Say Farewell to Gentrified Williamsburg at this RIP Dance Party
(Photo: CHERYL)
Everyone loves a great funeral, and never one to be defeated at throwing great parties, Glasslands is hosting a memorial bash with the help of art collective CHERYL. “A Nail in the Coffin” happens on Saturday, December 6th, just weeks before the final show at one of the last remaining waterfront DIY venues. The fete is billed as not just a farewell for the venue, but a “dance party funeral for the neighborhood of Williamsburg,” i.e. gentrified Williamsburg, which will soon expire and subsequently return from the dead as post-gentrification Williamsburg, or a corpse dressed in a gingham boyfriend shirt that can survive solely on expensive coffee and whatever type of offal is trending that day.
CHERYL is encouraging party goers to wear costumes—suggestions include trappings of gentrification like “Asian Tapas” and “Whole Foods Suttee.” The collective is also requesting that guests send in their photos and memories of the neighborhood to ensure humiliation when partygoers’ distorted, cat-eyed visages are projected above them on the dance floor.
DNA info spoke with CHERYL’s co-founder, Nick Schiarizzi, about the morbid affair. Predictably, Schiarizzi is not exactly happy about the changing landscape of the neighborhood, where landlords are kicking out not just Glasslands, but legendary DIY space Death By Audio, reportedly to make way for an additional south Williamsburg campus for mega-media entity Vice. Those who originally displaced the existing community are invited to attend, but only if they haven’t already left for Bushwick.
