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The Last Bohemia: Scenes from the Life of Williamsburg, Brooklyn
A firsthand account of the swift transformation of Williamsburg, from factory backwater to artists’ district to trendy hub and high-rise colony
Williamsburg, Brooklyn, is now so synonymous with hipster culture and the very idea of urban revitalization—so well-known from Chicago to Cambodia as the playground for the game of ironized status-seeking and lifestyle one-upmanship—that it’s easy to forget how just a few years ago it was a very different neighborhood: a spread of factories, mean streets, and ratty apartments that the rest of New York City feared.
Robert Anasi hasn’t forgotten. He moved to a $300-a-month apartment in Williamsburg in 1994 and watched as the area went through a series of surreal transformations: gritty industrial district, low-rent artists’ enclave, dot-com denizens’ crash pad, backdrop for neo-bohemian cool, playpen for stroller-pushing trendy parents, and now a high-rise real-estate developers’ colony of brushed aluminum and plate glass.
Tight, passionate, and provocative, The Last Bohemia is at once a celebration of the fever dream of bohemia, a lament for what Williamsburg has become, and a cautionary tale about the lurching transformations of city neighborhoods. Through Anasi’s eyes we see the warehouses become lofts, secret cocaine bars become stylized absinthe parlors, barrooms become stage sets for indie rock careers, and rents rise and rise—until the local artists find that their ideal of personal creativity has served the aims of global commerce and their neighborhood now belongs to someone else.
Williamsburg, Brooklyn, is now so synonymous with hipster culture and the very idea of urban revitalization—so well-known from Chicago to Cambodia as the playground for the game of ironized status-seeking and lifestyle one-upmanship—that it’s easy to forget how just a few years ago it was a very different neighborhood: a spread of factories, mean streets, and ratty apartments that the rest of New York City feared.
Robert Anasi hasn’t forgotten. He moved to a $300-a-month apartment in Williamsburg in 1994 and watched as the area went through a series of surreal transformations: gritty industrial district, low-rent artists’ enclave, dot-com denizens’ crash pad, backdrop for neo-bohemian cool, playpen for stroller-pushing trendy parents, and now a high-rise real-estate developers’ colony of brushed aluminum and plate glass.
Tight, passionate, and provocative, The Last Bohemia is at once a celebration of the fever dream of bohemia, a lament for what Williamsburg has become, and a cautionary tale about the lurching transformations of city neighborhoods. Through Anasi’s eyes we see the warehouses become lofts, secret cocaine bars become stylized absinthe parlors, barrooms become stage sets for indie rock careers, and rents rise and rise—until the local artists find that their ideal of personal creativity has served the aims of global commerce and their neighborhood now belongs to someone else.
240 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 22, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews
April 5, 2013
This was kind of a tough book for me to read. The thing is, Williamsburg is my neighborhood too. I live about four blocks from where Anasi spent the majority of his time here, and I did and do hang out in and around many of the places paeaned in this book. No, I never went to Kokies (the notorious cocaine bar profiled in Vice) or Verb (one of the first cafés in the new Williamsburg) or Gargoyle (a crazy performance space where the Bindlestiff Family Cirkus used to entertain). But I was going to Galapagos back in 1999 (before it grew up and moved to Dumbo); in 2002 I hopped a razor-wire fence and tiptoed along broken stones to see the 4th of July fireworks from the abandoned shore, and I watched "Double Dirty Dancing" (the Bollywood version & the original played at the same time on facing screens) in the back room of Monkeytown when they still sold pot brownies behind the bar.
Not to mention, I do the archival art project Brooklyn Spaces, where I aim to make a record of as much of Brooklyn's creative class as I can before we're all forced out to Bensonhurst or Far Rockaway or Kentucky. Anasi befriends and interviews junkies, prostitutes, performers, bar owners, photographers, and videographers. I do the same with circus performers, soapmakers, fire spinners, party throwers, curators, musicians, gallerists, and on and on. So although Anasi beat me here by a half-dozen years, this is also my story, and the story of all my friends.
Here's an anecdote, which, though it may seem pretty clichéd, is 100% true and 500% illustrative of the crux of living in Williamsburg right now. Last fall I wrote about some of the artists and denizens of Monster Island, an art collective and performance venue that was one of the few remaining holdouts from the raucous early days of Williamsburg, and which was slated to be demolished shortly thereafter. (Despite all the artists having been evicted, the graffiti-encrusted building is still standing, nearly two years later.) About a week after I interviewed those guys, I was wandering in South Williamsburg, scanning the all-new condo-clustered neighborhood horizon and thinking how I've lived here long enough that these changes are real and personal to me, that this isn't like hearing about the bad old days of Times Square or the punk renaissance in Alphabet City or SoHo's bohemian paradise, all of which happened long before I stumbled, bright-eyed and awe-filled, into New York City. Now I'm old enough to have actually watched the Williamsburg era come and go, and I was self-pityingly wondering why, why, why, whom all these skillion-dollar glass palaces and staggeringly overpriced clothing boutiques are even for, when around a corner came toddling these two over-the-top, impeccably dressed and coiffed Eurotrash ladies, the sort of women who are so fancied up they look like drag queens, with the tipped nails and the ironed frosted hair and the teeny skirts and the platform stilettos. They were just laden with shopping bags and clinging to each other for balance, and one of them asked me, in a heavily accented whine, "Can you tell us which is the way to Williamsburg?"
Friends, I nearly wept.
I did not direct them to walk directly off the newly burnished South 3rd pier into the East River, but my finger was definitely shaking as I pointed them north toward Bedford Ave.
So anyway, The Last Bohemia. Anasi does fine, he does well, it's a nice book. For someone who's never lived here or thought about what Williamsburg really is beneath the hipster chichés, this might be pretty hard to care about too much. But for me it's not enough. The book touches just the tiniest corner of life here and now, or there and then, and because, as I said, this is my story too, Anasi's feels woefully incomplete. It's a series of anecdotes and personalities woven more or less well into a cogent narrative, but there is so much more, so much left to be plumbed and exposed and honored before it's too late, before it's all lost to history and buried by this absurdly shifty neighborhood which, everyone knows, has already become a parody of itself.
Look, I love it here. Most of the time I think I'd be happy to live here the rest of my life. But, as Anasi says of his decision to defect to California after fifteen years here, it becomes easy to leave Williamsburg when you realize that the Williamsburg you're clinging to left you long ago.
***
before reading: Here is an excerpt from Brooklyn Mag to whet your appetite. I didn't make it to Williamsburg until 2002. Is it possible to be nostalgic for something that was never yours?
Not to mention, I do the archival art project Brooklyn Spaces, where I aim to make a record of as much of Brooklyn's creative class as I can before we're all forced out to Bensonhurst or Far Rockaway or Kentucky. Anasi befriends and interviews junkies, prostitutes, performers, bar owners, photographers, and videographers. I do the same with circus performers, soapmakers, fire spinners, party throwers, curators, musicians, gallerists, and on and on. So although Anasi beat me here by a half-dozen years, this is also my story, and the story of all my friends.
Here's an anecdote, which, though it may seem pretty clichéd, is 100% true and 500% illustrative of the crux of living in Williamsburg right now. Last fall I wrote about some of the artists and denizens of Monster Island, an art collective and performance venue that was one of the few remaining holdouts from the raucous early days of Williamsburg, and which was slated to be demolished shortly thereafter. (Despite all the artists having been evicted, the graffiti-encrusted building is still standing, nearly two years later.) About a week after I interviewed those guys, I was wandering in South Williamsburg, scanning the all-new condo-clustered neighborhood horizon and thinking how I've lived here long enough that these changes are real and personal to me, that this isn't like hearing about the bad old days of Times Square or the punk renaissance in Alphabet City or SoHo's bohemian paradise, all of which happened long before I stumbled, bright-eyed and awe-filled, into New York City. Now I'm old enough to have actually watched the Williamsburg era come and go, and I was self-pityingly wondering why, why, why, whom all these skillion-dollar glass palaces and staggeringly overpriced clothing boutiques are even for, when around a corner came toddling these two over-the-top, impeccably dressed and coiffed Eurotrash ladies, the sort of women who are so fancied up they look like drag queens, with the tipped nails and the ironed frosted hair and the teeny skirts and the platform stilettos. They were just laden with shopping bags and clinging to each other for balance, and one of them asked me, in a heavily accented whine, "Can you tell us which is the way to Williamsburg?"
Friends, I nearly wept.
I did not direct them to walk directly off the newly burnished South 3rd pier into the East River, but my finger was definitely shaking as I pointed them north toward Bedford Ave.
So anyway, The Last Bohemia. Anasi does fine, he does well, it's a nice book. For someone who's never lived here or thought about what Williamsburg really is beneath the hipster chichés, this might be pretty hard to care about too much. But for me it's not enough. The book touches just the tiniest corner of life here and now, or there and then, and because, as I said, this is my story too, Anasi's feels woefully incomplete. It's a series of anecdotes and personalities woven more or less well into a cogent narrative, but there is so much more, so much left to be plumbed and exposed and honored before it's too late, before it's all lost to history and buried by this absurdly shifty neighborhood which, everyone knows, has already become a parody of itself.
Look, I love it here. Most of the time I think I'd be happy to live here the rest of my life. But, as Anasi says of his decision to defect to California after fifteen years here, it becomes easy to leave Williamsburg when you realize that the Williamsburg you're clinging to left you long ago.
***
before reading: Here is an excerpt from Brooklyn Mag to whet your appetite. I didn't make it to Williamsburg until 2002. Is it possible to be nostalgic for something that was never yours?
October 3, 2013
Why did the hipster burn his mouth on the soup?
Because he ate it before it was cool.
This book made me want to punch the author. That's all.
Because he ate it before it was cool.
This book made me want to punch the author. That's all.
August 30, 2020
No thanks. Disorganized, meandering, pointless, and insipid. There's a great book about the life and death of Williamsburg waiting to be written, but this one sure as hell aint it.
I'm intrigued by the idea of Williamsburg as a "last bohemia," which this review by Margrethe Lauber down below covers better than I could. It's clear that an organically created alternative culture like late-90s/early 00s Williamsburg can never happen again in our highly corporatized new world, where "indie" is just another bullet point in a marketing pitch. Unfortunately this book doesn't mention the idea of a "last bohemia" at all, not even in passing. Of course, how would the author find any space to write about it given all the pages he feels the need to fill with scenic descriptions of refinery tanks, sidewalks, and pretty girls he's fucked? Maybe he could have squeezed it in in between a few of those rants about how his crack-addicted pedophile Polish neighbors were so much fuckin cooler than the poseurs that now roam the streets of Williamsburg.
Another juicy idea that gets totally buried in the book's avalanche of useless coked-out anecdotes is the insidious legacy of Mayor Bloomberg. NYC has a history of storybook evil mayors -- Giuliani was a hypocritical Nanny State prude, Koch was a closet case who fiddled while AIDS burned -- but the book mentions in passing (and I think New Yorkers are realizing) that the Bloomberg blight may be far worse, and have farther-reaching implications. Williamsburg would not have risen and fallen so spectacularly if it weren't for the Bloomberg administration's love of baseless greed, unthoughtful growth, and selling out the government to every corporate comer.
In conclusion, skip this IRL Livejournal and re-read that amazingly offensive VICE remembrance of Kokie's instead.
I'm intrigued by the idea of Williamsburg as a "last bohemia," which this review by Margrethe Lauber down below covers better than I could. It's clear that an organically created alternative culture like late-90s/early 00s Williamsburg can never happen again in our highly corporatized new world, where "indie" is just another bullet point in a marketing pitch. Unfortunately this book doesn't mention the idea of a "last bohemia" at all, not even in passing. Of course, how would the author find any space to write about it given all the pages he feels the need to fill with scenic descriptions of refinery tanks, sidewalks, and pretty girls he's fucked? Maybe he could have squeezed it in in between a few of those rants about how his crack-addicted pedophile Polish neighbors were so much fuckin cooler than the poseurs that now roam the streets of Williamsburg.
Another juicy idea that gets totally buried in the book's avalanche of useless coked-out anecdotes is the insidious legacy of Mayor Bloomberg. NYC has a history of storybook evil mayors -- Giuliani was a hypocritical Nanny State prude, Koch was a closet case who fiddled while AIDS burned -- but the book mentions in passing (and I think New Yorkers are realizing) that the Bloomberg blight may be far worse, and have farther-reaching implications. Williamsburg would not have risen and fallen so spectacularly if it weren't for the Bloomberg administration's love of baseless greed, unthoughtful growth, and selling out the government to every corporate comer.
In conclusion, skip this IRL Livejournal and re-read that amazingly offensive VICE remembrance of Kokie's instead.
August 9, 2012
I knew when I read "A Fortunate Age" there was a reason it all seemed familiar.
Thanks to the uncredited quote in Bob's book, I understand why. Reading the book, I found my mind wandering more to the Amalgamated Co-ops on the Lower East Side where his then-girlfriend's grandmother lived than anything about Kokie's, the circus, Polish junkies, or being an academic in California because one is finally forced to leave a $500/month apartment.
You know, those lower east side co-ops were a pretty interesting experiment in housing for the working class. Whereas Williamsburg in the 90's was not. No. It was a place where boxers who wanted to be writers because they came from working class backgrounds (but not too working class, not the kind of working class who went to working class schools--right?), rented rooms and lived the dream--writing terse, manful prose about boxing. And writing. And women. And stuff. Because that was what bohemia was supposed to be, wasn't it? Isn't it? And isn't that significant? Is it to you? Was it ever?
I remain unconvinced after reading this that there was anything special, interesting, or particularly creative about the time or place. I think it's telling that no significant art, literature or even music came out of 90's Williamsburg. There were some good people. There was some cheap rent. But those are things that most of us--those of us who are capable of outgrowing the idea that everything has to be art for its own sake--can find anywhere at any time in our lives.
Thanks to the uncredited quote in Bob's book, I understand why. Reading the book, I found my mind wandering more to the Amalgamated Co-ops on the Lower East Side where his then-girlfriend's grandmother lived than anything about Kokie's, the circus, Polish junkies, or being an academic in California because one is finally forced to leave a $500/month apartment.
You know, those lower east side co-ops were a pretty interesting experiment in housing for the working class. Whereas Williamsburg in the 90's was not. No. It was a place where boxers who wanted to be writers because they came from working class backgrounds (but not too working class, not the kind of working class who went to working class schools--right?), rented rooms and lived the dream--writing terse, manful prose about boxing. And writing. And women. And stuff. Because that was what bohemia was supposed to be, wasn't it? Isn't it? And isn't that significant? Is it to you? Was it ever?
I remain unconvinced after reading this that there was anything special, interesting, or particularly creative about the time or place. I think it's telling that no significant art, literature or even music came out of 90's Williamsburg. There were some good people. There was some cheap rent. But those are things that most of us--those of us who are capable of outgrowing the idea that everything has to be art for its own sake--can find anywhere at any time in our lives.
August 28, 2014
I was very interested to read about the two main topics of this book; Williamsburg in the 1980s and 1990s, and gentrification, but after the first page I felt frustrated. I found the author to be petulant and whiny and very unaware of himself. He complains time and again about people who have more money than him, and yet he strikes me as very middle class.
My annoyance with him was solidified when he referred to a "man" and a "girl", when speaking of two adults.
I hated how he spoke about many of the women in this book, and he seemed unaware of their feelings or concerns. He quoted a paragraph from an ex-girlfriend's published novel in this book without crediting her or naming the novel or the author. I googled it to find out what it was. I'm going to read it next.
Some of the stories in this book are interesting (more so if the author is not very involved), so if the topic interests you, it may be worth a read.
I include reviews by Molly Fischer and Alexander Nazaryan here, because they articulate some of the things I found frustrating about this book:
http://www.newrepublic.com/book/revie...
http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/page...
My annoyance with him was solidified when he referred to a "man" and a "girl", when speaking of two adults.
I hated how he spoke about many of the women in this book, and he seemed unaware of their feelings or concerns. He quoted a paragraph from an ex-girlfriend's published novel in this book without crediting her or naming the novel or the author. I googled it to find out what it was. I'm going to read it next.
Some of the stories in this book are interesting (more so if the author is not very involved), so if the topic interests you, it may be worth a read.
I include reviews by Molly Fischer and Alexander Nazaryan here, because they articulate some of the things I found frustrating about this book:
http://www.newrepublic.com/book/revie...
http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/page...
December 30, 2014
Not so much a recent history of the neighborhood as it is a dreadfully organized memoir about the friends and acquaintances of probably one of the least self-aware writers of all time. Robert Anasi seems to think he's some kind of modern, hard knocks Lou Reed, and everyone else on the planet is a suburban poseur (nevermind that he went to Sarah Lawrence College). There are some interesting details on elements of 90s-era Williamsburg that helped contribute to the neighborhood's reputation (Kokie's, the performances at the Gargoyle bar), but the book would have been significantly more interesting if it focused more on this historical-cultural aspect. Seriously, this author is the guy from your art/writing/film class who grudgingly kept to himself, insisting he was more talented than his peers and no one understood, but whose work was just shit. It's a quick read and does give a decent look into the recent past, I'm just not sure I'll ever be able to read anything by this guy again.
May 5, 2015
it makes me sad that this earned someone a phd
August 28, 2017
Another book that I bought on my last trip to The Strand, this memoir of sorts charted Anasi's life in Williamsburg from the eighties until he left in 2008, describing the scuzzy neighbourhood's initially very slow, but then accelerated gentrification, which left he and the characters and businesses from the area somewhat redundant. Right up my street.
August 26, 2012
A decent read for a former neighborhood resident. Not sure if it will appeal to others. Found it to be well-written, but meandering in its account and inconsistent in its chronology. Enjoyed the waterfront section and the historical forays—wished there was more content that would immerse itself in the legacy that is this beguiling corner of North Brooklyn. Importantly, I agree with Anasi's assessment of Williamsburg being the "last bohemia". Well, at least in the greater metropolitan area of this East Coast tri-state region. Perhaps it is our middle-aged entitlement, but the time for any urban setting to experience a truly, organically emerging creative enclave and to develop its corresponding and accessible cultural scene has, sadly, expired. This concept was a 20th century phenomenon. The paradigm is saturated and exhausted. The co-optation and marketing of the model is not, however, and it is currently in a fever pitch of manufacture and consumption.
A new generation must not repeat the formula, but should reinvent it whole cloth. It is more than likely occurring now. What will replace "bohemia" is not, thankfully, on the radar yet. Just as Williamsburg wasn't for many decades.
A new generation must not repeat the formula, but should reinvent it whole cloth. It is more than likely occurring now. What will replace "bohemia" is not, thankfully, on the radar yet. Just as Williamsburg wasn't for many decades.
September 23, 2015
p.199 - "Every rock band has a fascist soul, a fascist who wants you to lick his boots as he crushes you and sixty thousand other worshippers in an outdoor stadium. Fascism explains why every hit song is an anthem - exhultation comes from spectacle and volume, a Nuremburg rally with the ideology extracted so it can sell."
November 10, 2012
Interesting, but also a littly whiny and self-serving. "The hipsters ruined the neighborhood for all the heroin addicts". Boo hoo.
September 15, 2014
It’s impossible for me to be objective about a neighborhood I’ve called home for fifteen years, and I recognize some of the characters and most of the locations in Anasi’s book. But if anything, my lack of objectivity makes me a harsher critic of any examination of Williamsburg—and The Last Bohemia is a blistering achievement, at once an oral history and a moving, personal narrative.
These collected personal stories sing, not of “hipsters” as a group but of specific people, misfits—both New York natives and transplants—who forged their own community. Anasi plays anthropologist as well as part-time protagonist, and writes with a hedonistic love of language that most fiction writers would envy.
Anasi skillfully raises the dead, recreating a scene of scavenged lives, heroin habits, and a DIY entertainment ethic that planted the seeds for the North Brooklyn hipster scene including the modern movements of mixology, burlesque, and artisanal everything. That this bohemia exploded into a boomtown landgrab is described without undue bitterness.
Anasi’s personal adventurousness as an explorer is inspiring. Anyone who was here before 2005 crawled through the hole in the fence at the waterfront to look at the view amongst burnt-out cars, but Anasi went far further—and far later in time—proving that the urban jungle offers treasures for the bold.
If we have lost something—and we most certainly have—Anasi has graced it in elegy, and he’s given us hope that further treasures await if we’re only willing to look.
These collected personal stories sing, not of “hipsters” as a group but of specific people, misfits—both New York natives and transplants—who forged their own community. Anasi plays anthropologist as well as part-time protagonist, and writes with a hedonistic love of language that most fiction writers would envy.
Anasi skillfully raises the dead, recreating a scene of scavenged lives, heroin habits, and a DIY entertainment ethic that planted the seeds for the North Brooklyn hipster scene including the modern movements of mixology, burlesque, and artisanal everything. That this bohemia exploded into a boomtown landgrab is described without undue bitterness.
Anasi’s personal adventurousness as an explorer is inspiring. Anyone who was here before 2005 crawled through the hole in the fence at the waterfront to look at the view amongst burnt-out cars, but Anasi went far further—and far later in time—proving that the urban jungle offers treasures for the bold.
If we have lost something—and we most certainly have—Anasi has graced it in elegy, and he’s given us hope that further treasures await if we’re only willing to look.
November 16, 2013
I honestly do not understand how this book receives a plurality vote of 3 stars. While there are some interesting points made by this book, the writing style is garbage. Page six has an egregious mistake: the author cites Kent Avenue as Kent Street. On page 219, the author incorrectly says there is an Urban Outfitters on N. 6th street. It's an American Apparel, not Urban Outfitters (but that store is soon to open in the area anyway). My point is that there are glaring mistakes the author makes. Memory is fickle. I seriously question how much the author remembers from his "fun times" in Williamsburg. I found the authors gross stereotypes unfair. The author makes serious attempts to make the narrative dramatic, much like James Frey. Most of the book is filled with unnecessary information. I am appalled that this writing was part of a graduate school project. F!
September 12, 2012
A breathless recounting of the twenty year development of a now trendy and affluent New York City neighborhood from desolate and dangerous to safely trendy. The author tries hard to brag about how dangerous his life was in the "bad/good old days" but does not do it in a literarily compelling fashion. There are a very few exceptions, and these are welcome. A highly journalistic approach but a memoiristic book is the wrong place for that approach.
September 8, 2012
I was hoping that this would be a fun, nostalgic portrait of my old neighborhood. Unfortunately it is so poorly written that you can barely get through it and I don't think he captured the feel of the place at all.
September 17, 2012
While I enjoyed many details in this "hipster" history of Williamsburg, it lacks any real personal connection or point of view. He's kind of whiny about the 'hood has changed but he doesn't really go on a journey himself. Read it for some fun details about 80s, 90s brooklyn.
January 25, 2013
This book made me kind of hate the author. Not as interesting as I'd hoped. Hated the way he described his pensive reflective meandering a though the town that left him behind. Waaah. I don't recommend even if you lived in the burg and want to reminisce.
November 6, 2012
Bitterly sentimental.
January 13, 2024
Enjoyed this book but the entire third chapter was so unnecessary it kinda ruined the rest of the book
January 25, 2024
There could be an interesting story in there about the impact of hyper gentrification and what is lost in that process, but this dude sucks. There was so much sexism and misogyny that was completely irrelevant to the thesis of the book. Congrats for having sex, I guess????? Also, him admitting to seeing nudes of a 14 year old is certainly a choice. I am glad I will never read another description of a woman written by this man ever again.
September 3, 2012
One young artist's experiences in Brooklyn as Williamsburg went from the dangerous, rundown low-rent bohemian enclave of the early 1990s to today's hipster paradise. Beautifully written - Anasi is saddened by the transition but resists sentimentality. The story told here could apply to other urban neighborhoods in different times & places.
May 19, 2014
More memoir than study of the transformation of williamsburg, although what much is there to say. It's got a new york edge to it at times i guess you could say and/or a certain null and dullness. West coast is the best coast in my opinion, new york is the dead end home of capital and prestige.
September 7, 2018
I was hoping for a good history of Williamsburg, but this book is more like a sad memoir, and very little happens. I suggest you try to read Robert Anasi's ex girlfriend Joanna Rakoff, who also wrote two books about this same time.
March 8, 2013
The author talks about the waterfront a lot, and those parts I don't get much out of. But I liked the parts about making out with girls.
November 9, 2020
Boring, lazily written, poorly edited
September 14, 2022
I picked up this book because a family member lived in Williamsburg and now in Greenpoint. I thought I'd get a little flavor of the neighborhood and its history. There is some of that, and its subsequent gentrification. But, before reading this book, I had no idea that the boho lifestyle was so counter-culture. Living in former warehouses spaces, spending days writing at a café while nursing a single coffee, mingling with fringe culture, heavy drugs and alcohol, disrespect for laws, etc. It just didn't seem like a productive life to me; very ego-centric, even parasitic. As far as I'm concerned, despite getting this book published as a product of his Ph.D., I agree that Anasi is a loser. I didn't say it -- he did. As the author wrote on p. 221 of my paperback edition: ''Winston Churchill gets credit for the phrase 'History is written by the victors.' I have to disagree. Plenty of losers write history -- this book, for instance -- but the winners build it.''
January 16, 2021
I've been reading a lot of NYC memoirs, and this one adds valuable perspectives on the steroidally developed briefly bohemian district. It was a very special place, full of lumpens and artists. Anasi tells about the places they mixed. This book has had some diss reviews, but I enjoyed it.
May 25, 2021
Should have read the reviews. Could have been an interesting topic, but just annoying....skimmed parts Bc it meandered so much.
June 7, 2023
Sometimes fluffy sometimes sweet nostalgia, overall I enjoyed it
September 6, 2012
I was intrigued by the premise of this book and just wish a different writer had taken on the topic. I found this book hard to follow and generally uninteresting, with the exception of a few segments. Maybe you "had to be there" to appreciate the random anecdotes. Or maybe the book could have been more written in a more engaging manner to those of us who were not in the heart of Williamsburg back in the pre-gentrification glory days.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews