The Best of the WBO... Archives 1998-2004 September 2005 – In the summer of 1998, when we published our first issue, Brooklyn, New York City, and the world were very different places. More peaceful, to be sure. Less in thrall to the aggressions of money and power. Willliamsburg, although the neighborhood had recently been “discovered,” still seemed adrift in some alternative postindustrial universe, an autonomous zone happily uncoupled from Manhattan’s treadmills. There was a freedom in the air that had much to do with low rents and the larger economy’s apparent lack of interest in us. I think of the spontaneous voodoo artwork at the old Amtrak yards along the waterfront at North 7^th. The intoxicating vapors wafting from that spice warehouse on Berry Street. Sunbathing and picnicking on the piers which were quickly collapsing into the East River. Swimming in the river at night, with Manhattan’s lights spread out before us like strange constellations. Time seemed to flow a little more slowly here, the sky was broader, and the breeze often smelled of the sea... Looking back through the W.B.O.’s past issues and choosing what to include on this site, I was suddenly struck by how drastically things have changed. The first years of the 21^st century have been ominous, to say the least, and it is difficult to ignore the signs that we are on the brink of even larger catastrophes. Much of the work collected here bears eloquent witness to this urgency, at the same time speaking from a faith that another, more sane world is possible. To have offered this forum to our contributors has been deeply gratifying. In 1998, of course, the great engines of real estate development and gentrification had already begun to grind here. Williamsburg had become home to a “new Bohemia,” as New York Magazine said on its cover, and with an endorsement like this it was only a matter of time—as one commentator put it, “Artists are like pilot-fish—then come the sharks.” Today, on North 8^th Street, the ironwork for a tower of sixteen-stories rises on block where the highest building is four. On Kent Avenue in the Southside, Schaefer Landing’s 135 condo units are mostly sold, with one-bedrooms starting at $650,000. The Domino Sugar property will almost certainly become high-rise condos, and a wall of 40-story residential towers is rumored to be on the drawing board for the remainder of the Northside’s undeveloped waterfront. And throughout the neighborhood nearly every block has a smaller project underway. Opulence, luxury—one sees these words posted everywhere, shamelessly. What originally attracted many new residents here, aside from lower rents, was a neighborhood which had preserved a certain human scale—a scale where people do not feel dwarfed and inconsequential, where an ecology of human interaction can flourish in a give-and-take among equals. The redevelopment of Williamsburg was necessary, and no doubt, inevitable. Will it be possible to keep development from going to far? Does New York—or the world—really need more opulence, more luxury? Ando Arike / arkay@panix.com Editor copyright ©Williamsburg Observer Publishing 2005 Human Rights Reserved

back Archived Issues: August 2004 Anti-RNC Convention Issue June 2003 Empire Issue September 2002 Cultural Collapse Issue July 4, 2001 Autonomy Issue October 1998 Nietzsche Birthday Issue September 1998 More to come... Contributors 1998-2004: Mona Harden Reverend Billy Jill Rapaport Carl Watson Tsaurah Litzky Trystero Montevideo Roman Stoad Carri Skoczek Vic Thrill Eric Redlinger Lex Grey Ebon Fisher Bill Not Bored Surveillance Camera Players Andi Kovel Meghan Mahar Jim Lundquist Kinko the Clown The Bindlestiff Family Circus Maiden India Turk Stuzel Honey Porter Ecume des Jours Anita DiBanco k* Rasha Refaie Nancy Donskoj Berit Anderson Ben Williams Doreen Bowens Kathe Burkhart Noam Mor Kirsten Youngren Jillian McDonald Brian Kelly Sarah Barker j.u.l.i.e.t.a. David Kay Kevin Kosar Jenna Pignato Edwin Diaz Joe Maynard Trong Nguyen The Butter Network Edward Thirst Axis of Eve Naomi M. Melendez-Mekkaoui Supporters 1998-2004: Two Jakes Vera Cruz Main Drag Music 86 Used Books The Read Cafe Go Yoga Mikey’s Hookup Brooklyn Animal Resource Coalition BQE Pet Supply Spoonbill & Sugartown Booksellers Metaphors Roebling Liquors Brooklyn Brewery Southside Lounge Fly Right StudioTattoos Blackout Books Big Genius Art Supply Ocularis The Stable Dance & Yoga Studio Squeeze Bar Affinity Healing Arts & special thanks to Kerry Smith @ the Right Bank Café