Furniture Truck

A few posts ago I talked about being in Williamsburg for the first time in a long time, and commented on the number of Bentleys parading up and down Bedford Ave. These pictures are also from Williamsburg, but dating back to 1999 or 2000. I was a limo driver back then, and our base was an old converted pier at Java and Kent (which would technically count as Greenpoint). Every day I would drive through Williamsburg to get there, and every day I would see more and more white people carrying couches into houses. I had no idea I was witnessing the beginnings of a caucasian outbreak.

When I first moved here, hardly anybody lived in Brooklyn, since it was still affordable to live in the East Village. The punks lived in Park Slope, which at the time was gentrifying much to the chagrin of those who went there to seek out even cheaper rent than the Lower East Side. Williamsburg was a ghost town. Nobody went there. There was no reason to go there, unless you wanted to walk around all night until you got shot in the face.

Here are some shots before the Bentleys rolled into the neighborhood:


And another view:


I doubt they allow this sort of display in Williamsburg today — unless of course, somebody calls it "Art."