Hipster on the Roof

Today I continued my “job” of exploring Brooklyn by bike. I rode the five miles over to Williamsburg. I pedaled through so many random and run down neighborhoods. They’re the ones I don’t usually see because I’m usually in a subway train, heading for one gentrified pocket to the next. But a bike let’s me see each pocket neighborhood and everything in between.

If I were to pitch Williamsburg as a movie (and somebody really should, though I claim partial rights), I would describe it as “Reality Bites” meets “Fiddler on the Roof”. (Oops, I’m showing my age. I know Reality Bites came out in the 90’s, but I can’t think of any current hipster/Gen X movies.)

Williamsburg features a Haight&Ashbury-esque row of bars, restaurants, a Buffalo Exchange, and oodles of white, urban 20-somethings. Then just one block away, nothing but orthodox Jewish families. And I mean serious orthodox. The men with their paes and big black hats, the women wearing wigs, the whole spiel. It’s like entering another country, everything’s in Hebrew. Then a few more blocks down, it’s an all black neighborhood.

A city of many faces, this Brooklyn. And I shall not rest until I’ve seen them all.