From Grit to Hip, a Walking Tour of Williamsburg

Williamsburg, today, is seen as a high-end “Real estate development with water views.” That’s exactly how a reputable NY blogger described the post-2006 rezoned neighborhood word for word. A neighborhood most recently known as the home planet of the hipster was before a haven for counterculture artists looking for cheap rents that was before an enclave to every major immigrant migration NYC has ever seen (looking for cheap rents) and was before that a melting pot Mecca of American industry and capitalism that was before… in the very beginning… a high end “real estate development with water views.” Who says you can’t go home again?

Williamsburg more than any other neighborhood in the world is unique because it took the three things most unlike each other, industry, art, and unabashed commercialism and made them live together under one big bridge. This tour will examine the layers of Williamsburg, some noticed, some unnoticed, that come together to form an unlikely synthesis of industry, art, grit, and hip.

This tour was developed in partnership with the Wythe Hotel which is located in a 1901 factory building on the Williamsburg waterfront