The “Whoever Smelt It, Dealt It” Rule Of Gentrification

Young urban professionals moving back to Manhattan from Brooklyn can rest assured that the Brooklyn Papers will make them look real stupid in the process:

As Melanie Greenberg unpacked boxes in her new 500-square-foot Lower East Side apartment, her next-door neighbor was, for no apparent reason, on the fire escape singing mournful ballads.

And that was the good news.

Greenberg, a 27-year-old freelance writer, was back in the city where she felt home — just two years after she had moved to Williamsburg to save money.

But within months of that move, the traditionally Italian neighborhood she loved started changing. And Greenberg didn’t like the changes.

“Big high-rise buildings started going up and slowly but surely the hipsters started spilling into my part of the neighborhood,” said Greenberg, who is now single.

“I decided I wanted to go back to Manhattan — specifically to Alphabet City — where there is a real feeling of community and more diversity than probably just about any other neighborhood of the city.”

Greenberg is not alone. The type of hipsters who once moshed from Manhattan into Williamsburg, Cobble Hill and Park Slope like crowds at a Beck concert are now singing a different tune: “We’ll re-take Manhattan.”