Transplanted Californian Rasha Refaie waxes nostalgic about the her experience in Williamsburg at the end of the millenium:

My tree-lined street by the East River was a derelict outpost back then, an Island of Misfit Toys. Now it is an enclave of adorable affluence, with the mother of all cranes parked around the corner, ready to build a 200-foot high condo building made of glass. It feels like the West Coast around here: scrubbed, cutened, packaged with ardor. I’m caught between the two Williamsburgs I’ve known – it feels like I no longer share the same reality with anybody.

When I first came, my best friends Sam and Anne lived across the street, renting a first floor apartment from a hard-boiled Brooklyn couple with one silent son. We ran back and forth between our homes, sat on trash-picked furniture, drank water out of yogurt cups and at night drank beers with names we couldn’t pronounce and sang songs.

When W’Burg Wasn’t Adorable [NY Newsday]