An oat flat white first thing in the morning. A seat in the sun outside with an eye on the Freedom Tour and an ear on the machines that are drilling in the pavement nearby.
Dogs coming in and out with their people in tow.
Others join me on the bench outside, leafing over books, fawning over coffees, discussing the world and sweet nothings in the language of “Succession”. Meaning travels in onomatopoeic words in Williamsburg, it is inferred, we don’t go into depth and somehow, we know what we mean.
“I’m obsessed”, says the guy running into the boyfriend and the girlfriend couple when he finds out that they’ve just moved to the area, and he can’t quite believe it. He does not need to say what he’s obsessed about; we infer it from the body language, from his sense of style, from the sun around. He’s obsessed the guys are going to be around, part of the lifestyle and the Burg microcosm, who knows how much of a close friendship they have on a day-to-day basis, that is so not the point.
Williamsburg is where world problems go to die a gentrified death. I assume they have to, among rents that have trebled over the past decade, barista coffee spots and doggy day care centres where your four-legged friends live a better life than a sizeable percentage of the world’s population.
A ride on the L train into the city, a very long walk down the avenues, a return to Brooklyn and sunny Williamsburg, where pavements look ever so cool in the summer shade.
Irina Gheorghe 
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