I can only imagine a Romeo and Jewliet coming out of this...

Gang warfare gets ugly in Williamsburg

There seems to be a long-running dispute between the hipsters and the Hebrews that share the lovely neighborhood of Williamsburg. While we normally make a fair amount of fun of both groups on this blog this time it's over something serious: bike lanes.

From Pete's Candy Store: Just before Christmas, 2009, a war broke out on the bike lanes of Williamburg. On one side: the Hassidic Jewish community of the Southside, who had advocated--successfully--for Mayor Bloomberg to remove the Bedford Ave Bike lane. Their ostensible reason: Too much rolling flesh on display from the biker community. On the other side: A coalition of bikesters, whose defiance led them to re-paint the bike lanes, and threaten a topless ride in protest (it was snowed out in the blizzard of '09).

So here we have the Hasidic neighborhood being all like, "Those capri pants offend me! Get that boy off that bike!" while the hipsters are all like, "Call us bikesters. Trust fund. Cocaine. Indie rock." That round went to the law in this land and Bloomberg came down on the side of the YOGs. Then the hipsters were like, "Let's show them how gross we are! Yeah civil liberties and bike-riding! In your face THE MAN!" That quickly became, "It's cold out so let's do coke by the fire."

According to Gothamist two hipsters waited until a nice temperate evening before committing mild civil disobedience by repainting some of the bike lanes. They then got chilly and proceeded to turn themselves in. Pete's Candy Store is hosting an "Open City Dialogue" to try to moderate these two parties before there are any more citizens lost to, and I quote, "criminal mischief charges." The horror! At least it's a cause worth dying fighting talking for.