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I think Brooklyn just officially jumped the shark.

yeah,
some of us are getting together later to change the name to "Barcelona"

soundtrack to the above comment:
"Mais Pourquoi? (BCN Mix)" by The Pinkertones

Brownstone the New Black? such wit!

Did ya notice that they have the opening of West Elm in Dumbo on that timeline? The end is near.

this is an important sign of the development and growth of new york. making the move from the boroughs to manhattan has always been a symbol for making it. (think tony in saturday night fever or tess in working girl). now we can "make it" anywhere in new york. go brroklyn! next the bronx!

"Barcelona" Guido? I thought the new name was Manhooklyn.

¿Manhooklyn? ¡No me gusta!
¡Somos demasiado con estilo ahora para ese bullsh*t!

Why is it necessary to now bash West Elm?
Everybody is so cynical on here lately.
It's depressing.

Not mentioning Bklyn Design will have an after-party @DWR, Brooklyn this year(at least, that's what it says on my invitation)...

No importa, patricio (el autro)
no se preocuparse - no sea así que triste
que pienso que estamos saliendo del invierno largo del odio encendido AT

I agree PTOO. What's the big f*cking deal? Usually the loudest complainers are those who are originally from the worst towns in the fly over states.

Don't speak Spanish to me.

It makes me homesick for Miami.

But mostly because it makes me all tingly. :)

brooklyn "style" in my neighborhood is still pizza joints and central american bodegas and polish delis. it's off the grid of coolness and hipsters according to the map in new york magazine, in fact, it doesn't exist on new york mag's map and i find that quite calming. "cool" brooklyn is close enough and it's coming, and that's a mixed blessing.

brooklyn feels a lot like downtown manahattan used to feel before meat packing became MEPA, before the fashionistas took over w.14th street and before bleecker street became madison avenue -- independent shops, young designers, small restaurants, no mega-stores -- and that's what makes it so wonderful, not to mention smaller scale of buildings. but it's not all that ny mag says it is. just ride the R or the N train to the end of the line.

i think the players (designers) were well chosen. myself aside, i think those people deserved to be on the timeline- especially the new guys. people like dave at the future perfect are responsible for putting some hard working and really talented people on the map. i guess some people are sick of hearing about brooklyn, but they'll always be upset about anyone getting a lot of coverage. it's certainly not the first big story on the williamsburging of design (the story really should have been called williamsburging, not brooklynization), surface did a large feature on the future perfect and dave's gang of local designers (scrapile, redstr, jason miller, lite brite neon, sarah cihat, lorena barrezueta, etc) and there have been many since. i think if people were left out, it has a lot to do with the fact that the later people have gotten a lot of recent press and i think it's fully warranted. i don't think the list is leaving anyone out on purpose so much as it was put together by people who perhaps don't know too much about brooklyn design pre-2001 because it didn't make a major major national buzz until dave at TFP starting getting major press for the store and designers therein.

grace

I think the point that myself and others is trying to make is that Brooklyn is being "Manhattanized" (i.e. becoming more crowded, expensive, and full of innocuous chain stores. To me, the article is trying to pay tribute to the characteristics of Brooklyn that are becoming scarce in Manhattan (cheaper and freer to be unique, less crowded, risk taking, creative, etc)

I think that by noting the opening of West Elm on the timeline is kind of a contradiction. There is nothing inherently wrong with the place except that, being a chain, the money it makes doesn't go back into the community very much and I don't think they hire local designers. It is much cheaper than much of what you'll see at Brklyn designs because everything is cheaply mass produced in some far off country. It's the same whole gentrification argument that you've heard so many times.

For what it's worth, I am from Manhattan originally and I am moving to Brooklyn because it reminds me of Manhattan in the seventies and eighties, when I was younger and less cynical.

amanda--

While I understand your point, I think West Elm is hardly the corporate behemoth that turns charming hamlets into strip malls.

And West Elm is indeed headquartered there (although owned by San Fran-based Williams Sonoma), so in a way it is contributing more to the economy of the area than is typical.

And, um, in the independent stores or gallery or woodworking shop, the money is going to the shopkeeper, no? They're not non-profits, right?

And plus, much of the really cool design stuff I've seen come out of Brooklyn is so stratosperic in price I don't know who but post-gentrified residents are buying it...

I don't know if this means anything in the chain/independent debate, but some facts: West Elm's design offices are in Brooklyn, in Dumbo. (I work in the same building.) And yes, there are Brooklyn designers working there.

Moved to Brooklyn just off Smith St. years before the borough was cool. I'm glad it's being recognized for something besides its stereotypical accents, but I went to the Brooklyn Design show last year and P(too) is correct, the prices are stratosperic.

It's good to hear that West Elm's design offices are in Brooklyn-- then they are not appropriating some interpretation of an "urban lifestyle" for sale to the masses. They know whereof they speak. And I will go give them a second look. And yes, I agree, the prices at Brooklyn Design were outrageous. But what I meant about the money not going back to the community is more about the trickle down effect. I think it's still better if the shopkeeper/designer gets the money than some CEO in California. Williams Sonoma owns alot. I guess I am still not used to chain stores in NYC-- there never used to be many of them here.

It seems like everytime I see a photo of designers they all look to f*(*&ing serious! Man oh man, get over it, will ya!! God forbid a designer/group of designers actually smiles as if life is good. Just once. I'm a big fan of The Future Perfect but what sore faces! You'd never know by the looks on their faces that it's a fun and exciting store.

Let's face the number one rule of economics here... no one is actually buying anything at these places! This article is, by definition, "editorial", meaning words that create hype and buzz. Hupe doesn't pay the bills and buzz doesn't taste that good when you're hungry. People will continue to shop at the same handful of stores and thank goodness - it's only a "Matter" of time before this bubble bursts and they are all back to being stylists at Bloomingdales.

This article just made me wonder where all the unknown artists are heading, now that the word hipster was used and the rents will skyrocket more. Perhaps I can invest in whatever borough they are headed to, and flip when that place becomes "hot."

Williamburg is now the next Soho/strip mall.

just a comment on the "clever" matter pun. just so you know, this people are blips on a map. they're not overnight anything. most of them have been working hard for at least the past ten years. they're not stylists, they're not hipsters- they're talented people who've worked hard and now happen to be the center of some well deserved buzz. it's easy to write this off as a hipster phenomenon, but these people worked hard to get where they are. they deserve respect for that, not mocking.

grace

What I think is crazier than all of this is that I LIVE IN BROOKLYN, and I am so very uncool. My life isn't cool, I buy my clothes at Banana Republic and Forever 21, and my sofa is neither tongue-in-cheek nor mod. Where is all this coolness? Maybe it's that I'm in Brooklyn Heights, not Park Slope, though I hear that The Heights was the first neighborhood to get jazzy during this new Brooklyn era... Maybe I need to move to Manhattan, where the rest of the chain store -shopping, cliched, lame-o people live?

ok my last comment was rife with typos. too early for typing, sorry. here's what i meant to say:

just a comment on the "clever" matter pun. just so you know, these people aren't blips on a map. they're not overnight anything. most of them have been working hard for at least the past ten years. they're not stylists, they're not hipsters- they're talented people who've worked hard and now happen to be the center of some well deserved buzz. it's easy to write this off as a hipster phenomenon, but these people worked hard to get where they are. they deserve respect for that, not mocking.

grace

maybe i missed it somewhere but i was disappointed to see that they did not include one of my favorites, 3 square design - those guys are great...

Gilda, the young, edgy, and broke artists will be priced out to Staten Island.

And the South Bronx and Queens, particularly LIC, as well, from what I hear.

I'm reminded suddenly that the rural artsy types were relocating from Woodstock to Greenwich a few years back. That wasn't urban hip, though -- it was more, "Let's raise alpacas, make soap, and paint!"

LIC is already getting full of expensive condos and rentals. I think it's definitely the South Bronx that's next on the gentrification schedule.

Barbara, I also live in the extremely non-cool section of Bklyn; I had a woman call me Lubya on the street and seemed very confused when she discovered that a) my name is not Lubya and b) I do not speak Russian. I don't find it particularly calming or desirable to live out there. It's far on the subway and the stores are uninteresting, but I also don't think I want to live in any of the tricked out hipster paradises ie. W'burg, Cobble Hill/Carroll Gardens or Bushwick (!).

And I agree about the prices at Bklyn Designs, I'm never really sure who the market is for that stuff. It's gorgeous but I just don't know. Are people planning to go this year? Maybe a little group outing, AT style?

Brooklyn is still Brooklyn in neighborhoods still mixed with culture, tradition and a struggle to survive.

The quiet stillness of a Sunday morning as all the Mexican immigrants walk to church past my window. The smell of smoking meat from the Polish deli. The yelling and arguing I hear coming from a nearby window in an unfamiliar language.

This is Brooklyn.

Williamsburg/Dumbo/Park Slope are not Brooklyn. brooklyn is a risk, a challenge.
These neighborhoods are easy to live in by far, because everywhere you go you are comforted with the image of yourself.

Yet their clothes, their shoes, their food, their take-out, their psychotherapy, their jobs, their strollers, their furniture... all of this has been unlifted and planted down from Manhattan.