New York City Field Course, September 2014
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I returned to New York City for the third time to participate in a University of Toronto field course. The course ran from September 1-5, and we stayed at the
New York Loft Hostelin Morgantown, aka East Williamsburg, formerly known as Bushwick. The class spent the week walking all over and talking about how gentrification has resulted in rapid change in one of the greatest cities on earth. It was a wonderful way to explore areas I never would have ventured otherwise, such as Red Hook, Gowanus Canal, and Jackson Height's.
Prior to starting the course, my partner and I stayed in Manhattan August 30-31 near Grand Central Terminal. We had a nice weekend doing tourist things like the High Line and Chelsea Market, but made an effort to spend more time in Brooklyn. We strolled the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, had a beer under the Brooklyn Bridge, and visited the Brooklyn Flea Market. We walked around Prospect Park and loved the
Brooklyn Botanical Garden, which we left just as a storm was coming in and found shelter in the nearby
Tooker Alley bar where we enjoyed free shots of Sorel as part of a Pre J'Ouvert Party. Later on, once the rain had passed we enjoyed
some good beers in the back courtyard at
Spuyten Duyvil (359 Metropolitan Ave) in Williamsburg, and even managed to score some free pizza.
September 1, 2014: Morgantown On the first day of the course, the class got a small tour to familiarize ourselves with the Morgantown neighbourhood in which we were staying. We talked about McKibbin Lofts as a site of gentrification, and how rising rents caused by this process have made it difficult for former industry of the area to stay. This has meant displacement of industry, as art lofts pressure rezoning. While high end industry such as the
Fine & Raw Chocolate Factory, which produces $8 chocolate bars, have thrived in the area, the fact that most people living there are young white people trying to be artists and paying exorbitant rents for tiny loft space has resulted in the area being coined as "Fort Whitey" or "Bougewick."
Learn more about Morgantown here. September 2, 2014: Lower Manhattan Day two we started in Greenwich village at 8th and 11th outside the house where Jane Jacobs used to live. We used this site to talk about Jacobs' role in campaigns to stop expressways and other Robert Moses type urban development
projects inspired by creative destruction. Moses of course spearheaded much of the reshaping of New York and the displacement of low income communities where expressways did proceed - places where residents did not have the social capital possessed by the white middle-class represented by people like Jacobs and others living in Greenwich necessary to resist such change. While I quite like Jane Jacobs, her work has been criticized for not acknowledging the legally sanctioned racial segregation of the city, which continues to exist despite the Fair Housing Act of 1968 (see for example this
map of racial segregation). It has also been associated with early gentrification of Greenwich Village, and much of what she loved about this neighbhourhood and what she wrote about in
Death and Life of Great American Cities is no longer there. We left this site pondering Jacobs' quote that "The point of cities is multiplicity of choice." But choice is really only for those who can pay for it. Ultimately the city has become more about consumption than a place to live and work in.
We passed by a coffee shop right outside the 8th Ave subway with a chaulk board on the street featuring socialist-realist industrial worker
propaganda art. The message: "Don't Think, Drink: Coffee for the Worker." I had to wonder how much a cup of coffee at this place cost. Hipsters sure do love their irony.
After oogling the expensive but pretty brownstones and ordering some ice cream filled donuts made fresh, we discussed the historical importance of the
Stonewall Memorial. Remarkably, this memorial took 12 years to build because there were so many protests against it. And yet, police violence against gay and trans people is still prevalent today.
Washington Square Park was next, a site on the NYU Campus that was once threatened to be bulldozed for an expressway. I found all the wrought iron fencing an interesting example of enclosures and securitization. Fencing makes sense for a dog park, but is it really necessary to fence off the children's playground?
Next was a return to
Chelsea Market and
High Line. The High Line has become a top tourist spot and is almost 400 acres of elevated rail track converted into public space. Since the High Line opened in 2009, the area has experienced a 110%!i(MISSING)ncrease in local land values. Chelsea Market is an old factory space converted into
a upscale food market. It's a romanticized vision of old industrial spaces that the people who used to work and live here never could have identified with; Chelsea Market represents a fetishism of remnants of industry that are actively being abolished. The meat packers closed in the 1970s, the cargo line closed in 1980. The new industry that exists in the area today is Google, YouTube, and the Food Network. High paid workers at these companies are the sorts that can actually afford to eat lunch in Chelsea Market every day. There was a funny moment when myself and some students got to the end of the market and turned around to go back the way we came. I overheard a blue collar worker who saw this mutter "what a bunch of fucking idiots", in disdain for the sorts of tourists like us that spend significant time walking back and forth in Chelsea Market.
After lunch we went to the
9/11 Memorial. Chambers subway station is filled with creepy eye mosaics that make you immediately aware that you are being watched. The area is heavily securitized - there was even a NYPD mobile observation deck on top of a
large van. There was still a lot of construction at the 9/11 site even though the new Freedom Tower is complete. While the new building is nice, must they build a mall here too? It seems rather tasteless to turn this into yet another site of consumption, but I guess that's what NYC is all about.
At the former Occupy Site at
Zucotti Park we talked about privately owned public space, and how the Occupy Movement mophed into providing emergency relief and rebuilding efforts after Hurricane Sandy. Occupy Sandy activists not only set up community kitchens, but also solar power stations so people could recharge their cellphones. Then it was over to the barricades and secruity vollards of Wall Street, where you're not allowed to actually approach the buildings - police will stop you. There are signs that alert you that police reserve the right to search anyone they want. Rather than make me feel safe, it made me feel uneasy.
We walked along St. Mark's Street to
Tompkins Square Park, where our professor had us meet up with a graduate student who gave us a social history of the park before accompanying us on a walking tour
of the
Lower East Side. This is the part of the whole field course that captured my interest the most. Tompkins Square is not only a nice park, but it has a fascinating history as the site of working class unrest. There was the 1874 riot sparked by discontent caused by unemployment and financial collapse. There was the 1988 riot based on housing issues, where squatter activits and homeless people occupied the park, got beat up by police, and were eventually evicted under the auspices of the City closing the park in 1991 for renovations. The old bandshell that had become a gathering point of protesters was tore out and replaced by playgrounds surrounded by fences. In the name of creating "safe spaces" for children, other uses were restricted. Adults can not enter the fenced playground areas without being accompanied by a child. Park curfews are enforced. The opening of the dog park was the sure sign that gentrification in the area had reached the point of no return.
Community gardens also became a harbinger of gentrification. Many had been established to put empty lots to use when the Lower East Side resembled Detroit in the 1970s. Abandoned buildings
attracted a homesteading movement, and cheap rents attracted artists. Renovations followed, and the pretty community gardens started to add value to nearby properties. Wealthy people in big cities just love living near a garden. By the 1980s, gentrification had begun, and now a one bedroom apartment in
Christadora House costs over $3000 rent a month. But despite that, remnants of the area's squatter history remain.
The Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space is a still existing squat that documents this history. Many former squats, however, if they weren't evicted entirely, have been converted into co-operatives, or "formalized squats."
ABC No Rio, the site of all-age punk shows, riot grrl meetings, and a zine library, still has events from time to time and is a functioning collective, as is the
Bluestockings women's bookstore, run collectivley by volunteers.
The Red Square Condos at Clinton and Houston Streets, built in 1989 by a "radical" sociologist, has a statue of Vladmir Lenin on the roof. Even the nieghbourhood's Jewish roots remain somewhat with the iconic
Katz's Delicatessen at 205 E. Houston. I spent $18 on a smoked meat sandwich and a giant pickle. It was the best $18 I ever spent. The class ended our day at
Il Laboratorio del Gelato at 188 Ludlow St and Houston. So many amazing
flavours.
At this point I decided to break off from my classmates to do some Lower East Side thrift store shopping. On St. Mark's, we had passed by a store called Search & Destroy I simply had to check out. Yes indeed, this is my favourite New York City neighbourhood.
On my way back to the hostel, it was around rush hour and I was waiting for the L train on a packed subway platform at Union & 14th. As I waited, I overheard a conversation that seems to encapsulate the spirit of NYC. Two strangers behind me got to talking. One was a woman from Syria who had been here for three months on a scholarship. The other was a man from Australia who works on tv commercials. The fact that two strangers would just get to talking to each other like this is something that I don't come across much in Toronto. After the man learned she was from Syria, and that her whole family was still there, he said "is your family ok?" She responded "No." There was a pause. He said "I'm sorry. I'm glad your here." And he was so sincere. And that
reminded me that not all Australians are total assholes (sorry, but I've come across some real obnoxious, drunken asshole Australian tourists in my travels.)
Lightening the mood a bit, he asked her if she had done much traveling in the region outside Syria. She revealed she had; she didn't like Iran even though he had heard it was nice. She really liked Iraq though. She was there recently taking pictures in a burka, documenting how ISIS was taking over. He was so impressed. "Weren't you scared?" These are the sorts of conversations you overhear in a crowded New York subway. Eventually the train came, and I crammed in with all the others like sardines. No biggie, I've lots of experience with riding transit like this. As I struggled to keep my balance, pretending like I always do that I'm surfing, and hoping I don't smell too terrible after a day of sweating copiously and walking a ridiculous amount in the New York heat, the young woman next to me smiles and says I can hang on to her if I want. I graciously agreed. No one says that in Toronto. People barely even make eye contact on the subway
High Line
This old elevated rail track has been converted into a top tourist spot. in Toronto. But in New York, strangers have deep conversations, they smile at each other and are just crazy friendly. It really struck me and sort of made me want to live here. If only I could afford the rent. Maybe that's why everyone is so nice to each other - there seems to be a common understanding - everyone seems to be from somewhere else and are struggling to make it in the greatest city in the world. It's like they're all in it together. At least during fleeting moments of sentimentality on a crowded L Train.
Earlier in the day, our prof informed us she had tickets to a concert that evening in Gowanus. She had a lot of work to do and couldn't go, so she was giving her tickets away. I wanted to be sure that I went along with other students, so upon returning to the hostel I quickly showered, gobbled down half my smoked meat sandwich in the courtyard, had a beer, and then was sitting in a cab on the way to
The Bell House to see Square Root: Old NY Live, hosted by members of the Roots for $10. In the cab I
Chelsea Market
Old factory space converted to an upscale food market was with a classmate from the UK, and a Swedish woman we befriended in the hostel courtyard. We all had intimate experiences of coming from small towns with no jobs, and having to move to the big city. Once again, this quientessential NYC experience (even though we were all there as tourists, it still resonated with me.) The show was amazing. One of the rappers who opened asked the crowd "Whose from New York?" There was slight applause. Then he asked "Whose from out of town?" There was huge applause. "That's Brooklyn" he said. In such a gentrified city, so few who grew up there can afford to stay. I drank some delicious beer called Six Point Sweet and savoured the closing band, who ended with an amazing Led Zeppelin cover, it blew my mind. On the way home, I started chatting up my cabbie from Pakistan. When he found out I was from Toronto, he told me how most of his family lived in Brampton, and he proudly showed me a photo on his cellphone of him at the CN Tower, when he last visited them. It's difficult for him to cross the border because of where he's from,
so he doesn't get to visit them often. I asked him what he thought of Toronto in comparison to New York. "It's all the same machine" he replied.
September 3, 2014: Brooklyn (Brooklyn Heights, Gowanus & Red Hook)
Our first stop this morning was the
Barclay's Centre. We walked from Fulton Station down Flatbush Ave, where we passed by street vendors selling photos of Trayvon Martin just down the street from a U.S. Armed Forces "Career Centre."
The Barclay's Centre opened in 2012 as part of the $4 billion Atlantic Yards project, the biggest redevelopment in Brooklyn's history. "Immenent domain" was used by the government to seize private property and redistribute it to private developers to convert to public use (a stadium), which really pissed off some of the white gentrifiers who had recently moved into the area. The local black community was divided on the project. "Jobs, housing and hoops" was the refrain of supporters, however the promise of jobs didn't really benefit locals, and the jobs that did go to locals certainly weren't very good ones. While the original plan included 50%!a(MISSING)ffordable housing units, over time this decreased until funding was
dropped altogether after 2008. Of course, the luxery units were built first. New York's new mayor has insisted the next two buildings will contain affordable units, but the critical question is affordable for whom? "Affordable" in this context is geared towards the median income of the area, certainly not low income individuals (24%!o(MISSING)f locals live in poverty.) There is a very good documentary about the controversy surrounding this project called
Battle for Brooklyn. The teaching assistant for the course told us about the massive theft of public resources required, and the bogus way they declared the neighbourhood "blighted" to justify redevelopment. Much of the community was manipulated into supporting the project not just by empty promises of jobs and affordable housing, but people's desire for a Brooklyn basketball team was also heavily played upon, resulting in developers making a whole lot of money off the displacement of people from their homes. There was a perfectly reasonable alternative suggested that went completely ignored - develop all the unused land, but don't destroy the pre-existing homes.
After that depressing segment, we strolled through the lovely
Brooklyn Heights. What a stark constrast. In this upper class residential neighbourhood where 60%!o(MISSING)f homes are
ABC No Rio
Squatters were able to purchase this building from the city for $1. over $1 million, there's a big tree canopy, the streets are super clean and walkable, and there's lots of security cameras. This is the first neighbourhood to be protected by a preservation law preventing future redevelopment. When the Brooklyn Queens Expressway was proposed to run through the neighbourhood, residents utilized their cultural, social, and political capital to successfully fight the plan and get the route changed so that today, the highway runs under the Brooklyn Promenade instead.
We had lunch in the
Cobble Hill and
Carrol Gardens area, which are really nice neighbourhoods to hang out in. Then we got a tour of the
Gowanus Canal, which used to be a tidal wetland, then became an industrial area for manufacturers fleeing expensive Manhattan. Residential brownstones were initially built for low-wage workers, and pollution of the canal is a big problem. Even though residents starting complaining about the pollution as early as the 1890s, it wasn't until 2010 that a piecemeal plan was hatched together by the Environmental Protection Agency to clean it up (they only have jurisdiction over the waterway, not the land.) We passed a woman pushing a baby stroller across a canal bridge, and our grad student
Katz's Deli
$18 for a smoked meat sandwich and a giant pickle. Worth it. There's also a really good frozne yogurt place just down the street. tour guide noted how not too long ago such a sight would be unheard of. The area used to be considered unsafe due to the prevalence of drug dealers and prostitutes, and our tour guide had been told when she was growing up in the area to never cross the canal bridge alone, no matter what time of day. How quickly a nieghbourhood can change. In Gowanus Canal, however, there is resistance to the onslaught of genrification. This resistance takes the form of landlords renting below market rates to people they like and want to stay. The area has a unique cohesiveness in that way. On the other hand, Gowanus demonstrates that
not even toxic waste and superfund status can stop gentrification. Next stop was a trip to the Whole Foods at 3rd and Third, the epicentre of gentrification in Gowanus. Right across the street is a former squat known as
Gowanus Batcave. It had revolving graffiti scrawled across the top of the building, the last one being "End Stop & Frisk - Hands Off the Kids." This Whole Foods is apparently the fanciest to date. It has a huge greenhouse on the roof, plus a rooftop beer garden, and solar panels and windmills in the parking lot. While I
know I'm supposed to hate this place because of what it represents, I actually couldn't help thinking all grocery stores should have greenhouses on the roof and all parking lots should look like this. The solar panels shade the cars from the heat! It makes so much sense. Perhaps it's just a giant greenwash. I checked and the herbs being sold were from Massachusetts, not the greenhouse upstairs like I had logically assumed. Anyway, if your in the nieghbourhood the Whole Foods is worth a stop, if for nothing else than the views from the rooftop garden. There's also a nice promenade along the canal, which will hopefully one day get cleaned up properly. It's complicated though, and really expensive. At least now industry in the area is starting to actually get fined for dumping directly into the canal.
Another good view is the Smith - 9th Sts. metro station, the highest stop in NYC built so shipping containers could fit in the canal below.
The last neighbourhood of the day was
Red Hook. We passed by public housing that had a nice big pool and a big community garden. Although the area is poorly served by transit,
there are some pretty good nearby public amenities such as ten soccer fields, which attracts a festive atmosphere on weekends with soccer/picnic parties, complete with really awesome Latin American food vendors (watch this video about the Red Hook Food Vendors:
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).
Red Hook Farm is a youth empowerment program that sells food to local restaurants and teaches food management. It's 5 acres of intensive vegetable plots and solar panels. Nearby is the Ikea store (Fairway Market), with an open air Ikea Museum, the epicentre of gentrification in Red Hook just as the Whole Foods is to Gowanus. We passed by the
Red Hook Winery, which I wish I had time to stop and do some tastings at. We did have time for some delicious key lime pie at
Steve's Authentic Key Lime Pie . According to our prof, the best view of the Statue of Liberty is from the Waterfront Park near the key lime pie place. I missed out on that view because I was devouring so much pie, and got into a group conversation with a local who wanted to talk to us about gentrification. We were also told that the water taxi from Red Hook to Manhattan is really awesome, especially at sunset. It's
Whole Foods Windmills, Frisk squat
Windmills and solar panels in the grocery store parking lot were also impressive. All grocery stores should be built this way. only $5, and can be caught from the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal. A bunch of students went and did that, while another group of us went to dinner at
Buttermilk Channel , a really good restaurant known for its friend chicken and cheddar waffles. One of the students in our group insisted on going there because Beyonce and Jay-Z were seen dining there. They have good taste.
Back in Morgantown on the way back to our hostel, I came across a Mobile Vintage Shop on Bogart, where everything inside was only $10. I found a pretty red dress.
September 4, 2014: Brooklyn (Williamsburg) & Queens (Jackson Heights)
Our first stop this morning was the Williamsburg Charter School, where one of the students who has done a lot of research into charter schools gave a brief impromptu lecture. She told us how in the U.S. public school budgets are dependent on how wealthy the nieghbourhood is, which creates a lot of inequity. Charter schools don't charge tuition, but are based on a lottery system, and there is intense competition to get into one as they begin to replace public schools. Although these non-profits offer an alternative to
failing public schools, they also take resources away from public schools, resulting in even more disadvantage for those not lucky enough to win the charter school lottery. They have in effect contributed to gentrification and poloarization.
Williamsburg, known as the birthplace of hipsterism, is the most notorious area for gentrification in NYC. We walked along Grand St., which I didn't find particularly interesting except for
Porto Rico Importing at 636 Grand. Ourprof said this was the best coffee place, and inside there's burlap sacks full of so many different flavours of amazing smelling coffee beans. And they were playing 7 Year Bitch, which the barista seemed impressed I recognized.
Jackson Heights was super impressive to me. It's an unsprawled community based on the garden city movement of Ebenezer Howard. Although the housing is dense, there's lots of open space with beautiful garden courtyards accessible to residents only. Initially these 5-6 storey walk-ups were built for middle class white people, with restrictive covenants meant to preserve it as a white suburb. Today, however, the community is one of the most diverse in NYC. It is surprisingly affordable relative to other nieghbrouhoods, with a heavy immigrant population concentrated in rental units. There's
a lot of co-ops, which in the U.S. means something different than in Canada. In Canada, co-op housing is rent geared to income. Here, it means co-operatively owned, and the application process to get into one of these nice Jackson Height's co-ops can be long and intense (character letters, co-op board vetting process, mutliple interviews, etc.) Rather than owning your single unit, you own a number of shares in the building and are assigned a unit. They are essentially a much more involved form of ownership than condos, and each building employs a superintendent and a gardener. The slow turnover of residents in these buildings also serves as a bulwark against gentrification. It is a quiet, stable neighbourhood with only one bar - so no night life, but plenty of great restaurants.
We visited the
New Immigrant Community Empowerment (NICE) Workers Centre, which organizes newly arrived and undocumented workers, offers health and safety training, and helps deal with wage theft complaints. We learned about the many ways in which migrant workers are exploited and unfairly targeted by police, and what this organization is trying to do to help the most marginalized members of their community.
We ended the day with a lovely tour of
Red Hook Community Farm
Youth Empowerment and Urban Agriculture for a Sustainable Future in Brooklyn. This 5 acres intensive farms sells food to local restaurants. Roberta's gardens.
Roberta's is a super popular pizza place in Morganvtown where famous people like Bill and Hilary Clinton eat. Luckily it was not stupid busy when we were there. There's a big outdoor area, and the pizza is pretty amazing. Go. Try the middle of the day when it will be less busy though.
Read more about Roberta's here.
September 5, 2014: The Bronx & East Harlem The last day of the course we spent the morning at CUNY hearing from housing activist Rob Robinson (
Right to the City Network,
Picture the Homeless). He advocates for housing as a human right rather than a market commodity. He told us about the important work of groups like
Take Back the Land,
Occupy Our Homes,
CASA New Settlement (Community Action for Safe Apartments), and the New York Anti-Eviction Network. With homeless rates soaring to an all time high, these groups are using direct action and civil disobedience tactics to not only raise awareness about the affordable housing crisis in NYC, but also to try to keep people from being displaced. To quote Rob, "Gentrification leads to displacement, which leads to homelessness, which leads to criminalization."
Weakened rent stablization laws means that rents can be raised by up to 20%!w(MISSING)hen a tenant leaves. The more evictions or
people moving out, the higher the rents. This is why in 2013, the average monthly rent in NYC for a one bedroom apartment was $3025. Today it's even higher. Rob told us about a group of Latino women in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. Their landlord was using predatory equity practices to try to force them to move out, shutting off the electricity and hot water. So to fight back, this group of women organized a rent strike, and activist groups arranged to have anarcho-electricians and plumbers break in and turn the lights and water back on.
We heard from a panel of others as well, and were invited to a screening of the documentary
My Brooklyn. The infamous
David Harvey was in the room, which was pretty exciting for a group of Geography students. He writes some pretty good stuff. I wanted to introduce myself but had nothing smart to say so figured I should leave the man alone. It was pretty cool just being in the same room.
After CUNY, we all bought lunches to eat in the Bronx, at
Barretto Point Park. It was a long subway ride up to Longwood holding my egg salad sandwich. I was pretty
hungry and so tempted to make a mess by attempting to eating it on the subway. But I resisted, thinking of how much nicer it would be to eat in a lovely park. But the walk to Barretto Point Park from Longwood was brutal. Not just because it was hot and I was hungry, but because the area we were walking through was so industrial and gross. There were no trees. I had a hard time imagining there would be a park admist all this industry. The point of taking us here was to show us "the back side of NYC", particularly the Food Centre. This is where a lot of food gets shipped into the city for distribution to grocery stores and what not. It's a strange place for a park, but I was pretty relieved once we finally got there. Walking back, thank goodness a bus stopped for us and we all piled on rather than have to continue to walk. The driver was real friendly and chatty with us, and most New Yorkers are. Despite all the challenges of living in this city, I was struck by the incredible generosity and friendliness of New Yorkers.
Our
last neighbourhood tour as a class was
Harlem. We went inside the Apollo Theatre briefly, and walked along Malcolm X Blvd., one of the least gentrified streets apparently. We passed by a community garden, a couple boarded up buildings alongside newer ones built to replicate the Harlem style, and a sign at 92 St. Nicholas Avenue that captured my attention. It was the House and Building Rules - a list of 11 things that included no loitering or sitting on the stoop, no playing loud music, no card playing outside the building, and no ball playing. So many rules! Next to this list is another sign that says "
Positively NO SITTING ON STOOPS - Orders of the NYPD." Really? WTF? What is so wrong with hanging out outside your building? I don't get it.
The class ended in Central Park, in a big circle where we all shared our impressions and take aways from the week.
While we certainly learned a lot about gentrification, I would say that Spike Lee's comments from February 2014 capture the issues really well.
Listen to his excellent rant here. In addition to NYC being a heavily gentrified city, I also feel it's a bit of a
police state. There's cameras and police everywhere, which made me feel less rather than more safe. On Friday night when myself and some other students were celebrating our last day together, there were cops stationed at one of the Morgan Ave subway entrances. I immediately tried to convince them we must go through a different entrance rather than have to pass by the police. They didn't understand why cops should terrify me so much. Thankfully we were not stopped and searched or questioned. I guess they save that treatment for black people - it's terrible. I suppose I can understand the rationale of having the cops there a little bit, as Morgantown was flooded that night with rowdy hipsters partying it up. Not my scene at all. I went into a busy bar to use the washroom, and immediately felt really uncomfortable. Perhaps because of the guy eyeing me up as I entered. This is why I don't travel alone much, I thought. On my way out I heard him say "leaving so soon?" What a creepy jerk. Sent shivers up my spine.
I rejoined my classmates - one of them was under 21, which posed a bit of
a problem. Not wanting to abandon him, but definately wanting to enjoy a few drinks on our last night, we decided it would be a nice idea to enjoy a few beers on the Williamsburg waterfront. Fat chance. The whole waterfront is completely fenced off to prevent such behaviour, and probably also to deter homeless people. We walked a long time, sure that at some point we would find access to the waterfront. It didn't happen. We passed a bar with a huge roof top patio, so we decided to risk it. There was a big bouncer gaurding the stairs to the roof, but remarkably our underage friend somehow sneaked passed him.
Later that night we had some pizza in Williamsburg, and there were so many people in the streets - it was crazy. I was reminded of a story one classmate told us of their taxi ride from the airport. Her cabbie refered to the hipsters/gentrifiers of Williamsburg as cockroaches. Seeing them all swarming on this Friday night, I could certainly see his point. As much as I love NYC, I was sort of glad to get the hell out of there on an early morning Saturday flight,
without being stopped by police for accidentally not paying a transit fare as a classmate distracted by carrying too much luggage was. If she wasn't a white girl who had starting balling her eyes out, terrified she might miss her flight, the cop probably wouldn't have let her go with a simple warning.
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