The Wild, Secret Life of New York City - Issue 17 : Big Bangs
▻http://nautil.us/issue/17/big-bangs/the-wild-secret-life-of-new-york-city
Early this summer I met a friend for breakfast at a restaurant in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. While waiting for him to arrive I spent some time staring at a lot next door—a vacant lot, as the spaces are called, but also the block’s one concentrated patch of greenery. It was scraggly and unremarkable, but a welcome respite from the neighborhood’s densely packed brownstones and sunbaked pavement. Afterward we walked to the old Domino Sugar factory, located on the banks of the East River, a once-industrial zone that’s passed through gentrification and into the luxury development phase. Near the factory was a small park, previously the site of another vacant lot. On it the local hipsters had erected a giant teepee, outside of which a young woman explained that the park would soon be replaced by (...)