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The Depiction of New York City’s “Porno-Tropics”
By L.N.R.
Williamsburg, Brooklyn has emerged
as a modern day colony of lower Manhattan over the past ten years.
While
the basic story of the gentrification
of Williamsburg is a now familiar one—a working class, immigrant
neighborhood with a proximity to a hipper, more wealthy district
of the city becomes “cool” and new residents move in,
pushing the old residents out. However, examining Williamsburg from
a purely demographics and economics standpoint does not fully explain
the ways in which gentrification is occurring there. The depiction
of gentrified Williamsburg, Brooklyn, shares many similarities to
the depiction of nations colonized by western colonizers, particularly
in the realm of sexual fantasy. Both are constructed as an escape
for affluent, opportunity seeking white people where they are able
to physically, economically and sexually create a place to live out
their fantasies that have been repressed by European culture.
Colonial
sexual fantasy views people and often the land itself in distant
locales as “exotic others.” An excerpt from Joseph
Conrad’s Heart of Darkness describing an African queen captures
colonial sexual fantasy well. This except could almost be a description
of a highly fashionable woman in a modern magazine. “She carried
her head high; her hair was done in the shape of a helmet; she had
brass legging to her knees, brass wire gauntlets to the elbow, a
crimson spot on her tawny neck; bizarre things, charms, gifts of
witch-men, that hung about her, glittered and trembled at every step” (Conrad
in Loomba, 151). The similarity of the gaze on women as exotic,
sexual objects between current and colonial times raises several
questions.
What are the implications of the similarities between colonial
and current fantasies of affluent, white people? If going to the
colonies
is no longer a feasible escape from the rigidities of modern, western
life, where within western cities can this kind of exoticism be
found?
Because of its specific history and location, the gentrification
in Williamsburg appears more particularly colonial than other
gentrifying neighborhoods in New York City. Williamsburg is a
traditionally
working class, immigrant neighborhood located along the East
River in north
Brooklyn. Williamsburg’s Northside, where much of the gentrification
was initially focused, is traditionally Polish. There are also
large Puerto Rican and Hasidic Jewish communities, especially
on the Southside
of the neighborhood where many high rise, luxury condos are being
built. Traditionally, Williamsburg’s waterfront harbored
a large shipbuilding industry, which began to decline after World
War
II. Because of its industrial character and overall disinvestment
in poor and working class, urban neighborhoods during and after
the 1950’s, Williamsburg became host to many environmental
and health hazards including toxic contamination of soil, waste
transfer
stations, and garbage incinerators. In addition, Robert Moses’ Brooklyn
Queens Expressway cuts through the center of the neighborhood.
The highway segregates the neighborhood and the vehicle exhaust
has caused
the number of children living there diagnosed with asthma to
be very high. Like many low income, urban neighborhoods, until
very recently
Williamsburg was seen as, and often was, dangerous and dirty.
One long-term resident described Bedford Avenue in the early
1980’s
as deserted after dark, a host to boarded up storefronts, many
being lived in illegally.
Despite the danger and toxicity, because
of the cheap rents, abundance of vacant space and proximity
to Manhattan, particularly
the East
Village, in the 1980’s artists began to move into Williamsburg
(Whitney and Wallace, 9). In the past decade the population
of the neighborhood has grown rapidly, as students, professionals
and young,
affluent twentysomethings who can best be described as hipsters,
swarmed into the neighborhood on the heels of artists. Many
of
these new
residents live in converted industrial loft spaces, turning
vacant factories into prime real estate. Rents have been rising
and
the Polish and Puerto Rican residents on Williamsburg’s
Northside have found themselves displaced, many moving to Ridgewood,
Queens.
New coffee shops, bars, clubs, cafes, clothing stores and hair
salons seem to open weekly, catering to Williamsburg’s
hip, young clientele.
Williamsburg’s relationship to Manhattan is similar to that
of a “colony” and its “motherland”. Williamsburg
is located directly across the East River from the East Village which
went through a similar process of gentrification in the 1980’s.
Bedford Avenue and N7th Street, the center of gentrified Williamsburg,
is the first stop on the L subway line, which runs into Brooklyn
from 14th street in Manhattan. Because the L train does easily connect
with other train lines in Brooklyn by public transit Williamsburg
is cut off from the rest of Brooklyn. Its location in Brooklyn’s
northwest corner ties it more closely to Manhattan than the rest
of Brooklyn. Thus, like many colonies, its gentrified identity has
become more closely tied to the “motherland” of Manhattan,
than the borough where it is located. As Williamsburg continues to
gentrify, it has reached farther east into the Bushwick neighborhood.
Parts of Bushwick are now being referred to as “East Williamsburg,” particularly
by real estate agents. The colony is extending itself by subsuming
other neighborhoods into its colonial identity.
Colonialism and gentrification are both part of a process that
creates a margin and a center. By a process of “othering” and
marginalizing the “natives” in a colony, those in power
are able to place their needs at the center. Colonial discourse decrees
that colonizers have a right to be in the colonies to assist in their
development (towards a westernized, capitalist society) because the
colonized people are seen as unable to develop on their own. Ania
Loomba writes, “Whether or not they were granted a cultural
heritage of their own, colonized societies were seen as unworthy
of developing on independent lines” (Loomba, 87). In the case
of Williamsburg, this would mean that whether or not the cultures
of the Polish, Latino and Hasidic Jews who were living there previous
to its creation as New York’s hottest night spot were respected
or recognized, the neighborhood would still be seen as unworthy of
development without the money and presence of young, white, professionals.
Often, gentrification is seen as the way to develop “underdeveloped” urban
neighborhoods. Instead of working out long term solutions to provide
jobs that pay a living wage for working people with families in the
neighborhood, businesses like cafes and retail clothing stores open
up, charging prices that many neighborhood residents cannot afford
and jobs that do not pay a living wage and provide benefits. Similarly,
in the colonies development meant low paying (if paying at all) agricultural,
and later, industrial, jobs for the colonized people, with the profits
going to the colonizers and the “motherland”.
Economically, for Williamsburg, gentrification has seriously
threatened many ethnic and immigrant owned businesses and many
which have
been part of the neighborhood for generations are being forced
to move
or close. This is due to the rising rents and a new population
that does not consume Polish meat products or need the services
of a Polish travel agent. For example, The Vittoria Bakery, a
family-owned Italian bakery on Bedford Avenue, has been open
for over thirty
years. The current owner described it as mostly patronized by
the working class people who were employed in the factories in
the
neighborhood.
Because of the decline of manufacturing, displacement of long-term,
working class residents, and newer, fancier cafes opening
up, business
for the bakery has dropped tremendously. In addition, a family
owned hardware store, which has been open for 30 years on Bedford
avenue
had to move several blocks north because rents near the Bedford
L stop had gotten so high (Wallace and Whitney, 11). This economic
situation echoes many colonial economies because the colonizers “developed” the
colonies by sucking the resources there for their personal gain,
and the gain of the “motherland” without giving back
or reinvesting in the community that was there before they came.
Economic opportunities for the working class, ethnic and immigrant
population in Williamsburg are becoming increasingly limited,
while affluent newcomers with money and resources to invest in
the neighborhood
are able to follow their economic dreams by opening a specialty
boutique, rock club or trendy cafe.
The economic aspects of Williamsburg’s
gentrification are tied to its “hip” image and the
young, fresh (white) culture that newly resides there. Loomba
links colonial culture and economics
when she writes, “Such studies [such as census data, city
planning, education and legal institutions] underline that the
cultural, discursive
or representational aspects of colonialism need not be thought
of at all as functioning at a remove from its economic, political
or
even military aspects” (Loomba, 99). Williamsburg’s
popularity, and economic growth, was fueled by its image as a
place where the
people are sexy and sexualized. With the popularity of “Electroclash,” a
style of music that mixed old drum machines and hip hop beats,
skimpy, ironic fashion and post punk stylings, from about 2000-2003,
it was
depicted as a place where young, overwhelmingly white, affluent
hipsters could live out sexual fantasies. This very closely mirrors
Loomba’s
description of colonial fantasy and the sexual nature of colonial
discourse.
Much of colonial discourse around sexuality centered on the depiction
and the role of colonized women. The land itself was feminized.
Loomba writes, “Thus, from the beginning of the colonial period till
its end (and beyond), female bodies symbolize the conquered land” (Loomba,
152). Central to Loomba’s argument and to my current application
to gentrified Williamsburg, is the understanding that there was a
recurrent, colonial, sexual fantasy surrounding the colonies. Loomba,
quoting Anne McClintock, describes the colonies as a “porno-tropics” for
the European colonizers. She expands, “A fantastic magic lantern
of the mind onto which Europe projected its forbidden sexual desires
and fears” (Loomba, 154). Thus, not only did the colonies
serve as an escape for the repressed European imagination, but
they also
defined what was acceptable and decent in Europe. These sexualized
stereotypes and attitudes fed colonial fervor, just as similar
fantasies and values fed the popularity of gentrified Williamsburg.
“
Electroclash” music was often credited as the signature style
of Williamsburg and enabled it to serve as a kind of “porno-tropics” for
the white hipster imagination.* The description and depiction of
the Williamsburg “Electroclash” scene is an indicator
of the colonial fantasies at work that helped fuel the neighborhood’s
gentrification. “Electroclash” promoter and club owner
Larry Tee, quoted in a 2002 issue of Fader magazine, remarked, “I
think Electroclash brought back the sex” (Brannah, 127). Descriptions
of the Williamsburg “Electroclash” scene paralleled those
of native women by western colonizers, similar to Conrad’s
description of the African queen. The “porno-tropics” of
Williamsburg functioned such that not only could young, mostly white,
affluent hipsters live out their sexual fantasies, but they could
become them. A further description of the scenesters in Fader illustrates
vividly, “Going to Williamsburg on a Friday and Saturday night
and mingling with the cute and the sexy and the fashionable and the
frothing, bopping hairstyles has them excited... It’s about
playing dress-ups. It’s about looking cool. It’s about
being young, cute and fuckable...” (Brannah). Another article,
quoted in Stylus magazine, continues to connect descriptions of Williamsburg
with the description of native women in the colonies. Richard Morodor
Juzwiak quotes Tony Ware, “Androgynous arctic sex kittens and
their handlers cruise through the length of the room...It’s
a room where even queens can feel like kings, and where boys named
Mary and girls named Chris—fairies, fetishists and fashionistas
with watchful eyes—can turn an urban anywhere, anytime into the
here and now” (Juzwiak 2002).
Through a modern interpretation of colonial fantasy, the class
of gentrifiers, like modern day colonizers, shaped Williamsburg
into
their sexual escape. Though “Electroclash” has diminished
in popularity, an aura of forbidden fruit seems to linger throughout
the neighborhood. Thus the colony and motherland relationship perpetuates
itself. Most of the neighborhood’s new residents work and shop
in Manhattan. Manhattan provides the financial backing for an escape
into Williamsburg, thus it is the place where one must repress one’s
fantasies and work for the income that enables a fantastic escape
into Williamsburg. It is this sexual fantasy that separates Williamsburg
from other gentrifying neighborhoods in New York City. Hipsters,
and those who want to be hip, flock to Williamsburg in search of
an opportunity to become or seduce an “androgynous sex kitten” just
as colonizers flocked to the colonies looking for economic opportunity
and escape from European morality.
In its colonial relationship to Manhattan, Williamsburg embodies
contradictions that are similar to the contradictory treatment
of the colonies by the colonizers. Loomba notes, “One of the most
striking contradictions about colonialism is that it both needs to ‘civilize’ its ‘others’,
and to fix them into perpetual ‘otherness’” (Loomba,
173). In order to remain “cool” and “cutting edge” Williamsburg
must retain its urban, gritty, feel. However, it also must have the
amenities of a hip, urban lifestyle—clubs, cafes, bars, and
boutiques. It is this element of sexy danger that attracts affluent
young people who wish to live outside of “the norm”.
However, if Williamsburg was actually still dangerous for affluent
people, or did not provide them with the comforts of life they have
come to expect living in affluent communities, they would not live
in or patronize the neighborhood. The building of luxury housing
in Williamsburg brings out an additional contradiction, especially
after the recent vote by the New York City Council in the spring
of 2005 to rezone much of Williamsburg’s industrial waterfront
for high rise, residential development. As the gritty, artistic, “ethnic
character” of the neighborhood is threatening to be lost, many
of the young, arty professionals who now patronize the neighborhood
will move on, searching for a place that retains the feel of a freshly “discovered” urban
colony.
It is important to stress that the discourses of colonialism
and gentrification are not absolutely parallel. However, comparing
specific elements of colonial discourse, such as colonial, sexual
fantasy,
the relationship between colony and motherland, and colonial
views
on “development”, is helpful when working to understand
specific cases of gentrification. Though the world may be viewed
as post (or neo) colonial, colonial attitudes and discourse have
much relevance in current urban policy and everyday life. When
conceptualizing ways to live and act out against (neo)colonialism
and gentrification
it is essential to understand the histories of colonialism. About
the practical relevance of understanding such histories Loomba
writes, “ ‘Colonial
discourse’, then is not just a fancy new term for colonialism;
it indicates a new way of thinking in which cultural, intellectual,
economic or political processes are seen to work together in
the formation, perpetuation and dismantling of colonialism” (Loomba,
54). In Williamsburg it is essential to place the neighborhood
in a particular colonial history, one that reaches as far back
as the
colonization of North American by the English and Dutch. Knowledge
of the historical forces at work enables those who are looking
to create sustainable urban development to more effectively formulate
practical strategies for resisting gentrification that avoid
the
recreation of dichotomies between “colonizer” and “colonized” over
and over again.
Comparing the gentrification of Williamsburg
to specific aspects of colonialism raises many questions for
those living in urban
centers which are becoming increasingly globalized, especially
those who
feel that cultural identity and the arts are an important part
of urban life. How do we find affordable spaces to live and
create art?
How do we honor the multi-ethnic character and history in places
like Brooklyn without falling into trite multiculturalism or
relying on overly simplistic stereotypes? How do we advocate
for and support
sustainable development that benefits all who live in a neighborhood
and not just wealthy developers and well-educated people with
disposable income? How do we work together collaboratively
across boundaries
of race, class, ethnicity, education and language to struggle
for this kind of development? An article published in the May
2005
edition of the Brooklyn Rail provides some ideas. In discussing
protests
against the Williamsburg waterfront’s rezoning and the
proposed basketball stadium in over the Atlantic Yards near downtown
Brooklyn
the article showed artists, new and old residents and long time
community organizers coming together to stage protests, neighborhood
gatherings
and petition the city council, all the while articulating their
own vision for the development of their communities. While far
from perfect,
this kind of alliance building shows that with a lot of persistence,
creativity and consciousness it is possible to resist the repetition
of colonial scripts.
* Williamsburg’s “Electroclash” scene was highly
influenced by a similar scene in Berlin, a city wracked by economic
and political crises and tinged with the myth of the Communist Bloc
and Weimar Germany. It has also become a haven for artists and one
in which western investors and developers are scrambling “reinvent” the
city after the fall of the Berlin wall.
Sources Quoted:
Ania Loomba, Colonialism/Postcolonialism (New York: Routledge,
1998), 151.
Christina Wallace and Eleanor Whitney, “Industrial Waste and
Gentrification: The Struggle To Preserve Mixed Use, Mixed Income
Community in Williamsburg’s Northside” (New York,
NY: Eugene Lang College, 2001).
Eddie Brannah, “Worked Up So Sexual! Brooklyn’s Electroclash
Scene,” The Fader Magazine (Fall 2002).
Richard Moroder Juzwiak, “In Limousines We Have Sex/In NYC
We Have ‘Clash,” Stylus Magazine (2002) [website];
available from http://www.stylusmagazine.com/articles, accessed
on 11/19/2002.
Theodore Hamm, “Save Our City,” The Brooklyn
Rail (May
2005). Available from http://www.brooklynrail.org/archives/may05/index.html
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L.N.R. is
an educator, zine publisher, printmaker, and writer who hopes
to incite youth to revolution through making independent media.
She has been an organizer of the Portland Zine Symposium and
various feminist collectives, and recently wrote her undergraduate
thesis on "Making Media Making Meaning: Zines and the Process
of Political Empowerment in Young Women." riffRAG is her
first online zine. She lives in Brooklyn, NY.