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Business Insider has published a story claiming that hipsters used to be pretty much confined only to the Lower East Side and Williamsburg, but have completely taken over the city in the past five years, based on maps published by Yelp. The maps show the increasing use of the word “hipster” in reviews of restaurants and other businesses on Yelp.

In 2013, “due to pricey rents in Williamsburg people began moving even further into areas around Brooklyn,” said the story. “Places such as Bushwick, Bed Stuy, Crown Heights, Cobble Hill, Boerum Hill, and Park Slope began seeing a lot of heat.”

Being old enough to remember, we disagree. The hipster push into Crown Heights, certain parts of Bed Stuy and East New York is relatively recent (not that East New York shows up on the map). But “hipsters” have been all over the rest of brownstone Brooklyn for years — Cobble Hill, Boerum Hill, Carroll Gardens, Prospect Lefferts Gardens, Ditmas Park, Park Slope, Prospect Heights, Clinton Hill, Fort Greene, northern Bed Stuy, etc. You could argue they’ve been here for decades, going back to the first brownstoners, artists and others who rehabbed former SROs and other spaces in neighborhoods such as Boerum Hill and Fort Greene in the 1960s and ’70s. Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe lived in Clinton Hill back then. What about Walt Whitman, Henry Miller, Truman Capote and Carson McCullers in Brooklyn Heights even earlier?

Or maybe this map just reflects the increasing mainstream use of the word “hipster,” which now seems to denote anyone age 25 to 35 who does not work in finance or medicine. Or, most likely, just that there are more hipster businesses opening in these areas than there used to be. What do you think?

These Maps Show How Much Hipsters Have Taken Over in the Last Five Years [Biz Insider]


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