tools imported from Japan.
— 2011
NoLIta hot spot Cafe de la Esquina has a second location: the stainless steel structure occupied for more than a decade by Relish (and, before that, the Wythe Diner). Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni describes it as “Studio 54 with chipotle instead of cocaine.”
The Nitehawk Cinema, a dine-in, three-screen theater with a full bar, opens on Metropolitan Avenue. Patrons eat cheese empanadas and fish tacos while watching “Midnight in Paris,” “Submarine” and “The Trip.”
An open-air food court, Smorgasburg, pops up at East River State Park. Open Saturdays, with vendors selling sesame noodles and frozen vegan desserts, the food fair is “the Woodstock of eating,” the Times reports.
— 2012
The 72-room Wythe Hotel opens near the waterfront. The developers of what the Times calls a “dazzling hotel and night life complex” include Jed Walentas of Two Trees and Andrew Tarlow of Diner, whose empire will grow to four restaurants, two shops and a literary magazine, Diner’s Journal.
Real estate investment firm Midtown Equities buys a vacant warehouse on a block between Bedford Avenue and Berry Street. It announces plans for a 200,000-square-foot “retail destination” that will include Equinox, Chipotle, Citibank, T-Mobile and Whole Foods. “Williamsburg’s yuppification train picks up speed,” Gothamist reports.
The developers of the Domino plant sell the site to Two Trees Management, the company behind the transformation of the nearby Dumbo neighborhood.
After all those raucous summertime concerts, McCarren Park Pool is now … a swimming pool once more. Bloomberg reopens it in June, after a 30-month, $50 million renovation.
— 2013
Nine years into a civic tussle, the opponents of the redevelopment of the Domino Sugar Refinery are mostly quiet when Two Trees unveils its updated plan. “If Two Trees doesn’t develop this, somebody else will, is sort of my mentality, unfortunately,” Matthew Viragh, the owner of Nitehawk Cinema, tells the Times.
Exercise in Williamsburg once meant stepping outside the bar for a smoke. Now, on Kent Avenue, there is a new branch of luxury indoor cycling chain SoulCycle.
— 2014
Now a media brand valued at $5.7 billion, with 400 employees and investments from The Walt Disney Co. and the Murdoch family, Vice unveils plans for a 60,000-square-foot office along the waterfront. New York state kicks in with a $6.5 million tax break. Vice’s would-be neighbors in the warehouse building — music venues Glasslands and Death by Audio — announce they are closing.
A past version of South Williamsburg takes the spotlight at the 52nd New York Film Festival, which presents a restored version of “Los Sures,” a 1984 documentary by Diego Echeverria about the neighborhood’s Puerto Rican and Dominican communities. It is accompanied by “Living Los Sures,” a new multimedia project inspired by Echeverria’s film.
French denim brand A.P.C. opens a temporary boutique at the Wythe Hotel.
‘PEAK GENTRIFICATION’
— 2015
For its first store in Brooklyn, Ralph Lauren chooses Williamsburg, opening Double RL Men’s in a former mill on North Third Street. In coming years, the site will make room for the retailers Todd Snyder, Paul Smith, Anine Bing, UpWest, Herman Miller and Away.
Mast Brothers backlash: A food blogger accuses the Williamsburg chocolatiers of exaggerating their homemade “bean-to-bar” aesthetic in their marketing materials. In a Times interview, the brothers say the report was mostly untrue.
— 2016
Instead of dropping into Mikey’s Hook Up to get your MacBook Pro repaired, you can now go to the Genius Bar at Apple Williamsburg. Apple’s first Brooklyn store is a 13,700-square-foot ersatz industrial space designed by architecture firm Bohlin Cywinski Jackson. Customers queue up the night before doors open.
The opening of the William Vale Hotel, down the block from the Wythe, cements the neighborhood’s status as a destination for international tourists. The Hoxton Williamsburg and The Williamsburg (now Arlo Williamsburg) soon follow.
— 2017
The Domino site signs its first tenants. “Prices range from $2,746 per month for a studio, and go up to $5,946 per month for a two-bedroom, two-bathroom unit,” Curbed reports.
Supreme, the streetwear label founded in SoHo in 1994, opens a Grand Street location. At the premiere party, guests encounter a built-in skate bowl in the back of the store.
Yoga pants come to the neighborhood when Lululemon opens on North Sixth Street.
— 2018
The North Face opens for business across from Lululemon on North Sixth Street, which is fast becoming a high-end retail corridor.
— 2019
Loyal customers of Whisk, a kitchen supplies store on Bedford Avenue that was part of an earlier wave of development, mourn its closing. Natasha Amott, the owner, says her rent was $8,600 a month when she opened in 2008. Now the landlord is asking $26,500 a month — a 300% increase. “Everybody agrees some of the changes have been for good,” Amott tells NY1, “but the neighborhood, from what I hear, is very upset that there’s all these multinational and national brands coming in.”
— 2020
Blank Street Coffee, a cafe backed by venture capital that is soon to be ubiquitous in the city, opens an electric-powered coffee cart in the outdoor garden of what was formerly the site of La Esquina, Relish and the Wythe Diner.
— 2021
Gucci opens a pop-up shop inside The North Face store on North Sixth Street. A neon sign above the doorway beckons to fashionistas who typically shop on Spring Street and Madison Avenue in Manhattan. Months later, in a former bank building between Kent and Wythe, another Italian luxury label, Bottega Veneta, has its own pop-up.
Jennifer Aniston, Justin Theroux, Jimmy Kimmel, Howard Stern, Jon Hamm and Jason Bateman are spotted by Page Six enjoying a group dinner at Laser Wolf, an Israeli restaurant atop The Hoxton Williamsburg.
— 2022
French luxury brand Hermès signs leases for two locations on North Sixth Street — a pop-up and a forthcoming permanent flagship store. Time Out asks: “Has Williamsburg reached peak gentrification?”
— 2023
Kellogg’s Diner, a homey restaurant on the corner of Metropolitan and Union avenues since 1928, declares bankruptcy. By year’s end, it has new owners, who say it will become a 24-hour Tex-Mex restaurant with a menu of cocktails.
The boxcarlike structure that was previously the Wythe Diner, Relish, La Esquina and Blank Street is repurposed yet again. Chanel turns this retro-styled, Instagrammable space into a pop-up shop during New York Fashion Week. Instead of food, Lucky Chance Diner serves Chanel fragrances.
— 2024
While many of Williamsburg’s historic residents remain, the neighborhood has transformed around them, becoming significantly wealthier and more white. In 1990, the median household income for Williamsburg and Greenpoint (converted to 2022 dollars) was $45,640, according to the New York University Furman Center. In 2023, that figure had more than doubled, to $111,748.
“You have a combination of age, demographics and wealth that are all concentrated in that area,” said Kael Goodman, the head of Marketproof, an analytics company that specializes in New York real estate. Williamsburg now has 135 active and recently completed development projects greater than 25,000 square feet, according to Marketproof, the most of any neighborhood in the city.
This article originally appeared in
The New York Times.
