Brooklyn Artists Plan a Dance Party Funeral for Williamsburg
Funeral invitation via CHERYL
We’ve all been talking and writing about the “death” of Williamsburg for years now, and every time a new neighborhood is compared to it (i.e. Quooklyn) we begin the debate anew. But now the Brooklyn-based artists’ collective CHERYL is taking matters into their own hands, hosting a dance party funeral in memoriam of the hip ‘hood that once was. As the Daily News states, they’re “dancing on Williamsburg’s grave.” The cause of death? “The cancer of mass gentrification and the proliferation of the luxury condo.”
The event is taking place this Saturday between 11:30pm and 4:30am at Glasslands, the Kent Avenue warehouse turned “homegrown community art space turned psychedelic venue partyhaus” that is slated to close at the end of the year. Similar venues Death by Audio and 285 Kent have already been shuttered, and the inevitable fate of Glasslands is considered the nail in the coffin for the artists who once found the gritty neighborhood a creative, affordable haven and are being driven out by the luxury condos and swanky businesses proliferating in the area.
For mourners who feel like dressing up, CHERYL recommends the following costume options: “Victorian Mourning Merkins, Starbucks Baristas, All Black Everything, Whole Foods Suttee, Goth Immigrants, Winking Widows, Vintage Sorrow, Mast Brothers Conquistadors, Asian Tapas, and Scrooge McDuck.”
What do you think?
Images: CityPhile (L); Shawn Hoke via photopin cc (R)
[Related: A Google Maps Comparison of How Much Williamsburg Has Changed Since 2007]
[Related: South Williamsburg’s New Cool: Everything Below Grand Catches Up with the North]
[Via Daily News]
