“Detroit, Just West of Bushwick,” read the first billboard that popped up in Bushwick, Brooklyn, this spring, with a working class scene from one of Diego Rivera’s “Detroit Industry” murals. “Detroit, Be Left Alone,” a second one preached soon after, again in Bushwick. And then a third sign appeared, in two locations in Brooklyn and two in Manhattan — “Detroit: Now Hiring.”
No one quite knew where they were coming from or who had put them up.
But when an unrelated photo popped up on Instagram — “Move to Detroit” spray-painted on a girder of the Brooklyn Bridge — the campaign’s anonymous crusader finally revealed himself.
“I rent billboard spaces where others don’t see value. That is how I saw Detroit on my first visit four years ago,” said Philip Kafka, the 28-year-old man who then put his passion behind the billboards with his SoHo-based company, Prince Media. “I saw great buildings, a deep and rich cultural history, and met amazing people.”
He now owns six buildings in the Motor City, one of which will house his new restaurant, Katoi, across the street from Detroit’s most photographed “ruin porn,” the Michigan Central Station. “I want people to know that in Detroit you can afford to make art, be a chef, buy houses, start a business, do anything if you work hard,” he said.
It is now well-documented that some of Brooklyn’s much-written-about creative class is being driven out of the borough by high prices and low housing stock. Some are going to Los Angeles (or even Queens), but others are migrating to the Midwest, where Detroit’s empty industrial spaces, community-based projects, experimental art scene and innovative design opportunities beckon, despite the city’s continuing challenges.
“Brooklyn lost its whole sense of adventure for me,” said Ben Wolf, 31, a Pratt Institute graduate who, after more than a decade in New York, moved to Detroit almost three years ago to continue creating his site-specific installations and sculptures, made from rotten boards, rusty stairwells and peeling paint, or as he said, “the decadence of abandonment.”
22 comments:
A great place if you own a gun and know how & when to use it.They will just vote more dems into office and it will stay a shithole.
As if Detroit doesn't have enough problems already.
Just read that rents in Detroit tripled since the arrival of several of the creative class from Bushwick. ....
Economics 101 !
Hipsters- the most useless people as a result of an overly civilized society, moving to one of the most depressed city in America.
Eh, sounds like great news to me.
“the decadence of abandonment.” I hear there's a lot of that in hell as well, another aspirational destination.
An old Yiddish theater joke used to go something like...."God created Goyem to pay retail prices".
LOL!
God made hipsters to buy a pig in a poke. They are sooooh busy being hip that they fail to examine what they are buying.
Anyway, these trust babies will only be losing mom and dad's money. Hip, hipster, hooray! Isn't life grand?
Wait until some of Detroit's resentful brothers and sisters mug a few of these privileged Whiteies?
Oops, onward to another state.
Yes yes, please go to Detroit!
They should ship all the illegals there too!
Mommy and daddy can buy a house with a basement and huge garage for what 10 months rent cost in Bushwick, hell they don't have jobs. They go on sec 8 and do all the useless arts & music they want. Thats Detroit in 2015
Detroit's resentful angry "whitie hating" brothers and sisters (many evicted from those homes and apts) are gonna do a bit more then mug them. Some real estate wise-ass looking to make an easy buck is having a good laugh.
They dont stand a chance walking or even driving anyplace, get shot or a brick through the windshield and jacked at a red lights Detroit's a real war zone, no cops in sight and them "brothers & sistas" mean business !!!
Just read that rents in Detroit tripled since the arrival of several of the creative class from Bushwick. ....
Yes, but $2/month rent X 3 = $6
$6/month rent is still quite affordable!
--I think most the hipsters already been pushed out of Bushwick
I went shopping Monday 11AM to buy cheap Ts, sneakers and noticed a HUGE change on Knickerbocker ave Bushwick. (During summer working on houses, landscaping, Solar I destroy work clothes).
Unlike last year I didn't see many hipsters or any white people around for that matter. All 3 the big discount clothing stores on Knickerbocker were gone (one is becoming a bank)what ever bargain stores are left only selling cheap woman & children's clothes.
The several small storefronts that DID carry men's sneakers, Ts were way WAY over priced for the cheap disposable "walmart grade" stuff I need. Ridgewood was no better--again mostly all cheap small kids clothing and useless junk. You can no longer even find AA battery LED flashlights in the 99 cent stores.
I will go to Main street Flushing tomorrow.
-Joe
How Kafkaesque!
What a bunch of narcissistic drivel......do these people take a class to learn to speak "Art"?? Brooklyn and Queens is well rid of them.and as I'm sure so many of these "artists" sympathize with the "black lives matter" crowd, they'll have a hell of a time in Detroit. Hey, maybe they'll even learn to appreciate the police more as they're fleeing a mugging.
Yes! thank god get the F outta here. Sorry Detroit my condolences but when it comes to these rent raising wastes of space, it's every city for themselves.
Hey stop with the hipster hate. Unlike blacks they do tip in restaurants. They do buy things, they don't shoplift or cry that they don't have the money.
Hipsters have no clue of the value of mommy & daddy's money and raise prices sky high, the quicker they are gone the better !!!
They buy stupid shit BTW, fancy coffee, tea, wheat-grass etc and dont help most businesses GOOD RIDDANCE. To dam bad for greedy slumlords from Williamsburg seeking $3000 rents--hopefully the party's over for Moshe and some hard working class people can catch a break !!
A crappy small storefront (once $600) on Knickerbocker & Stockholm now cost near $8000 a month, how the F_ is the small guy to stay in business let alone pay health insurance and a put a roof over his family ?
"The Rent is too dam high " James "Jimmy" McMillan
If you can sit it out in a slum for two decades, you'll be a millionaire.
They will be eaten alive!
Hi, I'm 24 years old and I cannot afford to live in this city anymore, just like you. I'd like to live in a place with people my age, as well as jobs. I feel lost and hopeless — nobody wants to help, everyone thinks I have a trust fund. Any serious recos from you lovely folk? Would be greatly appreciated!
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