Plus, this church occupied the oldest storefront in our corner of Williamsburg, and the aging churchgoers in their faded down jackets sipping coffee and speaking Spanish felt really authentic. That meant a lot after the bad experiences I’d had with fake upscale stuff. I won’t get too into it, but not far from our previous apartment was a holistic veterinary clinic. They called themselves “alternative,” but ask them if they could save a sack of oysters you bought from a raw bar and they sounded an awful lot like the vets at “regular” clinics. At any rate, I didn’t know exactly how I’d make my presence known to the churchgoers. But I was certain that somehow I would make an impact on their simple, poetic, passionate lives of quiet, soulful endurance.
Here’s another excellent piece by former Daily Show/Colbert Report writer Allison Silverman taking on the denizens of Williamsburg in this week’s New Yorker.