The Mail
It's Ok To Be a Dumbass, You're Just a Teenager
Dear Free Williamsburg,
i think you are all completely sick and twisted yuppies
with nothing better to do besides live off of your hard-working
parents and piss off the neighbors around you. you're probably
all the people who complained about how cliche high-school
was and here you are creating another sub-culture of unintelligent
sounding slang and a breeding place for some people with
an extremely horrible sense of fashion. if you're going
to act like you're still fifteen then please try not to
impose your immaturity on the rest of the neighborhood,
i've had enough of taking the L home and getting funny looks
because i am in fact a teenager and have a right to be bobbong
between fashion and political statements. -
--williamsburgh resident
Send Us Some Articles....
Dear Free Williamsburg,
Although I greatly enjoy your paper, I must admit that
I long for a little political balance (the reviews of
washed up hacks like Todd Gitlin and Gore Vidal come to
mind). There are a few right-leaning, libertarians Williamsburg,
you know.
The Turkey's Nest, Again
Dear Free Williamsburg,
I am appalled at the outright classist
review given the Turkey's Nest on your
bar review page. It truly shows complete disregard for
those that lived in this neighborhood before it was "discovered".
"Those who complain about rising rents" perhaps
have a right to; after all, this is their home also, and
prohibitively high rents make it increasingly hard for
it to remain so. To slam a group based on economic status,
and to then callously criticize them as people who "piss
away their money on Quick Draw and cheap pints of Bud",
is lower class than the guys that you are slamming. Not
everyone has money at their disposal--and as for how people
spend what money they have--to each his own! Surely those
who piss away their money on lottery and cheap beer (not
only the working class, I might add) are no different
from those who piss away their money on Brooklyn T-shirts
and martinis?
What saddens me is the utter blindness to Williamsburg
as a whole; it does this neighborhood a disservice to
advertise it as solely young, affluent, and hip. Williamsburg
is working class. Williamsburg is Polish, Italian, and
Puerto Rican. It is ungracious to not treat everyone here
with the utmost respect in their home.
As a native Brooklynite I happily welcome newcomers--I
beg you, though, take care not to tread to carelessly
on the fabric that makes this such a wonderful place to
live.
ps- By the by, is the fact that the bar is becoming more
of a hipster hangout a good thing?
Sincerely,
Hope Cullinan
Williamsburg
Bad Times at the Schizophrenic
Restaurant on North 6th
Dear Free Williamsburg,
MAISON SAIGON/TACU TACU on N.6th street is basically
like Planet Thai, except it mixes Peruvian food with Vietnamese
cuisine. The big difference is that they really don’t
have their shit together. The space is beautiful and clearly
they have spent a ton of money on it, but who cares when
they can’t figure out how to bring everyone’s
food at the same time. Get this – I ate there with
5 people, two of which ordered a house salad as an appetizer.
One salad came about 5 minutes after we ordered, and it
was a good looking and cheap salad…however, the other
salad eater had to wait about 10 minutes longer for his
exact same basic salad. The same thing happened with our
entrée. Someone ordered a 18$ special Paella, and
it came a good 20 minutes before everyone else’s
food. He was done when we were getting our meals. The
waitress barely apologized and just asked if he wanted
dessert. I personally enjoyed my Vietnamese “Bun”
noodle dish, but no one else at the table was happy with
their meals. Good portions, but slightly overpriced and
ridiculously unorganized. Try it yourself, but I would
give them a while to get their act together on the service
side. Also – does Williamsburg really NEED this restaurant?
I can’t see hipsters really sitting here and enjoying
this place. Who does this restaurant cater to? Yuppies
from Manhattan? If they want to come here instead of making
the wait longer at Planet Thai – fine with me.
The Controversy Continues
Dear Free Williamsburg,
I'd like to comment on you recent story, Two
guys from Al-bireh, and Brooklyn, as well as some
of the comments that people had about it.
First, my bias. I am Jewish, and have grown up mostly
in New York. Most of my family lives in Israel, and I
spent almost every summer as a child and several years
since then in Israel.
Let's be honest with ourselves: no matter how evenhanded
we are, we were upset with the story. Yes, I noticed that
all comments were carefully quoted and attributed. And
no, I certainly don't believe that for every negative
movie review you publish there should also be a positive
one as well. However, we are not dealing with a movie
review, we are dealing with family, with homeland, with
religion, and hopefully, with impartial reporting.
If you want to publish pieces about how the current situation
affect people that live in NY that have ties to the Middle
East, then why won't you publish pictures of the market
where I used to shop for food when I lived in Jerusalem,
or the pizza restaurant I used to go to for a snack with
friends after school, or the cafe where I had my first
kiss. You couldn't, because they've been blown up, along
with men, women, and children who tried to go about their
lives. You could write about the cafe in a sleepy beachside
area with very dangerous grandmothers meeting for tea
and cards, but you couldn't publish a picture, because
that's been blown up as well.
Either Arafat has no control or he exercises no control,
because no matter what assurances he gives to the Enhlish
speaking word out of one side of his mouth, the bombings
and attacks on completely rnadom civilians continue. Are
the living conditions in the occupied West Bank bad. Yes.
No one want to be confined to their home. No one wants
their freedom restricted. No one wants to feel powerless.
But Israelis are not safe from this. They can choose to
leave their homes, but they might not make it back alive
from the supermarket. Recently, a several month old baby
girl was shot in her crib through the window in a neighborhood
on the outskirts of Jerusalem. And as for the economic
situation, I can vouch from personal knowledge, that Israelis
are loosing income from the tourism industry, several
countries have de facto trade embargos on Israeli goods,
and the high tech industry is in the toilet. People's
livelyhoods are going down the drain.
This week, the Israeli government bombed a house containing
a Palestinian terrorist leader. I am not going to consider
the issue of assassination of political leaders as a strategical
choice here, that is an entirely other issue. 14 people
were killed by this bomb, nine of whom are children. This
was horrible. This was a tragedy. This shouldn't happen
to anyone, ever. But it happened the week before, and
the week before, and the week before that. It's been going
on now since September of 2000.
Making Palestinians victims over Israelis accomplishes
nothing. All children are beautiful and deserve to live
without bombs and without being tought to hate. I don't
expect that you are attempting to solve the Middle Eastern
conflict in the pages of your newspaper. What I do expect
is that you present stories that give people the ability
to consider the situation with more information, and come
away with a more complete understanding. I do not critisize
your decision to publish such a piece. And maybe insisting
on a counter viewpoint is a form of censorship. However,
expecting one isn't. That's just hoping for even handed
reporting.
-- Name withheld
Disclaimer from the Editor:
Opinions addressed in Free Williamsburg are
not necessarily our own, godammit!
 
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