Williamsburg authenticity experience now priced at $34 entry fee, former longtime residents charged extra for ‘historical context package’
Bohiney Magazine | The London Prat
WILLIAMSBURG, BROOKLYN — The gentrification of Williamsburg, Brooklyn has completed what urban historians are calling its “full ironic cycle” after a heritage experience center documenting the neighborhood’s pre-gentrification history opened this month in a converted warehouse charging $34 admission, a price point that excludes the majority of residents who lived in the neighborhood during the period the center documents, making it the first cultural institution in the city’s history to charge the people whose culture it preserves more than they can afford to visit the preservation of their culture.
The Experience Center
The Williamsburg Heritage Experience, housed in a 12,000-square-foot former matzoh factory on Kent Avenue that was converted to loft apartments in 2009 and reconverted to a cultural venue in 2023 at a cost the developers describe as “significant,” offers visitors a guided journey through four decades of Williamsburg neighborhood history beginning in the 1970s, when the area was primarily home to working-class Puerto Rican and Dominican families, through the artist arrival period of the 1990s, the boutique hotel and artisanal cocktail bar phase of the 2000s, and what the center describes as “the current era of dynamic urban maturity.”
The $34 general admission price does not include the “Historical Context Package,” offered for an additional $18, which provides a thirty-minute guided tour led by a resident historian who will “share personal memories and lived experiences of the neighborhood across multiple decades,” a service that multiple original residents noted they could provide for free if anyone asked them, which no one from the experience center had done.
“I lived on Bedford Avenue for thirty-one years,” said retired sanitation worker Miguel Santos-Cruz, 68, speaking from the apartment in Bushwick to which he relocated in 2011 after his rent was tripled. “I did not know I needed to pay thirty-four dollars to learn about having lived there. I thought I had already done that. Apparently I had done it wrong.”
The Economics of Preservation
The Williamsburg Heritage Experience is a for-profit enterprise, funded by a real estate development group that also owns three residential buildings in the immediate vicinity of the center, a fact disclosed on page nine of the center’s press materials and not mentioned in its promotional materials, which describe the center as “a community-centered initiative honoring the diverse human tapestry of one of Brooklyn’s most storied neighborhoods.”
Urban studies researcher Dr. Carmen Delgado-Morrison of Pratt Institute described the center as “a landmark example of what I call fourth-stage gentrification, in which the displacement of a community is followed by the commodification of that community’s history as a cultural product sold primarily to the people who benefited economically from the displacement, at a price point the displaced community cannot access.”
“It is,” she added, “almost perfectly structured. The original residents provide the history. The gentrification process removes them. The cultural center monetizes their history. The price of admission prevents their return. It is an economic closed loop with no exit for the people at the center of it.”
The The City NYC reported that the development group that funded the Heritage Experience received a $2.4 million cultural venue tax credit from the city for the project, meaning that New York City taxpayers, including the displaced residents of Williamsburg now living in Bushwick, Sunset Park, and East New York, subsidized the construction of a heritage experience they cannot afford to attend.
The Center Responds
Heritage Experience Director Amanda Whitworth-Chen said the center was “deeply committed to community access” and pointed to a “Community Thursdays” program offering discounted $18 admission on the first Thursday of each month, a reduction Santos-Cruz described as “generous but still eighteen dollars more than what I paid to live the actual history.”
Whitworth-Chen said the center had “reached out to community organizations” and planned to “deepen those partnerships” in the coming year. She acknowledged that the center’s historical advisors were primarily academics and curators rather than original residents, and said this was something the center was “actively working to address in a thoughtful and sustainable way.”
The center’s gift shop sells tote bags printed with a map of 1985 Williamsburg for $28 each. They are available online for shipping. Several original residents of the neighborhood have ordered them. It is the closest they can currently afford to get.
The Williamsburg Heritage Experience has, in the months since its opening, attracted 14,000 paying visitors, of whom approximately 83 percent came from outside New York City and 11 percent came from outside the United States. Among New York City residents, visitors from Williamsburg itself represent less than 0.5 percent of attendance, a proportion the center’s director describes as “an area of focus for our community outreach strategy.” The center has applied for an additional $1.2 million city arts grant to expand its oral history collection, for which it is seeking “authentic voices from the neighborhood’s past.” Three former longtime residents have been contacted. Two did not respond. One responded and asked if the position was paid. The center said it was exploring a “community partnership model” for the oral history program. The former resident said she would need to think about it. She is still thinking.
Documenting the irony at The London Prat and Bohiney Magazine.
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