by Kim M 
In the fast-paced shell game of who is making money off of Greenpoint’s real estate scene, carpenters are getting no love these days. The Brooklyn Woodworkers Co-op–a Greenpoint carpenter collective– who has been sawing, slicing and molding wood for the last 30 years inside the Pencil Factory is now on the chopping block after being presented with, you guessed it, an insane rent increase.
Philippe Prelati, owner…
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Duane Reade and Starbucks have been around long before high rents started transforming the city, and scapegoating them skirts the real culprits. It’s precisely the hip and innocuous-seeming bars and coffee shops the article mentions, that charge $12 for a cocktail or $5 for a latte, which by unselfconsciously patronizing, we support the very gentrification we decry.
I used to blow glass in Williamsburg, but now I write software because life sucks.