Ironic Jane Jacobs

Williamsburg hipsters fighting the City Planning Department to preserve the neighborhood’s distinctive character:

Ms. [Eve] Sibley, a 28-year-old painter and bartender, and Ms. [Siri] Wilson, a 31-year-old clothing designer, had been blissfully enmeshed in their vibrant Williamsburg scene of parties, music and art. They assumed that their neighborhood – historically ethnic and currently extremely trendy – would change in ways that generally preserved its polyglot character.

Then something gave them pause. Last fall, they began seeing fliers posted around the neighborhood warning that the waterfront development would threaten the area’s economic mix. In December, they went to a community board meeting where local residents were packed to the rafters, expressing outrage over the plan. “There were old Polish women, Puerto Ricans, Hasidic Jews,” Ms. Sibley recalled. “Everyone who’s been living here for years and makes this neighborhood interesting and diverse.”

But one group conspicuously absent, they noticed, was their own. “We say ‘hipsters,’ ” Ms. Wilson conceded, “even though the terminology makes us feel funny.”

In response, the two women took it upon themselves to act as emissaries to the hipster constituency, and to do so in true hipster fashion. Dubbing themselves the Williamsburg Warriors, they set up a Web site, www.williamsburgwarriors.org, “with the help of this hacker dude I was dating for a second,” Ms. Sibley said.

Irony abounds as life appears to imitate the Onion:

“Siri and I have been partying in this neighborhood for a long time,” Ms. Sibley said one afternoon recently as she tapped the ash from her cigarette. “We know our friends care about the community, but they didn’t know this was going on.”

Ms. Wilson added: “I tell them they’re planning 40-story towers and rezoning that would make 3-story buildings into these 12-story monstrosities. All our favorite coffee shops will become Starbucks, and our cute little North Seventh pharmacy will become Duane Reade.”

For anyone needing more convincing, the women pull up illustrated renderings of the waterfront proposal on the city’s Web site. “Look,” Ms. Wilson said, pointing aghast at one computer animated figure. “Dockers!”