This Craigslist Post for 285 Kent Is Really Depressing
Do you have an extra $8,000 a month lying around? If so, you could be the proud lease-holder on a recently closed, well-loved DIY music venue! Yaayyyyy. Ugh.
Maybe it’s just because we’re just feeling extra-sentimental today for reasons we can’t entirely explain, but whatever the case, when we saw this Craigslist post tweeted just now, we felt actual pangs of nostalgia. Pangs! And pangs are the worst. We thought that the thorough and extensive coverage surrounding the final shows and closing of 285 Kent would mean that we could achieve closure and move on, but in all the eulogizing of the DIY venue, we don’t remember anyone wondering how it would eventually be described in a Craigslist post.
Which, the text in a Craigslist post is a kind of a tribute in and of itself, isn’t it, because of how the words are charged with a positivity that is so specific to, well, selling something. So maybe it makes sense that it’s kind of emotional to read about the “huge dramatic 4,000 square foot space” that has 22+ foot ceilings and how “it’s a very industrially photogenic room” which is “perfect for any kind of commercial use, pop-up store, architect’s studio, a photographer’s studio, etc.” Aahh…we already knew it was perfect. That was the whole point. And now it’s gone. What does “perfect” even mean anyway? We guess it turns out that perfect means unaffordable. We should have known. Perfection. It’s a bitch. It’s a bitch that could be had for eight grand a month, which puts it pretty much permanently out of reach of anyone except architects or pop-up shop poppers (we think that’s what they’re called?). We hope that whoever rents the space does something interesting with it, we really do. But then, who are we kidding? It’s waterfront Williamsburg in 2014. It’s probably going to be another Liquiteria.
Follow Kristin Iversen on twitter @kmiversen