We're #1. And by we, I mean Queens. With yesterday's Apple store announcement and now this hot travel destination news, it's just a matter of time before the Brooklyn to Queens shift happens in earnest. In some neighborhoods, at least. Not here. Not for some time.
(Completely aside, I've never been able to figure out why Sunset Park, another safe, affordable, unhip neighborhood I once lived in, has yet to gentrify in the gastropub and mixology way that Crown Heights and Bed-Stuy have.)
I've been holding onto this photo taken my last week in Williamsburg. I'm not into hipster-shaming (however, while I'm linking wildly to Gothamist, I do love that it always pulls out the purple pants pic to rile readers up) but it just represents such a specific moment in time. And I don't even hate it. I haven't deleted it. To some degree, I appreciate a 20something who wakes up and puts on his stonewashed double denim and Pony sneakers and bleaches his long in the back curls just so and with confidence. I might appreciate it more on an over-35. On an over-45, it would be a questionable look since most would just assume that's how they've always been. I have friends who are, but I'm still not on board with revival Docs. The trends collapsing on themselves conundrum.
Anyway, I've yet to encounter a single person in Jackson Heights who's even remotely dressed ironically or normcore or simply a straight white dude clothed fancifully. Then I will know we've arrived.